| May 14 |
| 1921 -- Richard Deacon was born in Philadelphia. Best known as Allan Brady's kicked-dog brother-in-law Mel Cooley on 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' and as Lumpy Rutherford's dad on 'Leave It to Beaver,' As Mel, he also created a brief-lived sensation with 'Yeecccchhhhh,' his typical response to Morey Amsterdam on the Van Dyke show. Richard was also known as a gourmet cook. Richard Deacon died of a heart attack on August 8, 1984. He was 63. 1951 -- 'The Ernie Kovacs Show' debuted on NBC. It still sets a high bar for television comedy to this day. 1957 -- 'Circle Theater' aired the original episode 'Day of Disaster -- Riker's Island,' which recounted a true day of heroism that occurred earlier that year. On February 1, a passenger plane crashed on Riker's Island, after which, the prison's inmates helped in the effort to rescue victimes. 1968 -- Paul McCartney and John Lennon guested on NBC's 'Tonight Show.' The guest host? Wise-cracking former baseball catcher Joe Garagiola. 1970 -- actress/comedienne Billie Burke, Glinda the Good Witcch in 'The Wizard of Oz,' died of natural causes at the age of 85. Daughter of a circus clown, her birth name was Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke. Billie once reportedly said, "Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese." 1973 -- The Nielsen's finally socked it to 'Rowan & Martin's "Laugh-In' as it aired for the final time on NBC after five seasons. It also created such catchphrases as 'Here comes 'da Judge,' 'The fickle finger of fate' and 'You bet your sweet bippy.' 1982 -- Hugh Beaumont, who's portrayal of Ward Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver" ranked as the 28th-best TV dad in TV Guide's '50 Greatest TV Dads of All-Time' in 2004, died in Munich, Germany, while visiting his son, a professor, at the age of 73. Perhaps not surprisingly, Hugh received a Master of Theology degree from USC in 1946 and worked as a lay minister in the Methodist church throughout his acting career. Still in 1998, the final episode of TV's Seinfeld ran on NBC, with 30-second commercials selling for $2 million each.The studio audience for the actual filming was by invitation only in order to help keep information of the plot from leaking out. |