way to go through the storm is to go right through it. she's thrilled. >> we wish her the best. that does it for us. the cnn original series, "the sixties" starts now. standby. here we go. >> take one. >> watch the tv. >> the average time spent watching television is five to six hours per day. >> oh, residuals. >> there's a reason for calling it the boob tube and idiot box. >> let's change the channel. >> we want to rap about our scene. >> here is the news. >> we must give the american viewer what it deserves. >> let's try it again and see what comes out this time. >> television has grown faster than a teenager. now it is time to grow up.

the tv was the center of the

house. i don't remember a time without tv. >> by 1960, essentially every household in america had a television. it was a new way of bringing the world to you. >> when something big happened on television, it happened to the entire country. and the impact of the entire country at the same time. >> and awakened eye on the world. >> suddenly, television was the main event. everything else changed. even the way in which went about the business of getting someone elected president. >> sold out. sold out. >> david. would you hit the one-minute button, please? 30 seconds and the cut, please. >> in 1960, the nixon/kennedy debate was the first in television. a lot of people were watching that night. and it introduced a lot of people to kennedy.

>> let me see the tight shot on camera one, please. >> can you hear me now, speaking? is that about the right tone of voice? >> good evening. the television and radio stations of the united states and their affiliated stations are proud to provide -- >> when the networks offered a debate, kennedy immediately said yes because he was sure he could do better than nixon. >> i think mr. nixon is an effective leader of his party. i hope he would grant me the same. the question before us is, which point of view and which party do we want to lead the united states? mr. nixon, would you like to comment on that statement? >> i have no comment. >> if you're live on television and there's a camera right here, there's really no place to hide. once you see a guy sweating when asked a question, are you sure he's the leader for you? >> that's the question before the american people and only you can decide what you want, what you want this country to be, what you want to do with the future.

i think we're ready to move. >> if you saw it on television, clearly kennedy had won that debate. >> gentlemen, thank you very much for permitting us to present the next president of the united states on this unique program. >> it was the beginning of a new form of political craftsmanship. you could structure a message appropriately. >> mr. john kennedy. >> may i ask you so i don't look too naive, a tough question right off the bat. >> whether i'm a democrat or republican? >> people recognized the television was now the medium that mattered. it wasn't before 1960, and it was every day after 1960 in those presidential debates. >> all right. >> once everyone had a tv set in

their living room, and advertisers had fully gotten a grip on how effective this was a way to sell products, the very definition of what you were doing was to create entertainment that would appeal to as many people as possible. >> beaver, eat your brussel sprouts. >> i can't. >> "leave it to beaver" was something a lot of families understood. it was the first show that was ever shot from the perspective of a child. >> beaver. >> most people have had a lot of the experiences that the beaver or wally had. and everyone in their life has an eddie haskell. >> some dumb kid fell in his soup. >> good evening, mr. cleaver. some poor, unfortunate child is trapped up there. >> everyone has that moment when they were so embarrassed and they thought they'd never get over it. but they did. >> tonight's special report, in

the 1961 -- >> this is another situation comedy or a western or whether it's a drama, i think it's the quality of the show itself that's important. >> the andy griffith show, mayberry, a kinder, gentler place, it'd be hard not to want to live in mayberry. >> hi. >> the core of the andy griffith show was this rock at the center of it. calm, wisdom. >> i have taken the best parts of myself and people that i have known all my life and put them into andy taylor. >> there comes a time when you have to stop the play acting, tell the truth. >> don't you believe me, pa? don't you, pa? >> people appreciated emotional honesty. they appreciate it more than laughs. it's great if you can achieve both simultaneously. and the "andy griffith show" did that very often, for a sitcom, it shows unexpected depth.

>> well, the second dance number should come before the big sketch. >> gee, i don't know. >> i like it. >> now, i like it. >> yeah, me, too. >> yeah, i like it, too. >> what do you know? look at that tie you're wearing. >> i only wrote what i knew about, which was my life. and if you're writing about that, nobody can say, that's not true. it is true, i'm living it. >> on the "dick van dyke show," we could relate to the characters. this wasn't a genie in bikini, these were real people. >> women are more -- >> honest and direct? >> no, they're more -- >> courageous? >> we all have the same needs, feelings, relationships with husbands and wives. that was the kind of comedy we did. the problems of living. >> honey, how much do you like that baby?

