Pick a Day

Music History Events: TV Shows

February 10, 1958 ABC's Mickey Mouse Club begins its "Annette" serial, solidifying the rising popularity of its young star, Annette Funicello.

February 9, 1958 Ratings show that ABC's American Bandstand is now America's top-rated daytime television program, with an average of 8,400,000 viewers per day.

October 18, 1957 The second Frank Sinatra Show debuts on ABC, lasting only one season. The singer's first version of the show lasted two seasons.

October 3, 1957 ABC premieres The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom variety show, later featured in Michael Moore's documentary Roger and Me. The show features unobjectionable acts like The Four Lads, Ella Fitzgerald and Johnny Mathis; TV Guide says it's "about as exciting as a milkshake with two straws." It runs for three years and helps launch the career of Woody Allen, who is one of the writers.

May 4, 1957 Alan Freed's Rock and Roll Revue debuts on ABC; the show is an attempt to replicate the success of their own hit American Bandstand. The first show features performances from The Clovers, The Del-Vikings, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Sal Mineo, and Guy Mitchell.

February 16, 1957 The Six-Five Special, Britain's first pop music program, debuts on the BBC.

December 31, 1956 The BBC premieres its new musical variety show Cool For Cats.

September 29, 1956 The Gale Storm Show, starring the singer as a cruise ship director who makes lots of musical interludes, debuts on CBS.

September 23, 1956 Micky Dolenz of The Monkees begins his television career as a child actor with the premiere of NBC's Circus Boy series.

October 3, 1955 The Mickey Mouse Club, featuring their breakout star, 12-year-old Annette Funicello, debuts on ABC.

September 18, 1955 CBS-TV's popular variety show Toast Of The Town is renamed what many people had been calling it all along, The Ed Sullivan Show.

September 17, 1955 The Perry Como Show moves to NBC-TV, expanding from three 15-minute programs per week to one hour-long variety show on Saturday night.

September 27, 1954 The first national Tonight Show with Steve Allen is telecast.

October 7, 1952 The Philadelphia dance show Bandstand, hosted by Bob Horn and later by Dick Clark as American Bandstand, debuts on WFIL-TV.

October 3, 1952 The radio hit The Adventures Of Ozzie & Harriet, now featuring the couple's 12-year-old son Rick Nelson, debuts on CBS, where it runs for another 14 years.

July 15, 1952 Popular singer Patti Page begins her summer replacement series on CBS, attempting to hold the audience in Perry Como's usual timeslot three times a week for 15 minutes.

October 7, 1950 CBS debuts The Frank Sinatra Show, a variety program and the first TV show for the crooner. Though he has a five-year contract, the show only lasts two seasons.

December 6, 1948 The CBS television show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts debuts. Plenty of up-and-coming talents appear on the variety program, including Patsy Cline and Tony Bennett.

January 18, 1948 The Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour debuts on the Dumont network, a spinoff of Major Bowes' popular radio series. Teresa Brewer and Pat Boone, among others, are discovered via the program.

September 9, 1946 Two months after making her TV debut on the BBC's Cabaret Cartoons, 13-year-old Petula Clark begins hosting her first television series, titled Petula Clark.

January 4, 1932 NBC begins airing The Carnation Contented Hour (named for the sponsor, Carnation Milk), which features performances by top musical acts. The show runs for 19 years.

May 27, 2022 Season 4 of the Netflix series Stranger Things airs with a scene featuring the 1985 Kate Bush song "Running Up That Hill." The song starts trending and enters the Top 10 in 34 different territories, including America, where it lands at #8. Bush's previous chart peak in the US was #30 when the song was first released.

October 19, 2021 The TV series Queens, starring Brandy and Eve as members of a hip-hop group from the '90s who reunite in the '20s, debuts on ABC.

September 9, 2019 Kelly Clarkson's daytime talk show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, debuts. Every episode starts with "Kellyoke," where Clarkson sings a cover of a popular song.

May 22, 2019 ABC airs live remakes of All in the Family and The Jeffersons, two shows with iconic theme songs. Woody Harrelson and Marisa Tomei (as Archie and Edith Bunker) sing "Those Were The Days," the All in the Family theme; Jennifer Hudson does "Movin' On Up," The Jeffersons theme.More

February 27, 2019 T-Pain, costumed as a one-eyed monster, wins the first season of The Masked Singer, defeating Donny Osmond (peacock) and Gladys Knight (bee).

February 15, 2019 The superhero series The Umbrella Academy, based on a comic by former My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way, premieres to positive reviews on Netflix. The show, starring Ellen Page, also features Mary J. Blige as an assassin.

January 3, 2019 Lifetime airs the first installment of the six-part series Surviving R. Kelly, which documents the singer's alleged sex crimes. John Legend is among those speaking out against Kelly in the series.

October 2, 2017 MTV revives TRL, the iconic music video countdown that ran from 1998 to 2008, with some pretty significant changes. First, there's no countdown. Second, there's no music. Well, there's some music, but it's part of a mixed bag of pop culture topics presented by five hosts, including Vine star DC Young Fly, dubbed the "TRL Squad." Where's Carson Daly when you need him?

May 30, 2017 NBC debuts its dance competition series World Of Dance, with executive producer Jennifer Lopez, Ne-Yo, and Derek Hough on the judging panel.