This Was Television On October 2
1955: Alfred Hitchcock Presents premieres
The veteran director and master of suspense created and hosted this anthology series, which ran for 10 seasons alternating between CBS and NBC. Hitchcock began and concluded each episode with a droll, mildly insouciant introduction to that week’s macabre tale. The anthology attracted a range of A-list guest stars—from Bette Davis to Walter Matthau to Steve McQueen to Dick Van Dyke—but Hitchcock himself only directed 17 episodes.
The title sequence of Alfred Hitchcock Presents famously feature the host stepping into the frame to fill a sketched outline of his profile, often followed by a spot of customary black humor:
-A.D.
Today’s Birthdays: Bud Abbott, straight man (d. 1974); Charlie Adler, voice acting vet pt. I (56); Jeff Bennett, voice acting vet pt. II (50); Lorraine Bracco, mob doctor (58); Avery Brooks, Starfleet captain (64); Groucho Marx, duckkeeper (d. 1977); George “Spanky” McFarland, rascal (d. 1993); Ian McNeice, Roman (62); Robin Riker, early Showtime sitcommer (60); Kelly Ripa, a.m. emcee (42); Steve Sabol, NFL documentarian (d. 2012).
This Was Television 
3 Responses to “This Was Television On October 2”
[…] This Was Television On October 2 (thiswastv.com) Tags: Charles M. Schulz, Groucho Marx, India, International Space Station, Lorraine Bracco, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Woodrow Wilson […]
I still remember an episode called “An Unlocked Window”. It terrified me as a kid and I’m not sure I could watch it by myself now, some 45 years later.
[…] created and hosted (though seldom directed) by the master of suspense himself. For one thing, this week marks the 57th anniversary of the program’s debut. More significant is the fact that this episode, […]