>> oh, rob. don't tell me you're jealous already. >> the season opening show was seared into my head. >> now, our wife had a baby on the same day in the same hospital and the hospital was very busy, mr. peters. what am i getting at? >> they thought they got the wrong baby from the hospital. so he calls the parents of the other kid and thinks, you know, we may have your kid, you may have our kid. >> hi, we're mr. and mrs. pierce. >> come in. >> it was beautiful. absolutely beautiful. here they're tackling a subject without tackling it. >> why didn't you tell me on the phone. >> and miss the expression on

your face. >> the network worried about the fact that the african-americans might be upset by it. the network was always a little behind. there's always somebody back there who doesn't have b-a-w-l-s, bawls. >> i wish somebody had told me, i would have worn my hair. hey. i'm ted and this is rudy. say "hi" rudy. [ barks ] [ chuckles ] i'd do anything to keep this guy happy and healthy. that's why i'm so excited about these new milk-bone brushing chews. whoa, i'm not the only one. it's a brilliant new way to take care of his teeth. clinically proven as effective as brushing.

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...you have to leave the couch to believe. seize the summer with up to 40% off hotels from travelocity. i've got to tell you this one. you know the knock-knock jokes? >> yeah. >> i've got a real good one.

a real funny one. >> all right. >> go ahead, start. i say? >> yeah. >> knock-knock. >> who's there? >> it was only three networks. only one late night show, really. and it was jack parr. >> they don't understand how we do the show. we just keep talking. >> i know. it's agony. >> jack parr invented the late night television talk show. >> you feel confident there's not a man in the world to beat me. >> jack had in his corner his personality. his fabulously interesting complex, frightening neurotic. but in other cases, enthusiastic and informed personality. made for great television. >> how much time have i done? i don't have a watch either.

>> how much? has it been charming? i'll quit now then. >> here's johnny! >> johnny carson inherited the tonight show, but he made it his own. >> it's going to be wild tonight. i can always tell. >> he hosted a nightly party. >> are you married? >> oh. >> and if his buddies came and they started playing together, you felt like what it must have felt like to go to vegas at 3:00 in the morning and have the rat pack tomorrow. >> no -- >> it was a beautiful thing to watch a guy working at his best. >> okay. >> well, do we have a good one. >> let's go.

>> if you watch it closely, he's gauging how much longer he can wait to let the laugh die before what he says will be irrelevant to what happened. and he gets it just on the nose. it's beautiful to watch. >> i didn't even know you were jewish. >> johnny was the best audience in the world. and he loved comedy. >> the woman's watching you. she's watching you from the corner of her eye. what are you looking at? and i said, i'm looking at that ugly baby. that's a bad-looking baby, lady. >> johnny was there listening for you.

he wanted you to score. and when you scored, he scored. >> calm down. said, madame, the pennsylvania railroad will go to any length to avoid having differences between the passengers. perhaps it'll be more to your convenience if we were to rearrange your seating. and, as a small compensation from the railroad, if you accompany me to the dining hall, we'll give you a free meal. maybe we'll find a banana for your monkey. >> i'm dick cabbot, taller than mickey rooney and as pure and honest as newark, new jersey. >> the dick cabbot show was amazing. you could get people like woody allen. >> my only new year's resolution, i think i'm going to try to sleep through the nixon administration. >> well, you have authors, heavy weight boxers, there were conversations. >> when you mentioned the national anthem and talk about

playing any unorthodox way, immediately get a guaranteed percentage of hate mail from people who say -- >> that's not unorthodox. >> it isn't? >> no, no. i thought it was beautiful. there you go. >> i just thought anything that's interesting ought to have a place on a talk show rather than young, pretty actresses who use the word excited in every sentence. >> frequently seen on television is that by choice? >> well, of course, it is the most impressive medium of all. it's the medium that's either going to save america or send it down to demise. >> i'm getting out of it myself. >> really? >> we'll be back after this. >> what you do is book the best possible guests from different kinds of businesses, maybe not everybody in show business, some politics, some newspaper people, get them all on a stage together and hope it works. it's a great platform for people who have something to say.

