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.”
| 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.
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 and static. This was one of DuMont's most popular programs.
[edit] Other Programs
- Big Time Championship Chimp Wrestling
- Cavalcade Jamboree of Star Band Theatre
- Chad Splink, Space Temp
- Change the Channel
- DuMont BuDget News
- DuMont Nightly News with Fay Wray
- Fashions on Parade
- I Don't Want to Hear About It
- Late, Late, Early Late Show with Old What's His Name
- Longines Symphonette Hour
- Parade of Fashions
- Prolonged Static
- Torpor in Stereo
- Turgid Corners
- Stop Squirming and Hold Still
- Subliminal Desperation
- Test Pattern Sermonette
- 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.
