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''The Mike Douglas Show'' was an American daytime
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Sh ...
that was hosted by
Mike Douglas Michael Delaney Dowd Jr. (August 11, 1920 – August 11, 2006),Cook County Birth Certificates, file number 6053268, borAugust 11, 1920Social Security Death Index, Michael D. Dowd Jr., Birth: 11 Aug 1920, death: 11 Aug 2006 residing in North ...
. It began as a local program in
Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
before being carried on other stations owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting. The show went into national syndication and was moved to
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
in 1965. The program remained on television until 1981. It was distributed by
Westinghouse Broadcasting The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, also known as Group W, was the broadcasting division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It owned several radio and television stations across the United States and distributed television shows for syndicat ...
, and for much of its run, originated from studios at two of the company's TV stations in Cleveland and Philadelphia.


History in Cleveland

''The Mike Douglas Show'' premiered on
KYW-TV KYW-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate WPSG (channel ...
in Cleveland on December 11, 1961, and featured a mix of light banter with guests and musical performances, along with more serious interviews with prominent newsmakers. Local entertainment shows were popular in the early days of television. Joining Douglas as part of the everyday lineup was the Ellie Frankel Trio, a local
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
group. Instead of an opening comedic monologue (as was the case with '' The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'', for example), Douglas, given his vocalist background, would begin each show by singing a popular song for the audience. Each week would have a different co-host who would appear every day with Douglas. The inevitable growing pains of a new program were evident during the first week of shows, when the scheduled co-host, Irish singer
Carmel Quinn Carmel Quinn (31 July 1925 – 6 March 2021) was an Irish-American entertainer who appeared on Broadway, television and radio after immigrating to the United States in 1954. Biography Quinn was born in July 1925 and educated in Dublin. Her fa ...
, missed the first two shows due to a scheduling conflict in New York. In addition, faulty microphones on the inaugural broadcast were coupled with equally problematic chairs that caused a pair of guests to fall off stage. Some moments of controversy developed in the opening months, including a guest's satirical look at
First Lady First lady is an unofficial title usually used for the wife, and occasionally used for the daughter or other female relative, of a non- monarchical head of state or chief executive. The term is also used to describe a woman seen to be at the ...
Jacqueline Kennedy Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A p ...
's televised tour of the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
that was criticized for bad taste, and a look at censorship that was to involve the reading of selections from books such as ''
Lady Chatterley's Lover ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is the last novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Italy, and in 1929, in France. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, wh ...
'' and ''
Tropic of Cancer The Tropic of Cancer, which is also referred to as the Northern Tropic, is the most northerly circle of latitude on Earth at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted towa ...
''. The show was postponed until a representative for banning such books could be found. In February 1963, singer
Barbra Streisand Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers awar ...
was the show's co-host. During that week, she was performing in a local strip club, and was asked by the club owner to promote her appearances on ''The Mike Douglas Show'' each day. The reason given was that Cleveland newspapers were in the midst of a lengthy labor strike, preventing any consistent advertising. Douglas later said that the station erased the videotapes of Streisand's appearance, as most early television programs did, in order to re-use them for station editorials. Just a few months later, Douglas had
atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
Madalyn Murray as a guest, three days after the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in her favor in the '' Abington School District v. Schempp'' case, which banned mandatory Bible reading in public schools. In September 1963, ''The Mike Douglas Show'' was syndicated to four other television stations owned by Westinghouse: KDKA-TV in
Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
,
WBZ-TV WBZ-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent station WSBK-TV (ch ...
in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, WJZ-TV in
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
and KPIX in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
. Less than one year later, the show had expanded to a total of 27 cities. On November 22, 1963, Douglas was speaking with Federal Housing Administrator
Robert C. Weaver Robert Clifton Weaver (December 29, 1907 – July 17, 1997) was an American economist, academic, and political administrator who served as the first United States secretary of housing and urban development (HUD) from 1966 to 1968, when the depart ...
, when station newscaster John Dancy interrupted the live broadcast by walking through the audience in order to give the first reports of the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle with ...
. The show soon ended as NBC began its four-day coverage of the tragedy. On July 23, 1964, comedian
Henry Morgan Sir Henry Morgan ( cy, Harri Morgan; – 25 August 1688) was a privateer, plantation owner, and, later, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. From his base in Port Royal, Jamaica, he raided settlements and shipping on the Spanish Main, becoming we ...
made a brief appearance at the start of the show, but later walked out when Douglas was interviewing Dr.
Sam Sheppard Samuel Holmes Sheppard, D.O. ( – ) was an American neurosurgeon. He was exonerated in 1966, having been convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard. The case was controversial from the beginning, with extensive ...
, who had been released from prison one week earlier.


