February 2, 1973: "The Midnight Special" Premieres

February 2, 1973: The Midnight Special premieres on NBC, following The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. It runs on Friday nights until May 1, 1981, and features most of the top musical acts of the 1970s.

At the time, The Tonight Show ran 90 minutes, and none of the "Big Three" networks -- NBC, CBS and ABC -- ran programming after 1:00 AM. Most local affiliates went off the air, with a broadcast of the National Anthem, and went to a test pattern until resuming in the morning. Some ran old movies. 

NBC producer Burt Sugarman thought a rock music show was a good way for the Peacock Network to regain some of the revenue lost in 1971 with the banning of cigarette advertising. He convinced General Motors, through its Chevrolet division, to sponsor the show, and talked the network into it.

"The Midnight Special" had been the title of an old folk song about being in prison, and Johnny Rivers was one of the rock singers who'd had a hit with it. His version became the show's theme song.

Some big foreign groups had their 1st American TV appearances on The Midnight Special: England's David Bowie, Badfinger, T. Rex and Genesis; Scotland's Bay City Rollers; Canada's Gordon Lightfoot; Sweden's ABBA; and Australia's Olivia Newton-John, AC/DC and Andy Gibb. (Andy's brothers, the Bee Gees, had appeared on earlier U.S. TV shows.)

The show also featured earlier rock and roll legends, like Bill Haley & His Comets, Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, James Brown, B.B. King, Shirley & Lee, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jackie Wilson, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Marvin Gaye, The Beach Boys, Aretha Franklin, and Ike & Tina Turner.

The show even featured comedians, including cutting-edge guys like George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Andy Kaufman. Billy Crystal, not really cutting-edge, made his national TV debut on the show.

Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) had the most appearances on the show, with 7.

UPDATE: It took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much overwrought music, and, at the same time, not enough of it.

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February 2, 1973 was a Friday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 6 NBA games played that night:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Baltimore Bullets, 89-77 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). The Knicks went on to win the NBA Championship, anyway -- and haven't won it since. The Bullets moved down Interstate 95, becoming the Capital Bullets for the 1973-74 season, the Washington Bullets for 1974-75, and finally, in 1997, moving into the District of Columbia and renaming themselves the Washington Wizards.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Boston Celtics, 100-99 at the Boston Garden. "Pistol Pete" Maravich lit the Celtics for 37 points.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Buffalo Braves, 114-108 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had 38 points and 20 rebounds for the Bucks.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 114-104 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Houston Rockets, 126-109 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Chicago Bulls, 118-104 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There were 4 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 106-93 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Carolina Cougars beat the Denver Rockets, 113-105 at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Rockets became the Denver Nuggets in 1974.

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the San Diego Conquistadors, 118-106 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

* And the Memphis Tams beat the Utah Stars, 114-110 at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis.

There were no games scheduled in the NHL. But 4 were played in the World Hockey Association:

* The Cleveland Crusaders beat the Philadelphia Blazers, 5-3 at the Cleveland Arena.

* The Chicago Cougars beat the Ottawa Nationals, 4-1 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago.

* The Alberta Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets, 4-3 at the Winnipeg Arena. The next season, the Oilers changed their name to the Edmonton Oilers.

* And the Los Angeles Sharks beat the New England Whalers, 3-1 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

January 13, 1985: The Mysterious Death of Carol Wayne

Johnny Carson as Art Fern,

and Carol Wayne as the Matinee Lady

January 13, 1985: Actress Carol Wayne dies under mysterious circumstances while on vacation in Mexico. She was only 42 years old.

Carol Marie Wayne was born on September 6, 1942 in Chicago. She started out as a figure skater, before growing into a voluptuous figure which made that difficult. From 1967 to 1984, she made 41 appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, usually playing the Matinee Lady in the "Tea Time Movie with Art Fern" sketch.

On September 2, 1974, the musicians' union was on strike, and so Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinsen couldn't appear on the air. Nor could Tommy Newsom, the saxophonist who led the band when Ed McMahon, Johnny's announcer and sidekick, was unavailable and Doc had to do the announcing. And Ed got sick during the strike. So Johnny asked Carol to step in, making her the only woman ever to announce the immortal words, "And now, ladies and gentlemen: Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!"

She was once married to Burt Sugarman, the producer who created the late-night music TV show The Midnight Special. She was also a frequent game show panelist. But by 1984, substance abuse had left her broke enough to accept Playboy magazine's longstanding offer to display her, um, assets. At 42, she was still a good choice for it.

In January 1985, she went on vacation to the Las Hadas Resort in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, with a new boyfriend, Edward Durston, a car salesman. On January 13, they had an argument, and she told him she was going to take a walk on the beach.

Three days later, a local fisherman found her body in a shallow bay. An autopsy performed in Mexico revealed no signs of alcohol or other drugs in her body, and her death was ruled "accidental."

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January 13, 1985 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. The NFL was between its Conference Championships and Super Bowl XIX, which the San Francisco 49ers would win over the Miami Dolphins, 38-16 at the original Stanford Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California.

There were 6 games in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Houston Rockets, 100-99 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Washington Bullets, 115-104 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 121-98 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Denver Nuggets, 140-116 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. It's now named the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 124-101 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Kansas City Kings, 119-114 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

And there were 6 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 6-5 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-2 at the Colisée de Québec. Brothers Peter and Anton Šťastný each scored 2 goals for the Nords.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Calgary Flames, 7-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Brian Propp scored a hat trick.

* The Edmonton Oilers beat the Buffalo Sabres, 5-4 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Los Angeles Kings, 6-5 at The Forum outside Los Angels in Inglewood, California.

* And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Vancouver Canucks, 5-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Denver.