Don’t Touch That Dial! Try This Quiz on TV Firsts

While HBO began as a pay-for-TV network in 1972, there wasn’t a pay-per-view event until 1981, when Sugar Ray Leonard fought Thomas “Hitman” Hearns for the Welterweight Championship. Viacom Cablevision offered the event, and thus began the tradition of major boxing events being offered via pay-per-view, which continues today.

The first straight-line TV system was broadcast in 1927, but it wasn’t until the late 1930s when TVs began making their way into households across America. Total viewership rose every decade from that point until the 1970s. A 1977 Roper study found a drop in the number of people watching, which coincided with the invention of the VCR, which let people tape shows to watch later.

“TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia),” the theme song for the long-running variety show “Soul Train,” was the first TV theme song to top the Billboard Hot 100. The song was recorded by MFSB with vocals by the Three Degrees. The second TV theme song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard charts was from the 1970s TV crime drama “S.W.A.T.”

In 1939, Ethel Waters made history when she became the first Black person to star in her own TV show, “The Ethel Waters Show.” The actress and singer — who got her start singing the blues in Harlem — continued to make history throughout her career. In 1962, Waters became the first Black person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her performance on the TV show “Route 66.”

Real-life married couple Mary Kay and Johnny Stearns also played one on the 1940s sitcom “Mary Kay and Johnny.” In 1947, the pair made history when they became the first couple to share a bed on TV. Mary Kay was also the first woman to be portrayed as pregnant on TV, instead of disguising her real-life pregnancy. The show was also the first prime-time sitcom, although the network required Mary Kay to end each episode selling a makeup compact to appease sponsors.

The first football game ever televised was between Fordham University and Waynesburg College on September 30, 1939. Less than a month later, the NFL was televised for the first time when NBC aired a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Brooklyn Dodgers. The game ran for two hours, 33 minutes, and 10 seconds without commercials.

At a time when less than 1% of American households owned a television set, the New York-based DuMont Television Network aired TV’s first musical, “The Boys From Boise.” The story followed a group of showgirls stranded in Idaho who were trying to make money to get back home. The full-length musical comedy aired on September 28, 1944.

On August 1, 1949, television viewers met Crusader Rabbit and his sidekick, Rags the tiger, in the first-ever cartoon to air on TV, a four-minute short in which the duo heads to Texas to fight against people driving all the jackrabbits out of the state. The creator, Alex Anderson, was the nephew of cartoonist Paul Terry, who would go on to create the Mighty Mouse character.

When the Cleaver brothers obtained a baby alligator in a 1957 episode of “Leave It to Beaver,” they made it a home in an unlikely place: the tank of a toilet. The episode was the first time any part of a toilet had been shown on television. The producers wanted to show the entire toilet, but censors at the time thought it was inappropriate. They eventually compromised by allowing just the tank to be seen, and not the bowl.

In May 1941, the Federal Communications Commission officially granted 10 television networks licenses allowing them to show commercials. The first one, appearing on July 1 that year, was an ad for the American watch company Bulova. The ad aired during a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. It cost $9 to run the 10-second commercial.

In 1947, Harry Truman became the first President to give a televised speech from the White House with a topic that would not get big ratings today: asking the nation to cut back on grain usage. Europe was recovering from World War II and suffering from food shortage, so Truman took to the airwaves to ask Americans to help with food conservation.

Elvis Presley became the first solo musical artist to broadcast a concert live via satellite on January 14, 1973. The concert was titled “Aloha From Hawaii,” and an estimated 1 billion people tuned in from 40 different countries around the world to watch the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll perform from the Honolulu International Center. The milestone was also featured in the 2022 film “Elvis.”

On November 8, 1972, Charles Dolan and Gerald Levin launched HBO, America’s first pay-for-TV network. The channel’s first broadcast was a hockey game between the New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks, and went out to only 365 paying customers. Today, HBO and HBO Max reach 70 million subscribers.

On May 31, 1938, the very first television game show aired, called “Spelling Bee.” It was a U.K. program broadcast on the BBC at 10 p.m. The structure was similar to the school event of the same name; the host, Freddie Grisewood, would say a word, and the contestants had to try and spell it. Each episode was only 15 minutes.

If you love watching the morning news, you have NBC to thank: It ran the very first morning news program, “The Today Show,” which is also the longest-running morning news program to date. The program first aired on January 14, 1952, anchored by. David Garroway. Producer Sylvester "Pat" Weaver considered the show to be a sort of electronic newspaper.

Broadcasting the first live sports event was a feat — it comprised more than 70 hours of programming. The event? The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. It was broadcast locally throughout the German capital. The United States followed suit three years later, with a local broadcast of a baseball game between Princeton University and Columbia University.

On New Year’s Day in 1954, NBC aired the first national color broadcast with the Tournament of Roses parade, a celebration to mark the start of the annual Rose Bowl college football game in Pasadena, California. The 1954 parade was announced by actor Don Ameche, and two mobile cameras were used to capture the action. Two years prior, the Rose Parade was also the first live nationwide broadcast — though it was still in black and white at that point.

The First Lady’s tour of the White House is now an unofficial tradition, but it began with Jacqueline Kennedy in 1962. “A Tour of the White House With Mrs. John F. Kennedy'' aired on CBS on Valentine’s Day. Kennedy, wearing all red for the occasion, led viewers through a $2 million restoration project and spoke about the building’s history. The tour was so well-received that the First Lady was presented an honorary Emmy.

In 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard Nixon faced off in the first nationally televised debate between two U.S. presidential candidates. Kennedy was declared the winner thanks in part to his youthful charisma and comfort on camera, compared to Nixon’s nervous demeanor. The event was a watershed moment in history, as TV would go on to play a major role in American politics.

“I Love Lucy” had a lot of television firsts: It was the first series to show a pregnant woman and an interracial couple, and the first to be filmed in front of a live studio audience. The CBS sitcom also pioneered the multi-camera format: For the length of the series, which aired from October 1951 to May 1957, every episode was filmed with three cameras, even though many cinematographers at the time said it couldn’t be done.