This Was Television On July 22
1991: The final episode of China Beach
Flagging ratings in the ABC drama’s fourth and final season led to a six-month midseason hiatus. This unsuual move pushed the final episode into the 1992 Emmy eligibility period. Consequently, when star Dana Delany won her second Best Actress trophy in the fall of ’92, it was for a show that hadn’t aired in episode in over 13 months.
Also on this day in history, in 1934, notorious gangster John Dillinger was gunned down by the FBI outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater, just blocks away from where these posts are written every day. The event rattled the gangland community so deeply that Bugsy Siegel was inspired to invent the television six months later, so that wanted criminals wouldn’t have to risk going to the movie theater for entertainment. -A.D.
Today’s Birthdays: Albert Brooks, genial supervillain (65); Selena Gomez, Disney wiz (20); David Spade, Gap girl (48); Alex Trebek, answer man (72).
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