anyone know what the first movie to be advertised on tv was?

thanks!
need answer asap to impress girlfriend... : )

You will see and hear that "Jaws" was the first movie advertised on TV. This is most definitely incorrect. I remember movies advertised on TV in the 1950s. (If I remember correctly, it was "Demetrius and the Gladiators" (1954).) Below is what I found in a very short search.

1944 - first film advertised on TV released: The Miracle of Morgan's Creek. - Listology.com (This was released on January 19, 1944. - DG)

I have no idea where on earth this "Jaws" urban legend began. But like DG, I remember all sorts of movies advertised on tv in the 50s and 60s, including "Rodan", "Black Like Me", "Poor White Trash", "Picnic", "Sodom and Gamorrah", "The Alamo", ad infinitum.

Those old enough to remember Disney's hour-long program in the 1950s know that Disney's movies were pushed heavily on the program.

thanks guys

a local radio station gave away tickets to some dude that said Jaws. do they realy think that no movies were advertised prior to '75??? lol

thanks for the info. my g/f is still arguing. she's 21 and isnt' making the logical connection here. but she's smokin' hot so who realy cares? LOL

If you really have to convince her, go to Youtube and type in something like 1950s movie trailers. Most of them were on tv too.

Radio station trivia is worth every penny you pay for it. Trust only AnswerPool for all your Trivia needs.

Some bad Radio, Trivia book, and internet Trivia debunked on AnswerPool.

One brief call to the St. Louis Public Library gave this additional information:

1944 - The first TV ad for a film was broadcast by Paramount, in the second TV station (KTLA) that the studio had launched/established in Los Angeles in 1943.
Source: http://www.filmsite.org/milestones1940s_2.html

This seems to indicate that Morgan's Creek is probably the correct answer.

Note: The library will call me if they find a reference in a book.

I have a call in to KTLA and will report any response.

dag'um you guys are thorough!!!

i appreciate the info, more than you know.

You're welcome, Terry. (Yes, I take Trivia a bit too seriously.)

I'll move this thread to Movie Trivia in a day or so, since it is a trivia question that hasn't been asked there.

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
You're welcome, Terry. (Yes, I take Trivia a bit too seriously.)

I'll move this thread to Movie Trivia in a day or so, since it is a trivia question that hasn't been asked there.

Why? A trivia question is one where the answer is already known. So far in this thread there is only a "probably correct" answer.

If you aren't going to follow the criteria, we could relocate all the threads on AP to the Trivia category.

"Why?"

Because the Trivia category is, among other things, a reference category. It is a compilation of firsts, tallest, biggest, oldest, and other things that piques peoples interest. This specific question relates to the history of both television and movies, both of which are frequent categories in Trivia books, Trivia sites, Trivia-type quiz shows, and Trivia contests here in the US. Moving this thread to Trivia makes more sense than repeating the question in a new thread. It also doesn't add to the storage costs I pay every month.


"If you aren't going to follow the criteria, we could relocate all the threads on AP to the Trivia category."

No, we couldn't, or at least we shouldn't. There are also other questions in the Trivia forums that do not have correct answers yet. There are also some unanswered questions. We shouldn't move them out of Trivia, even though they have no correct answer.

Defining what is and isn't Trivia isn't easy. Trivia isn't who is the tallest man in Madison County or the heaviest in Lancashire, unless the contest is limited to people living in that area, and maybe not even then. (I have no idea who the tallest man is in Madison County, only that the tallest man ever was born here; he died about 65 years ago, however.) But questions about movies and television firsts, which deal with what Baby Boomers grew up with, are generally Trivia.

Before I became the majority owner of AnswerPool, there were quite a few baseball Trivia questions in the Sports forum, several of which had the word "Trivia" in the title. No one bothered to put them in their proper category, despite any criteria. I have corrected that error in most cases, and will continue to do such site maintenance.