Reviews"It is ironic that the most short-lived of the early American television networks should receive the first scholarly treatment, rather than NBC, CBS, or ABC." Technology and Culture"engaging...Weinstein makes effective use of corporate records and oral histories in a study that is both good business and cultural history." The American Historical Review"This book needed to be written. Author David Weinstein immersed himself in all things DuMont, and his thoroughness is commendable . . this book provides a fascinating look into television in those formative years." The Journal of Popular Culture"David Weinstein has performed a valuable and substantial task for media scholarship in producing this engagingly written and well-researched study of DuMont - it is very good to see this accessible and fascinating account of DuMont." The Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media"absorbing" Reason"Television has changed the way we live in ways most of us take for granted. In a well researched, informative, and entertaining book, David Weinstein looks at the history of the Dumont network. During its nine-year run beginning in 1946, DuMont created a legacy that includes The Honeymooners, Captain Video, Sid Caesar's The Admiral Broadway Review, and Ernie Kovacs. DuMont laid the foundation for a medium that continues to enlighten, inform, educate, and entertain us." -Eddy Friedfeld, WOR Radio, and co-author, Caesar's Hours"In The Forgotten Network, David Weinstein moves with sure mastery and ready wit through the technological issues, political machinations, and blurry kinescopes that tell the story of the ill-starred DuMont network. Sharply insightful and smartly written, Weinstein's TV guidebook to a lost chapter in American broadcasting is a major contribution to both television studies and Cold War history. He answers a question that has bedeviled media scholars for decades: how did four networks become three?" -Thomas Doherty, Brandeis University, and author of Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture"Thankfully, David Weinstein allows us to rediscover DuMont in the first comprehensive history, an outstanding institutional history of American television, of the network. Weinstein's accomplishment in piecing together the network's history from its few surviving traces deserves the attention of anyone interested in the history of post-war American culture and the respect of all who recognize the dedication and imagination that has gone into this research." Film Quarterly
Dewey Decimal384.55/23/0973
Table Of ContentA Note on SpellingPreface and Acknowledgments1. My Father Was an Engineer2. From Basement to Broadway3. Who Is in Charge Here?4. The DuMont Daytime Experiment5. Captain Video: Protector of the Free World and the DuMont Network6. What'd He Say? Morey Amsterdam Meets Norman Rockwell7. And Away He Went . . . Jackie Gleason and the Cavalcade of Stars8. Law and Order, DuMont Style9. A Bishop for Berle Fans10. Ernie Kovacs and the DuMont LegacyAppendix: DuMont ChronologyNotesIndex
LC Classification NumberPN1992.92.D86W45