Philo T. Farnsworth & 100 Years of TV

Paul Schatzkin

5.0 (3)
History
Updated Weekly

Over 100 weeks, we're going to countdown to the Centennial of Video on Sept 7, 2027 by recounting the 100 Top Moments in the First 100 Years of Television.

6d ago

E40: TV Guide (1953): What’s on TV Tonight? | #67

TV Guide didn’t just list programs—it reshaped how America experienced television. From a pocket-sized weekly to the most widely read magazine in the country, this is the story of how viewers learned to navigate their new electronic world. On April 3, 1953, Walter Annenberg launched TV Guide as a national publication, transforming a patchwork of local listings into a unified cultural roadmap as television spread into more than half of America's homes. TV Guide also helped standardize the television “season,” fueled the rise of network programming, and turned TV into a shared national experience. By the 1960s, it had surpassed Reader’s Digest in circulation, signaling a profound shift: America was no longer a nation of readers—it was a nation of viewers. This episode explores how a simple listings magazine became one of the most powerful influences in television history—and helped define the rhythms of American life. Chapters (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: Countdown to September 7, 2021(00:01:36) - Walter Annenberg(00:08:07) - 100 Years of Television: The Top 100 Milestones

9 min
May 17

E39: Countdown #68: Spinning the Hits: American Bandstand and the Birth of Teen Culture

Starting in 1952, an after-school dance program in Philadelphia called Bandstand began to sketch the blueprint for modern youth culture in the age of television. Renamed American Bandstand, the program went national on the ABC network in 1957, hosted by the perennially youthful Dick Clark. American Bandstand didn’t just play the hits—it transformed teenagers into one of the most powerful consumer groups in American history and helped launch rock ’n’ roll into the mainstream – all while navigating the cultural fault lines of a changing nation. This episode explores the show’s complicated legacy around race and representation, how television, music, and advertising converged to reshape America—and how that legacy carried forward through shows like Soul Train. Chapters (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: The Birth of Pop(00:07:49) - American Bandstand: The Life of Soul Train

16 min
May 10

E38: Countdown #69: America's Favorite Family

America’s Favorite Family — The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952) Countdown #69 | 100 Years of Television (1927–2027) On October 3, 1952, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet premiered on ABC, introducing television audiences to the family that would define postwar suburban America for more than a decade. Originally a radio hit, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson brought their real-life family — including sons David and Ricky — to television in a format that blended domestic comedy, aspirational lifestyle, and subtle advertising appeal. With Ozzie writing, producing, and directing the series, the show reflected the emerging suburban middle class and helped shape the idealized “white picket fence” American Dream. Premiering at a time when television ownership was exploding across the United States, Ozzie and Harriet became one of the defining family sitcoms of the 1950s and early 1960s. The show’s influence extended across an entire generation of television, inspiring series such as: • Father Knows Best • Leave It to Beaver • The Donna Reed Show • My Three Sons The series also launched the music career of teen idol Ricky Nelson, creating one of television’s earliest examples of cross-media promotion between TV and popular music. Running for fourteen seasons and 435 episodes, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet remains one of the longest-running live-action sitcoms in television history and a defining portrait of postwar American culture. This episode explores how one family helped shape television — and how television, in turn, helped shape America. Chapters (00:00:00) - They all laugh at Edison(00:00:21) - The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet(00:13:37) - 100 Years of Television

15 min
May 3

E37: Television Comes to the Breakfast Table with The "Today" Show (1952) | 100 Years of Television #70

The Today Show premiered on NBC on January 14, 1952, launching the modern era of morning television. Hosted originally by Dave Garroway and developed by NBC president Pat Weaver, “Today” became one of the most influential formats in television history. This episode of Philo T. Farnsworth & 100 Years of Television continues the countdown with Milestone #70 — NBC Today (1952), exploring how the Today Show filled the last empty hours of the broadcast day and set the template for morning television for decades to come. By 1952, the television networks (NBC, CBS, and DuMont) had established beachheads across much of the broadcast day. Prime time featured prestige dramas and variety shows, while afternoons were dominated by soap operas and game shows aimed at homemakers. But mornings remained empty — until NBC introduced Today, a format designed to blend news, interviews, weather, and light features into a daily companion for American households. In this episode: • The origins of the Today Show • Pat Weaver’s vision for morning television • Dave Garroway and the first broadcast • How Today changed television forever Countdown #70 — NBC Today (1952) 100 Years of Television — 1927–2027

12 min
Apr 26

E36: Countdown #71: What's You Talkin' 'bout, Kingfish?

On the radio, audiences can't see that you're not wearing blackface. But once your popular radio show portraying disparaging stereotypes of African Americans moves to television, some adjustments will have to be made in the casting. Such was the case for Amos-n-Andy, one of the most popular shows on radio in the 1930s. The show was created by two white veterans of vaudeville, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. Gosden and Correll could get away with their act on radio without the need for the exaggerated "blackface" makeup they'd used in their live minstrel shows. But when CBS migrated the show to television in 1951, even the addition of the first all-black cast in television history was nothing enough to evade the howls of objection from organizations like the NAACP. The original Amos-n-Andy only made 65 episodes for television and was quietly canceled in 1953. It continued to run in syndication well into the 60s, but now can be found only YouTube. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - We Should Have Laughed at Edison(00:00:21) - Amos and Andy: The 100th Anniversary of Television(00:05:10) - Amos and Andy: A Controversy on TV(00:12:52) - Amos and Andy: The Legacy of Television(00:15:21) - 100 Years of Television

16 min
Apr 19

E35: Countdown #72: Lucy, You Got Some 'Splainin' To Do!

