October 27

On the 27th in 1946, the television show Geographically Speaking debuted. Not terribly earthshaking news and I doubt if you will find it running on cable or broadcast television at any time in the near future. Why, then, am I sharing this meaningless bit of trivia? However, I suppose that my use of the adjective meaningless is redundant concerning trivia. What sets Geographically Speaking apart from a zillion other television shows is that it has the distinction of being the first commercially sponsored television program. Bristol-Meyers was the sponsor. Carveth Wells, intrepid rich guy and explorer traveled the globe extensively with his wife, Zetta. Mrs. Wells was in the habit of lugging a 16mm motion-picture camera on these jaunts across the surface of the planet and used it often, basically every day I would guess. At some point Carveth and Zetta must have become travel weary and their travels were curtailed. Mrs. Wells’ home movies were put to good use and supplied the material for the show, which ran 15 minutes. When Mrs. Wells ran out of new material for the show, the show was cancelled. Re-runs would not be invented for a good ten years.