CBS / The First 50 Years

Chiu, Tony

ISBN 10: 1575440830 / ISBN 13: 9781575440835

Published by General Publishing Group, Los Angeles, 1998

About this Item

Number line complete 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 -- the first printing. Well, the first 50 years as a TELEVISION network, anyway. (CBS had been producing RADIO shows as far back as the 1930s -- Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, Orson Welles, Edward R. Murrow?) A photo smorgasbord of the Walter Cronkite-Dan Rather network, touching briefly (lots of ground to cover) on Lucille Ball, Red Skelton (who made the Beach Boys dress up in sailor suits), Jackie Gleason, Gunsmoke and Sgt. Bilko, Captain Kangaroo, Perry Mason, Rawhide and "Have Gun Will Travel" (Rhode Island cowboy Victor De Costa, who invented the phrase, as well as the image of a black-clad horseman called "Paladin," had to fight for 34 years to get the network to finally pay him a settlement -- dying at age 83 before he ever collected a dime.) Ed Sullivan (who would only show Elvis from the waist up, leading a generation of Americans to wonder if the first rock star for some reason performed without pants), Dick Van Dyke, the Twilight Zone, the Beverly Hillbillies, Dobie Gillis and Gilligan's Island. But the presence of the thoroughly juvenile Munsters can only remind us that CBS didn't have "The Addams Family." And are they really proud to have chosen "Lost in Space" (Lassie's mom in an aluminum-foil suit) over "Star Trek"? No one has a sense that things then started downhill with "Hee-Haw," "Laugh-In," and "Sonny and Cher"? We're not supposed to notice that by the time of Archie Bunker and "All in the Family" the network was firmly positioning itself well to the Left of the American political center? Was that really a good business decision? Don't look for a lot of analysis, here, though the parade of large format production stills, well reproduced, do effectively usher us down Memory Lane. 305 pp. including "Index to Photos." TV, Show Biz history. Seller Inventory # 007142

Bibliographic Details

Title: CBS / The First 50 Years

Publisher: General Publishing Group, Los Angeles

Publication Date: 1998

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

Writer Chiu captures a half-century of American popular culture in nearly 400 images from CBS's archive. The captioned photographs feature such personalities as Lucille Ball, Bob (Captain Kangaroo) Keeshan, Rod Serling, Larry Hagman, Tom Selleck, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, David Letterman, and Fran Drescher. 9.5x11". Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.