The Magic Window

Jim Von Schilling

Preface
Chapter 1. The Beginning of Everything
Television's Debut
The Jenkins Television System
RCA Television
Television's First Season
Test-Marketing in Newburgh
The FCC's First Report on TV
The Amber Light
Hearings in Washington
Chapter 2. A Torch of Hope
The Future Appears in Newburgh
The War in Europe
The 1940 Republican Convention
A Disappointing Fall
Debating TV's Future in 1941
Chapter 3. In a Troubled World
The 1941 FCC Hearings
The Beginning of Commercial TV
The Summer of 1941
The Buildup to War
Wartime Television
Schenectady's WRGB
Plans for Postwar TV
Television As a War Weapon
The Studios Reopen
TV's First Censored Program
Chapter 4. The Winds of Postwar
The Homefront TV War
The 1944 Conventions
TV Programs Blossom Again
Docket No. 6651
TV and the End of the War
Chapter 5. Turning the Corner
The Camera with the Eyes of a Cat
TV Begins in Washington
The Louis-Conn Fight
Hour Glass
The New Postwar Sets
The Bikini Bomb Explosion
Surveying the TV Viewer
The Emerging Genres
Drama in Washington
The First Color Telecasts
Integration on TV
The Second Wave of TV Stations
The Split TV Audience
Television and Women
Middlebrow Television
Chapter 6. From Boom to Berle
The 1947 World Series
Puppet Playhouse
The Expanding Network
The Original Amateur Network
Miss Television of 1948
Mr. Television
The 1948 Conventions
The Cold War on Television
CBS's Revival
The Big Freeze
The 1948 Election
Selling Sugar and Tobacco
Radio Takes Notice
Chapter 7. Conflicts in the Air
Kukla, Fran and Ollie
The Cultural Backlash Begins
Censoring TV's Contents
The Golden Hope and The Goldbergs
The Admiral Broadway Revue
The Berle Phenomenon
A Midseason Slump
Wrestling and Roller Derby
The 1949 World Series
The Chicago School of Television
Cavalcade of Stars
Hopalong Cassidy
The New Bomb and the Red Scare
Faye Emerson
TV's Effects on Children
Chapter 8. Comics and Communists
Your Show of Shows
The Bandit Raid on Korea
Red Channels
The Invasion of Comics
Jack Benny and Fred Allen
Groucho Marx and Martin and Lewis
Jackie Gleason and the Cavalcade of Stars
Truman and MacArthur
Expanding the Daily Schedule
Chapter 9. Linking Coast to Coast
Color TV Begins
The Crime Commission Hearings
Amos 'n' Andy
Hollywood and the Coast-to-Coast Link
The Birth of I Love Lucy
The Hollywood Boom Begins
The Today Show
New Hampshire and Ike
The Freeze Is Lifted
Lucy Takes Over
The 1952 Conventions
Congress and the Code
The FCC and Blacklisting
Dragnet
Live Drama from New York
Chapter 10. Liking Ike and Loving Lucy
The Checkers Speech
Lucy is Pregnant
Ozzie and Harriet
See It Now
The Birth and the Inauguration
The ABC-Paramount Merger
The End of the Du Mont Network
The End of the Beginning
Notes
Index
Reference Notes Included