World Television Day Is Nov. 21, and TV writer Mike Fleiss has plenty of reasons to celebrate. The reality show-producing mogul says he spent his formative years “watching everything” as a kid, from Aaron Spelling’s iconic hits such as Charlie’s Angels and Starsky & Hutch to classic commercials starring Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster, and Sharon Stone.
“I grew up loving television,” Mike Fleiss confesses. “I watched Dinah! [a daytime talk show hosted by Dinah Shore] and The Mike Douglas Show, and I saw pretty much every show when I was a kid. I watched everything. Mannix and The Six Million Dollar Man and Family, I saw them all.”
Yes, Fleiss was a fan of the sleuth show Mannix, which ran from 1967 to 1975 and starred Mike Connors. The sci-fi series The Six Million Dollar Man was another popular show during its five-year reign from 1973 to 1978. And Family was a five-season drama that launched Kristy McNichol and Meredith Baxter Birney to superstar status.
Fleiss was so into TV watching commercials that it actually led to putting together the concept for the first show he ever sold.
“The first show I ever created was a show called Before They Were Stars, and I had that idea before I even came to LA,” Mike Fleiss remembers. “It was clips. Back then, there were more sort of recognizable TV and movie stars and music stars. Everybody knew who Lee Majors was, or Tom Cruise was, or Brad Pitt. Now, today’s stars, don’t have that much penetration. So we were able to sell a show that was just clips of famous, really famous people.”
The idea organically came to the ambitious TV show producer purely because he had watched so much TV and recalled seeing future superstars like Farrah Fawcett on a 1970 episode of The Partridge Family and Jack Nicholson in his first commercial role.
From Newspapers to TV, Mike Fleiss Returned to His Original Interest
Although he initially wanted to be a journalist and was the executive editor of The Daily Californian while attending the University of California, Berkeley, his passion for TV eventually lured him back to the small screen.
“I decided to try to go into show business because I was excited by The Howard Stern Show and The Simpsons and stuff like that, and so I felt like there would be more freedom of expression, at least at that time in history, in television.”
So, how can you join Fleiss in celebrating World Television Day? By watching more television, of course. The day was born in 1996 when the United Nations aimed to illustrate the powerful impact that TV has had on society as a tool for information, educational content, and entertainment. It’s also become a popular day to share show recommendations on social media and binge-watch.
Last year on World Television Day, the U.N. acknowledged the essential role the entertainment medium played during the pandemic, especially when most people were isolated.
“TV has connected us all during the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping us informed, educated, entertained, and even inspired,” Caroline Petit, officer in charge and deputy director, of the United Nations Regional Information Centre for Europe, said in a press release. “Long live television as a unifying medium!”