>> the point is that they take these scripts out of the drawers, they change the things around, maybe it doesn't work with green acres, but many of these shows, and that's why night after night you turn on these and they all seem like they came out of the same bread box. >> back then, you had lots and lots of copcats. you have the "adams family" and the "munsters." if one person is doing this fantastical hit, we're going to do that. >> now, was that considered a crime? >> i'm afraid not. there aren't any laws to protect us against bad tv shows yet, so you're safe. >> thank you. >> what i'm surprised by are some of the shows that i can't even imagine the pitch meetings for. like "hogan's heroes." >> a story about american prisoners of war in a nazi concentration camp, which doesn't exactly sound like a funny comedy. >> why don't they trust us,

schultz? >> that shows you how weird the '60s was right there. >> there's another one of our fine shows for this year. "pit stop." the moving story of an a race car driver really an astronaut for the mafia. 9:30 eastern time, 8:30 central time, 2:15 pacific time. >> the cell phone changed how we communicate. ♪ ♪

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cbs presents this program in color. >> they didn't have color television until i was 16 years old. yes, i lived like an animal. >> the following program is being brought to you in living color on nbc. >> getting the color tv was huge because suddenly you could watch walt disney's wonderful world of color on sunday nights which was just an acid trip of a show. we could not believe it. tinker bell going bing, bing, bing. and it was like, oh, special effects, par excellence. ♪ the world is a carousel of color ♪ >> it also happened just coincidentally at the time when what we think of as the mod '60s came in, colors were all over the place. just as tv could start to take advantage of them. >> hi. >> well, glad you could make it.

>> i remember saying, stay tuned for "gidget" next in color. it was a big marketing thing. >> color tv was a huge step forward as far as the technology went. and yet, i think it lost its face, started off as a black and white show and went to color. didn't get any better as it went to color. >> dr. smith, you're alive. >> of course i'm alive. do i look like a corpse? >> the period has a reputation for being tv as a kind of candy. sometimes felt like there was this really aggressive innocence to it. >> only to blow that in an emergency. this is an emergency! you're standing on my foot. >> "giligan's island" makes no sense logistically. how is the professor able to build this stuff but not build a damn raft? >> this stick of true dynamite i

made. >> it makes no sense, but the kind of show designed to live forever in syndication. >> what are you looking for? >> the nun, who else. >> are you kidding? >> "the flying nun" the craziest show. what is that about? >> you see, i only weigh 90 pounds, and the combination of my core and the wind lifts me. >> which is complete nonsense. let's face it. it was in the height of the '60s and everybody was dropping out and god knows what else and i wasn't. >> i'm switching to my eyeglasses. put a hold on my wallet but keep my shoe open. >> television more than ever in the '60s was a place to escape to. >> let's go.

>> seemed like almost sort of a willful respite from the stuff going on out in the world in real life. >> here's a bulletin from cbs news. there has been an attempt as perhaps you know now on the life of president kennedy. he was wounded in an automobile driving from -- >> until the early '60s, television used by and large backwater to print journalism and even to radio. the kennedy assassination was the moment that television journalism came of age. >> we'll continue the coverage of the funeral and final procession -- >> more and more people, depending on television to give them the headline views of the day. >> 330 americans killed in combat last week in vietnam, but the number of wounded, 3,886. >> most of the 1960s, the contrast of what you saw on the entertainment and the news was, you know, planetary.

>> never has this dissent been as emotional, intense. >> in the '60s, it was one thing after another. and each year was filled with important events. >> governor wallace has ordered 500 alabama national guardsmen into tuscaloosa. at the moment, they are under his control. >> when there was the civil rights movement where it was kennedy assassination or the space race, when there was a huge thing that happened, it happened on tv. >> the witness to that violence seemed to be unprovoked on part of the demonstrators. >> television became the fire in which the whole tribe gathered around to listen to the elders tell them what was going on. >> police reinforcements moving down the street now.