History in Philadelphia

In 1965, the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) reversed a 1956 station switch, in which NBC strong-armed Westinghouse to move to Cleveland, so it could have a station in the much larger
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
market. With NBC forced to move back to Cleveland, Westinghouse regained control of what had been NBC-owned WRCV-TV in Philadelphia and renamed the station
KYW-TV KYW-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate WPSG (channel ...
. NBC, which now owned the former KYW-TV as
WKYC-TV WKYC (channel 3) is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. Its studios are located on Tom Beres Way (a section of Lakeside Avenue in Downtown Cleveland named after the station's lon ...
, tried to buy ''The Mike Douglas Show'' to keep it in Cleveland. However, it was the only real big moneymaker for Westinghouse's syndication unit at the time, so the show moved with KYW-TV to eastern Pennsylvania in August. At first, ''The Mike Douglas Show'' was broadcast from a 140-seat basement studio located in the WRCV/KYW building at 1619 Walnut Street (see photos on right). It continued to be aired live until the following year when Zsa Zsa Gabor called Morey Amsterdam a "son of a bitch" for interrupting her joke during the April 29, 1966, program. After that, the program aired on a one-day tape delay basis, allowing for the editing out of any objectionable material. Live broadcasts (with a seven-second delay) were attempted only on a few special occasions thereafter, such as when the
Philadelphia Flyers The Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia. The Flyers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern Conference. The team play ...
won the
Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup (french: La Coupe Stanley) is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, an ...
. Future political consultant and
Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ...
founder and CEO Roger Ailes served as a producer beginning in 1965, then as executive producer from 1967–68. It was while working on the show in 1967 that he met
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
, with whom he had an off-air discussion about television and politics. Nixon subsequently hired Ailes to work as a media consultant on his 1968 presidential campaign, thus launching Ailes's career as a national political consultant and media strategist. In July 1972, the show moved to a new studio in the newly constructed KYW-TV studios at 5th and Market streets in Center City Philadelphia. That studio ("Studio A") was the first and only studio especially constructed for the program. While the overall new studio was larger, it accommodated only 120 seats. Ellie Frankel continued as musical director until 1967, when Joe Harnell, an accomplished musician, composer, and bandleader took over the position until 1973. Harnell was followed by Frank Hunter, and the show ended with Joe Massimino in that role. During much of its time on the air, the show remained strong in ratings, consistently finishing among the most popular daytime television shows nearly every season. Douglas took the success lightly. He made a surprise visit in 1976 to the set of '' Match Game'', a competing program that managed to score higher ratings than ''The Mike Douglas Show'' during the mid-1970s. Douglas wanted to congratulate host Gene Rayburn on making his game show the #1 daytime TV program. The show's run spanned 21 years and more than 4,000 episodes. In 1978, production of the show moved to CBS Television City in
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywoo ...
, where it remained until the end of the show's run in 1981. In the fall of 1980, Westinghouse dropped Douglas, deciding to give younger entertainer John Davidson the show. Douglas' show continued, with Syndicast taking over the program's distribution. However, in an effort to boost falling ratings during the show's final season, a third of the staff was fired and the program was revamped with a traveling roadshow format, re-titled ''The Mike Douglas Entertainment Hour''. The format change did not help, and Douglas' show was canceled at the end of the 1981–82 season. The last episode aired on November 30, 1981.


Awards


References


External links

* , licensing link for ''The Mike Douglas Show'', with clips from
King World Productions King World Productions, Inc. (also known as King World Entertainment, King World Enterprises, or simply King World) was a production company and syndicator of television programming in the United States independently established in 1964 until acq ...
, now part of
CBS Television Distribution CBS Media Ventures, Inc. (formerly CBS Television Distribution, Inc. and CBS Paramount Domestic Television, Inc.) is an American television distribution company owned by CBS Studios, part of CBS Entertainment Group, a division of Paramount G ...
*
''The Mike Douglas Show''
at Muppet Wiki * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mike Douglas Show, The 1961 American television series debuts 1982 American television series endings 1960s American television talk shows 1970s American television talk shows 1980s American television talk shows Black-and-white American television shows English-language television shows First-run syndicated television programs in the United States Television in Cleveland Television in Philadelphia Television series by CBS Studios Westinghouse Broadcasting