The 100 Greatest Moments In Television: 1950s

It’s called the persistence of vision — the physical principle that makes television possible. An image projected onto a human eye will remain briefly visible after its disappearance. Thus, a cathode-ray tube actually paints 30 distinct images onto our retinas in one second, but due to the persistence of vision, we think we see continuous motion. The flow is inexorable: Each moment replaces the one before it and then cedes its place to the one that follows.

Such is the dynamic of TV history as well. Moments come and go, blurring into the seamless whole of our viewing experience. But in our mind’s eye, if not our physical one, some shine brighter than others. What follows are 100 of those moments. Some of them forever influenced or changed the medium. Some drew us together as a nation. Some were simply cool enough — or strange enough — that they remain tattooed on the backs of our eyelids. Mary Tyler Moore tosses her hat in the air; the 1980 U.S. hockey team toss their sticks into the crowd. Neil Armstrong walks on the moon; Michael Jackson moonwalks. JFK is shot in Dallas; J.R. is shot on Dallas.

People will argue about our choices. (What! No Milton Berle! No Oscar streaker!) Some will take issue with our rankings. For example, the last pair mentioned above rank in the top three. The juxtaposition of a national tragedy and a Hollywood melodrama might seem senselessly flip to some, but isn’t that the legacy of the medium? For better or worse, television flattens experience, all experience, regardless of context. Kennedy’s death and funeral transfixed a nation and forever changed the way we regard TV. The same can be said of Dallas. If there are moral distinctions to be made, they are left to the viewer. As a medium, television has only one message: Watch.

So turn your gaze to our 100 greatest moments. Much like TV itself, they were chosen to provoke, to entertain, to remind, and to engage. Simply put, these are the visions that persist. — Albert Kim

1950’s
You think you spend too much time with your TV? Philo Farnsworth — the Beaver, Utah, farm boy who had a workable idea for ”a way of sending pictures through the air” by the time he was 16 — told his undoubtedly baffled bride on their wedding night, ”You know, there’s another woman in my life. Her name is television.” Think about it: It was only the mid-1920s, yet already the notion of television as mistress was alive in an American imagination besides that of Aaron Spelling.

By 1931, the Radio Corp. of America (RCA) had reached a deal involving Farnsworth’s patents for television technology (no fool, our Philo — he demanded and got royalties, and the RCA lawyer was said to have cried when the contract was signed). Soon RCA, which would give birth to NBC, had rivals in the General Electric and DuMont companies, all racing to get shows — and this was a new, odd-sounding phrase back then — ”on the air.”

In 1931, William Paley, founder of what would become CBS, filed with the FCC to set up his first TV station, in Manhattan; it would feature, said its station director, ”boxing bouts, wrestling, football games, art exhibitions, classic dancing, palmistry, and news.” Substitute sitcoms and dramas for art exhibitions, the Psychic Hotline for palmistry, and American Bandstand and MTV for classic dancing, and you could say that the essentials of television were already established. The American Broadcasting Co. (ABC) came along in 1943, and the three-way competition that was to dominate network television for the next five decades was in place.

For all the changes in society over the course of this century, the purpose of television — a profit-driven medium constantly yielding edifying news and entertainment almost in spite of itself — has remained remarkably consistent: to reach as many people as possible with the most democratic programming conceivable. Television unites the country in times of crisis and creates stars whose fame and cultural outreach exceed that of comparable figures in the movies or pop music. (The Beatles had screaming fans when they landed in America, but they didn’t become a phenomenon until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.)

In the ’40s and ’50s, this nascent medium borrowed and thieved from every aspect of entertainment to fill its airtime and nurture its own formats. From vaudeville, movie shorts, and radio programs, TV brought forth the half-hour sitcom. (Radio superstar Fred Allen sniped with bitter wit, ”TV is a device that permits people who haven’t anything to do to watch people who can’t do anything.”) Extrapolating from the theater and film worlds, television developed the hour-long drama. The first TV newscasts were bound by the conventions of the front page of the newspaper, but a newspaper that advertised cigarettes and wristwatches right alongside the headlines — as in NBC’s nicotine-sponsored Camel News Caravan. (Ashtrayed anchor John Cameron Swayze would sign off: ”That’s the story, folks! Glad we could get together!” Well, it beats Dan Rather’s ”Courage!”).

Sylvester ”Pat�� Weaver (now known mostly as Sigourney’s dad but historically as the NBC programming president who invented early-morning TV with the Today show, nighttime television with Tonight, and the concept of prime time, with its rhythm of sitcoms at 8 p.m. followed by dramas until 11) once summed up TV’s early idealism: ”Entertainment was used to get the people to watch the medium…but the end result would be that we would inform them, enrich them, enlighten them, to liberate them from tribal primitive belief patterns.” It’s safe to say Weaver never anticipated either the World Wrestling Federation or South Park.