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good evening, ladies and gentlemen. tonight, live from new york, from hollywood. from beautiful downtown burbank. here is the star of our show, bob hope.

[ cheers and applause ] >> variety was the backbone of television. one year, there were 18 different variety shows. everyone had a variety show. >> everyone was different because of who was helming the show. ♪ >> dean martin was just so loose, he acted as though he was doing the whole show drunk without a rehearsal. >> this is a real international show. where else could you see a smooth italian and a slippery pole? >> it was funny. he was really, really funny.

>> he always looked as if he was a bit lost. people thought it was because he was -- but that was part of the charm. >> here he is, ed sullivan! [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you very much. >> no matter who controlled the tv set the other nights of the week, on sunday night, 8:00, you were going to watch "ed sullivan." >> ed sullivan was a phenomenon and a powerful force. >> quiet, please. quiet. >> the beauty of the sullivan kind of variety show is that if you didn't like something, something else would be around in four minutes. >> no, no. it is very difficult. >> advertisers wanted everybody. and so they got everybody. a little kid and his grandparents could watch the same show. >> they would have an elephant on and then the next thing, somebody doing shakespeare and the next thing a comic.

there would be an acrobat and then an opera singer the next bit, which was true variety. ♪ we'll go downtown things will be great when you're downtown ♪ >> anything that was current was on the "ed sullivan show." >> richard pryor. >> everybody wanted the showcase. and if you got on "sullivan," you knew you could talk about it next. did you see sullivan? >> my whole life, i don't get no respect. no respect from anyone. >> as a performer, you couldn't get a better place to sell your product. >> when i started out, they would say variety is a man's game. it's dean, milton, but variety is what i know. i felt it was in my genes to do this.

>> she had been so good on the gary moore show. she knew she could sing and dance and be funny. >> on my show, i would do falls and jump out of windows and get pies in the face. and it was heaven. >> i think it's gone -- >> i see a rerun of the "carol burnett show" and i say, goddamn, they're funny. >> she was great in bed, too, dickey, remember? >> stop. you never went to bed with her. >> well. >> i'm not supposed to catch, they are supposed to bow. >> but i get dizzy when i bend over. >> when tim conway came on, his goal in life was to destroy harvey. >> with our own harvey corpsman as at brand new dentist with his very first patient. >> we used to have a pool

backstage. not as to whether harvey was going to break up, but as to how far he could get along in the skit before he broke up. >> come here, novocain. take a firm hold of the hypodermic needle. >> right. >> they never knew what he was going to do. but they knew it was not going to be what they expected. >> when they did the dentist sketch, none of that was rehearsed. >> we'll be right with you. >> poor harvey was helpless, tears coming down, and tim swears that harvey wet his pants during that sketch. >> i don't know why that works so well. watching two actors break character and just crack each other up should not be as entertaining, but somehow when

it's tim conway and harvey coreman doing it, i could watch that forever. >> i thought if we have fun, the audience will. we're going to go out there and do what we do best. and it worked. >> you don't plan it. you can write it, rehearse it, but you hope for magic. and it was carol. the magic of carol burnett. replace your laptop?

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say "hi" rudy. [ barks ] [ chuckles ] i'd do anything to keep this guy happy and healthy. that's why i'm so excited about these new milk-bone brushing chews. whoa, i'm not the only one. it's a brilliant new way to take care of his teeth. clinically proven as effective as brushing. ok, here you go. have you ever seen a dog brush his own teeth? the twist and nub design cleans all the way down to the gum line, even reaching the back teeth. they taste like a treat, but they clean like a toothbrush. nothing says you care like a milk-bone brushing chew. [ barks ]

are you saying he's a tv addict? or perhaps he's been staring at this electronic blessing, the television set for so long, his life has become his. >> yeah. >> and he's reached such a state of confusion that he no longer knows if he's watching the action or participating in it. >> you unlock this door with the key of imagination. beyond it is another dimension. >> there was desire on the part of writers and producers to push the envelope and stretch the medium. and you certainly saw that with the "twilight zone." it was a very cinematic show. >> this is not a new world, it has patterned itself after every dictator who has planted the imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. >> rod sterling came to the

