For close to five full years, the great CBS broadcaster Walter Cronkite closed out his weekly documdrama series You Are There with the following words:

“What kind of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times. And you were there.”

Well, we may not have been there, but we are here. Welcome to the Cyclops Central Timeline, the weekly feature that brings you some of what happened during this week in show business and media history…

On New Year’s Day in 1954, NBC made the first coast-to-coast NTSC color broadcast with its telecast of Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses Parade. Public demonstrations were conducted via prototype color receivers at 21 television stations across the USA.

Cigarette advertisements were banned on American television as of January 1 1971, with the final cigarette commercial running during that night’s broadcast of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson on NBC.

On January 1 1994, forty women from all across America vie for a $50,000 grand prize on the live pay per view special, Miss Howard Stern’s New Year’s Rotten Eve Beauty Pageant. Judges included Sherman Hemsley, Mark Hamill, Joe Frazier and Tiny Tim.

With the publication of a book of crossword puzzles, Simon and Schuster was born on January 2 1938. During the book publisher’s seven-decade history, it’s been owned, at various times, by Chicago Sun newspaper publisher Marshal Field III, Gulf & Western, Paramount Communications, Viacom and, currently, CBS.

Alfred Hitchcock signed a contract with Warner Bros on January 2 1949 to produce and direct four films over the next six years, leading to the creation of Stage Fright, Strangers on a Train, I Confess and Dial M for Murder.

On January 2 1967, The Countess of Hong Kong opens in London. The romantic comedy stars Marlon Brando as the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who encounters a Russian countess (Sophia Loren) after she sneaks aboard his ship to avoid becoming a prostitute. Naturally, they fall in love. The Countess of Hong Kong was the last film directed Charlie Chaplin, his only one in color. A critical and financial failure, Countess features a cameo by Chaplin, his last appearance on film.

January 3 1951 saw the debut of Dragnet, a police procedural created and produced by series star Jack Webb, on NBC. The show lasted until 1959, but returned in 1967 for three more years.

On January 3 in 1977, Apple Computer, Inc was incorporated in Cupertino, California, seven years before the first Apple Macintosh made its debut.

The British consul traveled to Universal City on January 3 1980 to meet with Alfred Hitchcock and personally deliver the news that the Master of Suspense had been made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Four months later, Sir Alfred died.

In 1993, January 3rd saw the premiere of the second spin-off from Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek. Created by Star Trek: The Next Generation executive producers Rick Berman and Michael Piller at the request of Paramount chief Brandon Tartikoff, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ran for seven seasons and 176 episodes.

BORN THIS WEEK: Ernest Tidyman, novelist (the Shaft series) and screenwriter (The French Connection); Hong Kong film producer Raymond Chow (The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon); Playboy and cat cartoonists B. Kliban; Larry Harmon, the producer who licensed the Bozo the Clown rights from Capitol Records in 1956 and syndicated the character out for locally-made Bozo shows in every major American TV market; film director Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven); actress Tia Carrere (Wayne’s World, Lilo & Stitch); Middle-earth author J. R. R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit); Marion Davies, actress and concubine of newspaper tycoon Will Randolph Hearts; actor Ray Milland (Lost Weekend, The Thing With Two Heads; film director John Sturges (The Great Escape, Ice Station Zebra); film director Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), actor Robert Loggia (T.H.E Cat, Scarface), actor and director Mel Gibson (Lethal Weapon, The Passion of the Christ); actor Jason Marsden (The X-Men, Ally McBeal); actress Victoria Principal (Dallas, Titans).

DIED THIS WEEK: Disney cartoonist and designer Marc Davis (Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride); 1966 Batman TV villains Cesar Romero (The Joker) and Victor Buono (King Tut);  Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Picket Fences); Actor Alan Hale Jr. (Gilligan’s Island and 200 other TV shows and movies); fantasy artist and commercial illustrator Frank Kelly Freas (Weird Tales, Astounding, Analog, Mad); Celebrity psychic Edgar Cayce; Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald (the accused murderer of President John F. Kennedy) on live television; cartoonist and graphic novelist Will Eisner (The Spirit, A Contract With God); actor Pat Hingle (Splendor in the Grass, Batman and its three sequels).