Movies and TV fast facts

Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of television in 1926 in Soho, London.

Ten years later there were only 100 TV sets in the world.

Today there are more than 1,5 billion TV sets in use.

China has the most TV sets (500 million).

US citizens watch the most TV. By age 65, an American would have watched the equivalent of 9 years uninterrupted screening, viewing more than 20,000 TV commercials per year.

In the US there are more TV sets than telephones.

The first TV interview was made with Irish actress Peggy O’Neil in April 1930.

The first daily broadcast was started by the BBC in November 1936.

The first TV commercial was a 20-second ad for a Bulova clock, broadcasted by WNBT, New York during a game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies in July 1941. Bulova paid $9 for that first TV spot. Bulova also was the first watch in space.

2 billion videos are watched per day on YouTube.

Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube, or about 200,000 videos per day.

It will take a person more than 400 years to watch all the videos on YouTube.

The first regular TV soap was DuMont TV’s A Woman to Remember, which began its run in February 1947.
The first televised sporting event was a Japanese elementary school baseball game, broadcast in September 1931.

The world’s first TV news helicopter was introduced by KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles on 4 July 1958.
In “Father of the Bride”, Annie and Bryan marry on January 6. But in the opening montage of “Father of the Bride 2″ there is a framed invitation of their wedding which states that they were married on October 9.

Towards the end of the Forrest Gump, Forrest narrates that his wife died on a Saturday. When he is at her grave in the next scene, the tomb stone shows her passing on March 22, 1982, which is a Monday.

STAR TREK’s Captain James T. Kirk’s middle name is Tiberius.

In Terminator 2 – Judgement Day, Arnold Schwarzenegger received a salary of $15 million; the 700 words he spoke translates to $21,429 per word. “Hasta la vista, baby” thus cost $85,716.

The largest movie theater in the world, Radio City Music Hall in New York, opened in 1932 – it seats almost 6,000 people.

The longest movie in the world according to Guinness World Records is The Cure for Insomnia, directed by John Henry Timmis IV. Released in 1987, the running time is 5220 minutes (87 hours).

The first film animation was “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” made in 1906 by American J. Stuart Blacton.


In 1919, 18-year-old Walt Disney teamed up with Ub Iwerks, to produce a series of cartoons entitled “Alice in Cartoonland.”

The Walt Disney company was founded in 1923, and in 1927 Walt came up with the idea for an animated mouse called Mortimer Mouse. His wife Lillian convinced him to change it to Mickey Mouse.

In 1937 Disney won a special Oscar for the first full-length animation: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, created Tom and Jerry in 1939.

The first Best Picture Oscar for an animation was awarded in 1991 for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.