realization that through a lens of fantasy or science fiction, he could tell stories about racism, about fascism. >> tonight, i shall talk to you all about glorious conformity. >> it was a way to deal with a lot of the issues that america was starting to go through at that time but in a fantastic setting so there's some divide between you and the show. >> they said four people, a mother and father and two kids who look just like humans, but they weren't. >> the "twilight zone" had these little o henry like twists and allowed to have unhappy endings. >> they picked the most dangerous enemy they could find, and it's themselves. now, six months this is richard kacampbell with a new identity. >> the fugitive was kind of a somber character study. >> beware of the eyes of

strangers, keep moving. >> everybody wanted to see what happens to the fugitive. >> the actual question is, how long is he going to go on? >> i'm about ready to give up. >> when it ended, it broke the viewership records set by the beatles on ed sullivan. it was one of the first tv shows that actually went somewhere. >> you know, youngstown is not exactly on our course. >> and a lot of ways, television was showing the slices of the world that people they'd never seen before. "route 66" was an innovative show because it was filmed on location. so the audience was being exposed to things that just weren't part of their local orbit. >> space, the final frontier. >> you know, there's a little bit of the mayberry aspect to the world of "star trek." and that's going to sound like an odd analogy, but follow me, here. people want to had believe that such a place can exist. the idea of a future in which a

lot of the biases and the fears of the past has evolved out of us. >> where i come from, size, shape or color makes no difference. >> there's one episode where some of the members of crew were taken over by these mental giants. >> this power of yours, how long have you had it? >> they forced captain kirk and lieutenant o'hura to kiss. it was the first interracial kiss on television. >> nbc asked me if i would do my own special. and i had always adored harry belafonte. we decided to do one duet called "the powerful glory." it's an anti-war song, and we both felt very strongly about it. and i just touched his arm.

a sponsor went crazy. my star doesn't touch a black man's arm. >> petula clark says i'm not doing it over, it's my show and it's going in that way. >> we weren't having any of that nonsense. no way. so it went out the way we wanted it to go out. i didn't really have any other problems with sponsors, but that sort of gave me a taste of what could happen. ♪ >> the tv business, the '60s is probably about the last decade during which the sponsors had a really iron grip on content. >> brought to you by dash. >> even if they tried to keep tv this white, homogenous, whole milk product, the world found its way in. it could, it had to.

>> don't you ever remember to bring a silencer? >> ruins the line of my suit. >> "i spy," cosby is this pioneer in terms of a black male lead in a drama. he made race a nonissue because he's undeniable. >> the winner is bill cosby in "i spy." >> we tried to put forth an example of the way it should be racially in this country. we need more people in this industry to put forth that message and let it be known to the bigots and the racists that they don't count. thank you. >> as television changed, it was helping all americans to understand that this is what

america looks like. >> frankly, you're not exactly what i expected. >> no? >> no, not from what i read, yeah. >> did you expect me to be older or younger? >> julia was going to be the first time a black woman starred in her own television show. >> has he told you? >> told me what? >> i'm colored. >> what color are you? >> she was a young black woman been educated raising her son alone. it had a universality that was just something new. >> and you'll keep out of mischief. >> i'll just watch the old tv. >> good. >> in the '60s, america was exploding in a way that needed to be reflected on tv. >> "dragnet" came back in the late '60s, and friday was in a very different world than he had been in in the black and white days and suddenly there were the

damn dirty hippies. >> dropping that acid we've been hearing about. >> jack web would lecture you about the dangers of marijuana smoking and crazy drug culture. >> they don't understand it so basically their stereotypes of what the hippies were like and it plays exactly like that. >> keep your nose out of my purse. >> keep yours out of the acid, next time i will. ♪ ♪

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nbc presents, rowan and martin's laugh in. ♪ >> our country would be much better off with a strong leader. >> i know but sinatra can't do everything. ♪ >> when "laugh-in" came along we never seen anything that was kind of like grown-ups acting