In the summer of 1950, a booklet called "Red Channels" shook up the East Coast media structure -- radio and TV networks as well as advertising agencies. "Red Channels" listed the "subversive" activities of over 150 writers, directors and performers, from Orson Welles to Lena Horne. If you were named in the book, you were guilty until proven innocent and you ran the serious risk of being unemployable on radio or TV. The blacklist triggered by "Red Channels" lasted for much of the 1950s, seriously affecting and even ruining the lives of innocent people. In the first of two parts, we look at how the blacklist began and how it was abetted by cowardly TV and radio producers and advertisers.
The Hopalong Cassidy Magical Marketing Machine
The Unsinkable Betty White
The Stormy Success of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour"
Liz and Dick and Lucy and the Ring
Fade to Blacklist: Part 2
The Rise and Fall of "Moonlighting"
The 1960s: How We Played
The 1960s: What We Watched
"The Andy Griffith Show" and How It Grew
James Cagney's Final Act(ing)
The Variety Show Skirmishes of 1963
1952: The 60-Second Election
The Jack Benny-Johnny Carson Connection
The Quiz Show Scandals: "Twenty-One"
Ed Sullivan, American Gatekeeper
The Quiz Show Scandals: "The $64,000 Question"
In Godfrey We Trust
The Rise and Fall of Dragnet
When Maude Findlay Had an Abortion
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