Like its programming, the first wave of TV stars came from other media: movie siren Lucille Ball; radio giants Bob Hope and Jack Benny; newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan; vaudeville stars Milton Berle, Red Skelton, and Ed Wynn. Everyone experimented at adapting their styles; some succeeded (Ball remade herself, from bombshell to daffy housewife in I Love Lucy), while others flopped (the recent HBO biopic Winchell showed how the famed gossip columnist’s rat-a-tat style, so effective on radio, looked ridiculous on TV). I’d argue that the first true TV star, the first notable talent to use television to do things you couldn’t do in any other medium, was Ernie Kovacs. Beginning in 1951, Kovacs brought cigar-chomping surrealism to the small screen, monkeying constantly, brilliantly, with special-effects sight gags. Tired of being called ”avant-garde” — which even then really meant ”good reviews, low ratings” — Kovacs once wryly remarked, ”I’m 10 5/8 years ahead of my time.”

From the start, Philo Farnsworth’s baby was a demanding mistress. Creativity and innovation were nice, but first and foremost you needed stuff: programming to fill the airwaves, hour after hour, day after day — material to justify the increasing hordes of advertisers who were beginning to turn TV into a glowing cash cow. Thus game shows, soap operas, newscasts, sitcoms, dramas, sportscasts, commercials, and Walt Disney (the Wal-Mart of TV entertainment). The ’50s was the time when all the conventions of television programming we now take for granted were hammered out, through trial and error, to achieve the formats and genres that yielded a rich, raucous, rancorous, and — we should never forget — revolutionary medium.

GORGEOUS GEORGE STEPS INTO THE TV RING
Nov. 11, 1947
Who knew a bottle of peroxide and a trunk full of attitude would change pro wrestling — and TV — history? When the former George Wagner transformed himself into the girly-man fans loved to hate (he walked a path of rose petals to the ring), “he became,” says Mike Tenay, cohost of TNT’s WCW Monday Nitro, ”the sport’s first crossover personality.” By the late ’40s, wrestling (one of the few spectator sports unsophisticated cameras could successfully capture) was often a nightly TV event, and flamboyant George was like programming manna from heaven. His most successful imitator was 37 years coming: In 1984, Hulk Hogan won the championship — propelling this ”sports entertainment” into another golden age. Rank 45

CANDID CAMERA DEBUTS
Aug. 10, 1948
Before there was Linda Tripp, there was a much kinder (if still pudgy) secret taper by the name of Allen Funt. The first Camera — actually called Candid Microphone, a holdover from the original radio show — featured Funt as a waiter who insisted his restaurant served but one dish: liver. Not as memorable as the talking mailbox or the motorless car, but cute. And it still is. ”We’re not out to make people look bad,” swears son Peter Funt, who hosts the current CBS version. ”Even though there are moments of mild embarrassment, the goal is to show how wonderful people are.” Maybe so, but Camera‘s success spawned an entire genre of low-budget reality TV that puts humanity in a decidedly freakish light. Witness the wacky body contortionists of America’s Funniest Home Videos and the eyeball-bulging antics of Guinness World Records: Primetime. Rank 48

RICHARD NIXON’S ”CHECKERS” SPEECH
Sept. 23, 1952
During the 1952 presidential race, the scandal-plagued VP nominee went on air to deny allegations that he misused political contributions from wealthy California execs. After an exhaustive defense of his financial dealings, Nixon did admit to accepting one personal donation, for his children, a cocker spaniel named Checkers — a gift he insisted he had no intention of returning. With its mixture of defiance and humility, the broadcast reduced viewers to tears and arguably salvaged Nixon’s political career. Yet, ironically, the medium that saved him that night would later go a long way toward ending it. Other than his boffo 1968 ”Sock it to me” cameo on Laugh-In (in which his awkwardness worked for him), Nixon’s on-screen demeanor generally trumped his message, most tellingly in his 1960 presidential debate with John F. Kennedy. Radio listeners believed he’d beaten Kennedy; TV viewers saw it as a Kennedy rout. ”His dark and perplexing persona did not translate well into this modern medium,” says newsman Bill Moyers, who believes Nixon’s notorious 1973 ”I am not a crook” Watergate speech might have been more effective in a preelectronic age. ”Seeing his facial expressions reveal the opposite of what he was saying further alienated [the public].” The saga of Nixon, America’s last not-ready-for-prime-time President, served as a cautionary tale for future Commanders-in-Chief — on the crucial importance of respecting the tube’s power and knowing how to manipulate it. Need proof? Tricky Dick, meet Slick Willy. Rank 29

