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Nostalgic
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Curious
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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: January 26, 1958
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: It’s difficult to imagine too many people whose TV careers have been as accomplished and groundbreaking as Ellen Degeneres. Due respect to Finding Dory and … uh, Mr. Wrong, Ellen was a creature of TV from the very beginning, when she made her very first TV appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in November of 1986.
You can see how green she was, and how nervous, but once she settled into that God bit, her gift for conversational, amiable absurdity came through. Ellen quickly became one of the country’s preeminent stand-ups, and in the ’90s, top stand-up comedians went in one direction: to a network sitcom built around them. But while Jerry Seinfeld and Tim Allen (among others) got shows that reflected their personas, Ellen was always a bit more scattershot and less clear about its main characters. The beauty and tragedy of Ellen‘s “Puppy Episode” was that it finally allowed Ellen the character to come into her own, only for that newfound freedom to ultimately doom the show for an American pubic that was still too closed-minded to embrace it.
She had the short-lived CBS sitcom that didn’t go anywhere, but ultimately Ellen found exactly where she should be, with the daytime talk show that has been her bread and butter for almost 15 years now. Ellen’s easy rapport with guests and her audience has been brushed off as empty niceness for moms, but her gift for genuine hilarity remains.
As if having one of the major historical moments in TV history and an incredibly long-running talk show weren’t enough, think about all the other contributions she’s made to TV, from hosting the Emmys right after 9/11 to her HBO comedy specials — Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning [stream on HBO GO] and Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now [stream on HBO GO] — which are some of the smartest, funniest, and most emotionally intelligent comedy specials you’re ever going to see.
So happy birthday, Ellen. We hope you’re mom-dancing to your heart’s content. You’ve earned it.
