Americans have been enjoying television for about 60 years, so the United States Postal Service released an “Early TV Memories” sheet of 20 stamps to commemorate some of the pioneering television shows.
The “souvenir sheet” was issued on Tuesday, August 11 in Los Angeles – but truth be told, a lot of those early shows were either filmed in, or tied to New York.
Perhaps the very first TV blockbuster debuted in 1948, with NBC’s “The Texaco Star Theater,” hosted here by Harlem born-and-bred Milton Berle.
“I Love Lucy,” starring the pride of Jamestown, New York, Lucille Ball and husband Desi Arnaz, was begun and set in New York; production was moved to Hollywood because of Ball’s pregnancy. The episode in which she “gave birth” was watched by more people than the inauguration of President Dwight Eisenhower, the next day.
TV’s first mega-star puppet, Howdy Doody, was first broadcast in Chicago, but soon moved to the NBC studios in New York. His sidekick, “Buffalo Bob” Smith, got the name from his hometown – Buffalo, New York.
Rod Serling, creator and narrative voice of “The Twilight Zone,” was another upstate New Yorker, from Binghamton. His family’s summer home on Cayuga Lake was the inspiration for the name of his production company.
Manhattanite Ed Sullivan ruled the airwaves for years from CBS Studio 50, now the Manhattan theater that bears his name and houses the “David Letterman Show.”
Sullivan’s greatest competitor – New York City born comic, composer and actor Steve Allen – also broadcast from New York before moving to Los Angeles. Allen was the first host of the “Tonight Show” in New York.
Brooklyn born Phil Silvers achieved television fame as “Sergeant Bilko” when his Army-based show, “You’ll Never Get Rich,” was filmed in Manhattan.
Arguably the most durable of the old shows, “The Honeymooners” is set almost entirely in a duplicate of producer and star Jackie Gleason’s actual childhood apartment at 328 Chauncey Street (one block from Ralph Avenue) in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The 39 “original” episodes were filmed in Manhattan.
New York has had a resurgence of film and TV work in recent years. One TV example is “Ugly Betty,” set in Queens, which has relocated production from Los Angeles back to New York.
The stamps may debut in LA, but New York gets in its licks in as a first-class “show biz” city.