For one hundred weeks that started in October, 2025 this podcast is going to recall the “Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television and Video.” The Countdown is pegged to culminate on September 7, 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the day television was invented. ____________ In 1940, RKO Pictures released the film adaptation of a Broadway musical, Rodgers and Hart's Too Many Girls. Modestly successful at the box office, the movie might have faded into cinema history except for one minor detail: That's where Lucy met Desi. After a whirlwind romance and marriage six months later, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz formed one of the most formidable partnerships in Hollywood history. When CBS approached the couple about creating what became "I Love Lucy," Desi proposed an arrangement that not only produced one of the most successful sitcoms in television history, it also turned the industry on its ear. That arrangement lives on decades later: The dial has given away to the remote, but just a few minutes of channel surfing can still pull up an episode of I Love Lucy. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - 100 Years of Television: Countdown to the 100th Anniversary(00:01:24) - I Love Lucy(00:12:07) - I Love Lucy: The Life of Lucille Ball(00:14:29) - 100 Years of Television

16 min
Apr 12

E34: #73 – Whirlwind (1950): The Computer That Merged with TV

In 1950, MIT’s Whirlwind computer quietly changed the future of television, computing, and every screen that followed. Originally designed for U.S. Navy flight simulation, Whirlwind became the first real-time digital computer — and the first to display data on a cathode-ray tube. This milestone marks the moment when computing met video, launching the technological lineage that leads from radar displays and early computers to video games, personal computers, smartphones, and modern streaming television. But the story reaches much further back — from the Antikythera Mechanism and Pascal’s calculator to punch cards, Alan Turing’s code-breaking machines, and ENIAC — all culminating in the breakthrough at MIT that made interactive computing possible. And at the center of this turning point is an unexpected figure: Philo Farnsworth. The same CRT technology refined for television — beginning with Farnsworth’s 1927 electronic breakthrough — made graphical computing possible. Without television, the modern computer display might never have existed. From ancient calculating boards to today’s digital screens, this is the story of how television helped create the modern computer — and why every screen on Earth traces back to a chalkboard sketch in 1922. Countdown to the Centennial: The Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Video. Chapters (00:00:00) - We Should Have Laughed at Edison(00:00:21) - 100 Years of Television: Countdown to the 100th(00:01:31) - The History of Computation(00:06:03) - The CRT: Video and Computing(00:09:02) - 100 Years of Television

10 min
Apr 5

E33: Countdown #74: Money Isn't Everything...

...but it did build Disneyland. ____________ For one hundred weeks that started in October, 2025 this podcast is going to recall the “Top 100 Milestones in the First 100 Years of Television and Video.” The Countdown is pegged to culminate on September 7, 2027 – the 100th anniversary of the day television was invented. ____________ Before 1950, Walt Disney regarded television with the same suspicion as most of Hollywood colleagues: as a threat to their box office, giving away for free what people should be buying tickets for. But as his studio geared up for the release of its most expensive ever animated feature – Alice In Wonderland – Disney decided it was time to put a cautious toe in the electronic waters of television. What he discovered was less a threat than a megaphone. And when he started to focus on his biggest idea of all, he turned again to television, making a deal with ABC to finance his Disneyland theme park in exchange for a weekly television show – that he used to promote his theme park. _________ Visit: https://100YearsTV.com Read: The Boy Who Invented Television: https://amz.run/6ag1 Chapters (00:00:00) - We Should Have Laughed at Edison(00:00:21) - 100 Years of Television: The Story of Mickey Mouse(00:04:22) - Disney's Disneyland, the TV Show(00:13:04) - 100 Years of Television

14 min

Trailer

E0: Introducing Philo T. Farnsworth & 100 Years of TV

To have right idea is one thing; to have the right idea and make it work is everything. --Roger Penrose You've probably never hear of Philo T. Farnsworth. Maybe it's time you did. We take our screen-based 2st century for granted, but the long-neglected fact is that every video screen on the planet can trace its origins to a sketch that Farnsworth drew for his high school science teacher in 1922 - when he was all of 14 years old. On September 7, 1927, Farnsworth conducted the first successful experiment with an all-electronic television system based on the sketch that he'd drawn five years earlier. That nobody had come up with a similar viable idea – least of the well-financed scientists an engineers of industry who were chasing the same dream – is a testament to how far Farnsworth was "ahead of his time" (actually, Farnsworth was precisely of his time; it's just that most of his contemporaries were still stuck in the 19th century). The same year that Farnsworth conducted his first successful demonstration of electronic video, he applied for patents for his inventions. Those patents were granted in 1930, and he spent most of that decade fending off challenges to them. By the end of the decade he had compiled a portfolio of more than 100 patents, all of them essential to the new medium when it came out of hibernation after World War II. That Farnsworth's name is not more familiar is one of the great oddities of our tech-dominated culture. That oversight can be corrected by celebrating the Centennial of Television come September 7, 2027. To "countdown" to that date (and raise global awareness along the way), we'll be posting the "Top 100 Milestones from the First 100 Years of Television" here in podcast form and on the web at tvcentennial.com It's going to be fun journey and we're going to introduce a lot of other intriguing characters along the way. Won't you join us?

09/06/2025

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6 min

5

out of 5

3 Ratings

Over 100 weeks, we're going to countdown to the Centennial of Video on Sept 7, 2027 by recounting the 100 Top Moments in the First 100 Years of Television.

Creator

Paul Schatzkin
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

41
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2025
Show Website

Philo T. Farnsworth & 100 Years of TV