DuMont Television Network
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“I actually wrote an episode of Captain Video. It's the one where he and the Video Ranger take laudanum.”
“My favorite network!”
~ Larry King on the DuMont Network
| The DuMont Television Network | |
|---|---|
| |
| Type | Broadcast television network |
| Country |  United States
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| Availability | The Twilight Zone |
| Slogan | Crackerjack! (also, Keen!) |
| Founders | Well-intentioned people with no concept of business structure |
| Launch date | After the invention of vacuum tubes, but before the invention of tailfins |
The DuMont Television Network is a now largely-forgotten broadcast television network that fought against budget troubles for its entire lifetime. It managed to limp along for almost a decade, but dropped off the air at midnight one summer in the 1950s because it didn't have enough money to pay the electric bill. Its attempted comeback on the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards was largely considered a failure.
Although the network vanished from the airwaves, it lives on at YouTube and at UnNews, whose famous newsmagazine Stop Squirming and Hold Still began as a DuMont program in 1952.
Contents |
[edit] History
The DuMont Television Network was launched by DuMont Laboratories when it became apparent that their previous venture, a death ray intended for the subjugation of all mankind, was taking too long. They then settled on the next best thing: television.
The DuMont Network went on the air for the first time one dark and stormy night in the late 1940s, where laboratory founder Zanthar du Mont stood before his first operational television camera and proclaimed to the viewing public that they would soon be cowing under the lash of his whip, with more dire boding right after this word from Ovaltine.
Since there were only a thousand television sets in the world at that time, and only three were within range of the broadcasting tower at the laboratory base in New Jersey, the handful of people who actually saw the transmission were unable to convince their neighbors of the horrible danger they were in.
However, global enslavement never took place. Zanthar du Mont died shortly thereafter when he fell into a robotic thresher prototype and was killed. The entire DuMont fortune was then passed to his nephew and lab assistant, the kind-spirited Aldous du Mont, who pledged to run the company with an even hand and the best interests of viewers in mind at all times. The DuMont Television Network went belly up slightly less than a decade later, with many industry analysts expressing surprise that it took that long.
[edit] Programming
The perpetually impoverished DuMont Network was forced to make many concessions on behalf of its severely limited budget. The company's flagship news program, DuMont BuDget News, was hosted by Howard and Bill, who were actually two sock puppets being operated by a former bus driver. Captain Video was sponsored by the company that provided the string holding the space ship up.
[edit] Notable Programs
- Captain Video and His Video Rangers - Conceived under the working title Space on Forty Dollars an Episode, this was the DuMont Network's most famous and longest running show, which pitted the heroic Captain Video against the most fiendish actors looking for work. It ran six days a week for eight years, ending abruptly when the actor who played Captain Video broke free of his leg shackles, knocked the security guard unconscious, and fled into the night.
- Life is Worth Living - Bishop Fulton Sheen, who was issued the costumes the Captain Video villains thought were too ludicrous, handed down moral guidance for five award-winning seasons. He was eventually lured away to ABC by a Bible on a string, which was set on the ground and would jump forward a few inches when he bent to pick it up.
- The Zenith Radio Hour - Popular with older viewers, The Zenith Radio Hour featured an hour long up close shot of a Zenith brand radio, which was turned on, and then tuned by an unidentified hand. Occasionally the hand would adjust the volume on the radio. Ultimately the hand turned the radio off at the end of an hour of entertainment, static and - sometimes - the sound of someone eating in the background. This was one of DuMont's most popular programs.
- Stop Squirming and Hold Still - Initially appeared during a scheduled broadcast of Captain Video, when the Captain accidentally tried to walk down a flight of prop stairs while on live television. When he fell through and broke his leg, he ended up being treated while the camera continued to roll because nobody was sure it would start again if it was turned off. "Stop squirming and hold still," the orders of the doctor - who was also playing the Evil Lord Golgafrizz in that episode - later went on to become the name of the show when nobody could think of anything better.
- What Would You Do, hosted by Dr. Evelyn Spakkett, was a daily fifteen minute self-help program for housebound homemakers. Dr. Spakkett, who held a doctoral degree in Comparative Serbian Literature would read mail, submitted by viewers, that ran the gamut from desert fork placement to wife beating. Spackett would ask viewers to mail in their advice on what they would do if faced with the same life problems, and then read those answers on air as well. Periodically, a guest host, called in while Dr. Spakkett was out with a Comparative Literature emergency, and would do the exact same thing.
[edit] Other Programs
- Big Time Championship Chimp Wrestling
- Cavalcade Jamboree of Star Band Theatre (Now featuring McCain)
- Chad Splink, Space Temp
- Change the Channel
- Don't Touch That Dial
- DuMont BuDget News
- DuMont Nightly News with Fay Wray
- Fashions on Parade
- Guess That Smell
- I Don't Want to Hear About It
- Kelvinator Kitchen Quarter Hour
- Late, Late, Early Late Show with Old What's His Name
- Longines Symphonette Hour
- Parade of Fashions
- Prolonged Static
- Subliminal Desperation
- Test Pattern Sermonette
- Torpor in Stereo
- Turgid Corners
- Your Hudson Dealer Presents: Rock, Paper, Scissors
[edit] Network distribution
The DuMont Network had numerous affiliates all over the country, although the precise number will never be known because many of them are too embarrassed to admit it.
Additionally, the DuMont Network pioneered the idea of cable television, and first transmitted its signals through a piece of string that was attached to a network-operated can at one end and viewers' TV sets at the other.
[edit] Surviving programs
All of the DuMont programs were left in cardboard boxes marked "FREE" on the sidewalk outside the flagship station following the network's demise. The fate of most of these programs is unknown, and many of the recordings that later resurfaced had been taped over. The known surviving DuMont programs are currently in the garage of Dwight Zinn, Jr., of Saginaw, Michigan, where they are presently stored under a bunch of burlap sacks and the hood from an AMC Gremlin, where they will stay until he finally gets around to having that yard sale he's been promising his wife since 1998.
