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This Day in Pop Culture

This Day in Pop Culture for April 30

Lou Gehrig, Starsky, Hutch and Mr. Potato Head.

April 30, 2020

2–3 minutes

1939: Lou Gehrig Plays His Last Game

Lou Gehrig, baseball first baseman for the New York Yankees, played an incredible 17 seasons for the team before retiring on this day in 1939. A seven-time All-Star and six-time World Series champion, Gehrig won the Triple Crown in 1934 and was twice named the American League’s “Most Valuable Player.” In 1939, Gehrig was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disorder now known more commonly as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. (Image: Wikimedia)

1952: The First Toy to be Advertised on TV

When Hasbro first created Mr. Potato Head in 1952, he looked a lot different. Back then, kids would dress up real potatoes with fake arms, legs and facial features made of plastic. (The plastic potato version didn’t come about until 1964.)

Mr. Head became the first toy to be advertised on TV and was also the first commercial aimed directly at children. The ads paid off. Hasbro sold over million kits fit for a potato during its first year.

Mrs. Potato Head came about the next year and not much later, the married potatoes became a family with Brother Spud and Sister Yam.

In 1995, the spud made a revival of sorts by appearing in Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story voiced by Don Rickles. Consider this day, “Mr. Potato Head Day.”

1939: F. D. R.

Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first president of the U.S. to appear on TV.

1859: C. D.

Charles Dickens story, A Tale of Two Cities is published in weekly chapters in a magazine.

1789: G. W.

George Washington is inaugurated as the nation’s first president.

1975: ‘Starsky & Hutch’ Start Busting Crime

Created by William Blinn, one of the coolest cop shows began airing on TV on this day with a pilot movie. Starsky & Hutch featured two plainclothes cops, who were an odd couple that worked well together. Sergeant David Michael Starsky (played by Paul Michael Glaser) was a moody Army veteran who was wise on the streets.

Sergeant Kenneth Richard “Hutch” Hutchinson (David Soul) had a more reserved, perhaps even refined approach. The two fought crime in the fictional town of Bay City in California. The series also starred Antonio Fargas as the street-wise “Huggy Bear” and Bernie Hamilton as Captain Harold C. Dobey.

Starsky & Hutch ran for four seasons. Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Snoop Dogg and Vince Vaughn starred in a theatrical version of the show in 2004. And in 2023, it was announced that a new version of the TV series was in development. Only this time, it would center on two female cops, Sasha Starsky and Nicole Hutchinson. However, no updates on the plans of this new show have been reported as of yet.