J. FRED MUGGS JOINS TODAY
January 1953
Believe it or not, the Today show once hired someone even goofier than Willard Scott. We speak of J. Fred Muggs, the mischievous diaper-wearing chimp. NBC’s year-old morning show was in a ratings slumber when creator Pat Weaver decided to add Muggs, much to the chagrin of no-nonsense human host Dave Garroway. The furry fellow played the piano, did acrobatics, and conducted interviews with heads of state (okay, we made that up). But he surely did boost ratings and helped further blur the line between news and entertainment, conversation and sound bite — literally: The sometimes vicious simian once took a nip out of Martha Raye. Then again, as current exec producer Jeff Zucker jokes, ”He wasn’t the last temperamental Today show host.” Rank 34

SUPERMAN DEBUTS
Feb. 9, 1953
The pilot retold the DC Comics origin of Superman, in black and white with cardboard-looking spaceships, following baby Supes to manhood. George Reeves — whose Clark Kent was the biggest man ever to wear little horn-rims — played it straight, inspiring a generation of kids to run around the backyard with bath-towel capes. Mike Carlin, executive editor of DC Comics, says the syndicated show was crucial to the character’s popularity: ”It’s not exaggerating to say it kept the comic book alive for the next 20 years. I also always liked that Reeves played Clark as ‘mild-mannered,’ but not as a milksop.” Rank 85

I LOVE LUCY: ”LUCY GOES TO THE HOSPITAL”
Jan. 19, 1953
”One day, Desi asked to speak to me alone,” I Love Lucy producer Jess Oppenheimer recalls. ”I could see that whatever the news, it could only be bad.” Lucy was pregnant, said Desi, and he was worried that her condition — implying, as it did, that the couple had had sex — might offend fans of the show and force it off the air. Oppenheimer, instead, was thrilled and fully prepared to exploit this Great Moment in Public Relations History (after all, a pregnant actress had never played a pregnant woman on TV). Mrs. Ricardo’s baby was born the same day Mrs. Arnaz delivered hers by cesarean section, and the payoff was huge: 44 million viewers tuned in (versus the 29 million who watched Eisenhower’s inauguration the next day). Little Ricky’s birth was a groundbreaker, not only in paving the way for a legion of Very Special Episodes, but in allowing the first hint of sex to slip onto the air. Rank 5

GOODYEAR TV PLAYHOUSE
MARTY
May 24, 1953
The teleplay that gave ”kitchen sink” realism its name, Marty was Paddy Chayefsky’s tale of a shy butcher (Rod Steiger) who meets a similarly plain girl (Nancy Marchand). The script was made into an Oscar-winning film, but its significance for TV was in proving — both to viewers and serious actors — that the medium was as capable as any other of producing powerful drama. ”It was such a wonderful script,” says Marchand, ”I didn’t have time to get nervous about performing before more people than had ever seen me in theater.” Rank 69

SEE IT NOW: EDWARD R. MURROW SKEWERS SENATOR MCCARTHY
March 9, 1954
It was no small thing for a program to take on a politician who had bullied presidents, or for Murrow to advocate against a man who had whipped a nation’s fears of communism into a kind of hysteria. But CBS received 30,000 calls and letters, almost all in favor of Murrow’s brave and matter-of-fact defense of freedom. ”A couple of nights after the broadcast, I went into Sardi’s with Murrow,” says Don Hewitt, then a studio director. ”There was a big pretheater crowd, and they all stood up and applauded. Murrow had put the first nail in McCarthy’s coffin.” See It Now (1951-58) rarely made another ripple; Murrow’s style, honed on radio, was deemed too visually boring for so mass a medium. Hewitt’s 60 Minutes was the future. Rank 17

DAVY CROCKETT DEBUTS
Dec. 15, 1954
So maybe there was no chain of Davy Crockett cafes, but his TV adventures were the prototype of the modern pop phenom. The original three-part show (on ABC’s Disneyland) spawned a hit song, a fashion statement (coonskin caps), and a host of ancillary products (generating sales of $100 million). More omnisciently, Walt Disney laid the groundwork for the synergy-mad ’90s in using his TV shows to market the rest of his empire. It’s a small capitalist world after all. Rank 55

