December 11, 1961: “The Mike Douglas Show” Premieres

December 11, 1961: The Mike Douglas Show premieres, at the studio of KYW-Channel 3 in Cleveland, owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting. It became one of America's top TV talk shows.

In September 1963, the show was syndicated to 4 other television stations owned by Westinghouse: WBZ-Channel 4 in Boston, WJZ-Channel 13 in Baltimore, KDKA-Channel 2 in Pittsburgh, and KPIX-Channel 5 in San Francisco. Less than 1 year later, the show had expanded to a total of 27 cities.

In August 1965, the show moved from Cleveland to Philadelphia to a small basement studio located in the KYW-TV building at 1619 Walnut Street in Center City Philadelphia. At that time, Westinghouse began syndicating the show nationally, bought Philadelphia's Channel 3, and gave it the KYW call letters. (Cleveland's Channel 3 became WKYC.) 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.

In 1978, the show was moved to CBS Television City in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, California. There, it ran until November 30, 1981.

Douglas would do a week's worth of shows with a different guest host every week. In early February 1972, his guest hosts for a week were John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and that's what The Mike Douglas Show is best known for today.

Mike Douglas' real name was Michael Delaney Dowd Jr. Michael Douglas, whose birth name was Michael Kirk Douglas but whose father was born Issur Danielovitch, appeared on the show 9 times from 1976 to 1980. And Michael Keaton, whose real name is Michael John Douglas, appeared on the show 5 times in 1979 and 1980. Early in his career, he told both Mike Douglas and Michael Douglas, "I had to change my name because of you!"

Douglas died in 2006, not long after publishing a memoir titled I'll Be Right Back, in which he wrote that the TV industry would like to dedicate a statue to the inventor of the infomercial: “Imagine: Half an hour of advertising, without all that pesky programming.”  

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December 11, 1961 was a Monday. Steve Nichol, later to star in soccer for Liverpool Football Club, was born.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek: There would be no Monday Night Football for another 9 years. And no games were scheduled for the NHL.

There were 2 games in the NBA. The Cincinnati Royals beat the Chicago Packers, 133-117 at the University of Dayton Fieldhouse in Dayton, Ohio, a "home game" for the Royals, who got 32 points from Oscar Robertson.

Yes, the Chicago Packers. I'm guessing the name didn't draw a lot of Bears fans. For the 1962-63 season, they became the Chicago Zephyrs. That didn't help. For the 1963-64 season, they became the Baltimore Bullets, and are now the Washington Wizards. The Royals are now the Sacramento Kings.

And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the St. Louis Hawks, 132-119 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Elgin Baylor scored 52 points.