GUNSMOKE DEBUTS
Sept. 10, 1955
”Before Gunsmoke, Westerns were like Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger — kid stuff,” recalls Dennis Weaver (quirky deputy Chester Goode). ”This was the first adult Western emphasizing character and grown-up themes.” CBS’ Kansas-set morality play, starring James Arness’ tough-as-rawhide Marshal Matt Dillon, kicked off a veritable Western revolution; by the late ’50s, there were more than 30 TV horse operas — including Gunsmoke‘s only real competitor, Bonanza — before the genre was spun into the final frontier (with Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek). Armed with transcendent black-hat-white-hat themes and the longest flirtation in history (Dillon and Miss Kitty, who never did get together), Gunsmoke stuck longer than any series, spending 13 of 20 seasons in the top 10. No. 1 with a bullet, indeed. Rank 47

THE HONEYMOONERS
”TV or Not TV”
Oct. 1, 1955 Jackie Gleason
How presciently pre-postmodern: Alice moans, ”I’d give anything if Ralph would get me a set.” Instead, Jackie Gleason’s Ralph borrows Ed’s. Art Carney hits a comic high hunkering down in front of his set to watch Captain Video (a real show — how presciently self-reflexive!). Including a great variation on Gleason’s trademark line (Ralph: ”Do you wanna go to the moon?” Alice: ”It’d be an improvement”), this episode encapsulates everything great about the CBS show — TV’s finest working-class sitcom until Roseanne. Rank 27

PERRY MASON DEBUTS: ”THE CASE OF THE RESTLESS REDHEAD”
Sept. 21, 1957
He won every case but one, yet the near infallibility of CBS’ Perry Mason — played with bullheaded gravitas by Raymond Burr — endeared him to, rather than alienated him from, his audience. No subsequent lawyer show could get away with Mason’s courtroom perfect record: From The Defenders to L.A. Law to The Practice, the bar (and times) became progressively more ethically challenged. ”We tried to do an anti-Mason with L.A. Law,” recalls producer Steven Bochco, ”but that doesn’t mean we didn’t respect the hell out of its storytelling, its use of courtroom suspense, and Raymond Burr’s tremendously authoritative performance.” Rank 38

THE NFL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
Dec. 28, 1958
Forty years ago, on a third-and-goal from the one yard line, Baltimore Colt fullback Alan Ameche plowed into the end zone to score the winning touchdown in overtime against the New York Giants in a heart-stopping NFL championship game. Which is why those who watched it on NBC that day hailed it as ”the greatest game ever played”; which is why even though title games had been televised since 1951, this was the contest that sealed the union between the NFL and TV; which is why Colts Hall of Fame defensive tackle Art Donovan now says: ”We were at the right place at the right time. Baseball was around, but people were tired of watching guys tightening their gloves and scratching their asses every time they swung. TV was ready for football.” It’s also why about a billion viewers worldwide spent 1999’s Super Bowl Sunday watching Cher sing the national anthem and $1.6 million 30-second commercials, making the event the most lucrative programming in the history of the medium. Any questions? Rank 14

THE TWILIGHT ZONE DEBUTS
Oct. 2, 1959
Ratings were middling. Sponsors were scarce. No surprise, really: Zone creator Rod Serling told stories that were ironic, disturbing, anything but conventional. He did, however, inspire a generation of TV writers with his refusal to dumb down. ”What I most admire,” says X-Files exec producer Frank Spotnitz, “is how fearless Serling and his writers were. They never pandered and were never afraid to be as smart as they could be.” Rank 81

THE QUIZ SHOW SCANDAL
Nov. 2, 1959
It was the lowest point in the history of television (and that includes the debut of Studs). Charles Van Doren, an aristocratic egghead who became TV’s first instant celebrity as a champion on NBC’s quiz show Twenty-One, fessed up to the House of Representatives: Game shows were a sham. Fixed. Rigged. His admission had immediate repercussions: Reputations were destroyed; most quiz shows were yanked off the air (rarely to appear in prime time again); and industry-wide reforms took hold (the scandal not only ended advertiser control of show content — a holdover from radio days — it prompted the formal division between news and entertainment). The whole mess started thanks to whistle-blowing contestant Herb Stempel, who now boasts that ”lawyers call the regulatory stuff Stempel Laws — like no canned laughter unless you let people know it. I am proud of that.” Some have argued the scandal also had a more insidious ripple — a growing national mistrust that foreshadowed Watergate and Vietnam. Rank 21

No. 1 Shows
1951 TEXACO STAR THEATRE*
1952 ARTHUR GODFREY’S TALENT SCOUTS
1953 I LOVE LUCY
1954 I LOVE LUCY
1955 I LOVE LUCY
1956 $64,000 QUESTION
1957 I LOVE LUCY
1958 GUNSMOKE
1959 GUNSMOKE

*Seasons began the previous year