• in 1997, Steve Carell played chef Yorgo Galfanikos in the ABC sitcom Over the Top?
• popular 1950s game show Down You Go is one of the only U.S. television series to air on all four networks of television's Golden Age: ABC, NBC, CBS and DuMont?
• in "The Baby Sitter" of ABC's The Rifleman, Phyllis Avery plays a dance hall girl who asks Lucas McCain to hide her daughter from a bigoted grandfather?
• half of the regular advertisers for the ABC series thirtysomething pulled out of the episode "Strangers", costing the network some US$1.5 million, because it showed two men in bed together?
• fake names and scenes were given to actors auditioning for roles in the upcoming episode titled "Confirmed Dead" of the fourth season of ABC's television series Lost to limit the leak of spoilers?
• guest stars on The Greatest Show on Earth, an ABC circus drama in 1963–1964, included Lucille Ball, James Coburn and Edgar Bergen?
• the 1962 ABC sitcom Mr. Smith Goes to Washington featured a television appearance by mime artist Harpo Marx?
• the advertising campaign "Love in the Afternoon" only became lucrative for ABC when advertisements chronicling the troubled union of Luke and Laura were aired, bringing General Hospital to the top of the U.S. soap opera ratings?
• the day the Parks and Recreation episode "Canvassing" aired on NBC, it captured almost one million viewers more than its direct ABC time-slot competitor, Samantha Who?
• when ABC's Birmingham, Alabama, affiliate WBMA-LP refused to air the Ellen coming out episode "The Puppy Episode", a local LGBT group sold out a 5,000-seat theatre so people could watch it via satellite?
• the Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf cartoons Sheep Ahoy, A Sheep in the Deep, and Don't Give Up the Sheep were censored by ABC to remove a dynamite stick, a smoke break scene, and a spanking scene respectively?
• the ABC children's TV series The Marshal of Gunsight Pass, considered primitive even for 1950, was telecast live to stations on the West Coast and seen elsewhere by kinescope?
• the ABC documentary television program Our World was often assigned to students as homework, with ABC distributing 39,000 study guides a month?
• controversy arose over the ABC television network's licensing and production of a doll based on fictional rapist Todd Manning?
• because actor Alan Dale was unable to go to Hawaii to appear on ABC's Lost as Charles Widmore, the camera crew moved to London to include him on the show anyway?
• Robert Redford made one of his last guest-starring appearances in a television series in a 1963 episode of the ABC psychiatric drama Breaking Point?
• Walter Brennan starred in the 1964–1965 ABC sitcom The Tycoon as an eccentric chairman of the board of the fictitious Thunder Corporation?
• Mickey Rooney won a Golden Globe Award in 1964 for his ABC sitcom Mickey?
• ABC's Howard K. Smith: News and Comment was cancelled after Smith aired a controversial and, as it proved, premature program in 1962 titled "The Political Obituary of Richard M. Nixon"?
• ABC moved the Roseanne episode "December Bride", which featured a same-sex wedding, from its usual broadcast time slot to one 90 minutes later, citing the episode's "adult humor"?
• George P. Jenkins of MetLife helped build Pan American World Airways into a global airline and ABC into a major network through the firm's investments in the private placement market?
• Grits Gresham, the former host of ABC's The American Sportsman, revealed that Ronald Reagan used a gun to rescue a nurse from a mugging?
• actor Samuel Page of the AMC drama series Mad Men started a string of ongoing guest appearances in the ABC comedy-drama Desperate Housewives, starting with the episode "The Chase"?
• after initially deciding not to air the Roseanne episode "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" because it included Mariel Hemingway kissing Roseanne Barr, ABC promoted it as "the lesbian kiss episode"?
• The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show, a western variety and comedy series, was cancelled by ABC in 1962 after 13 weeks?
• Our Man Higgins, a 1962–1963 ABC sitcom, featured Stanley Holloway of My Fair Lady as an emphatic English butler to a suburban American family?
• Margie (ABC, 1961–1962) is one of the few network programs set during the Roaring Twenties, complete with jalopies, raccoon coats, period music, and references to flappers?
• ABC aired the Marcus Welby, M.D. episode "The Outrage" despite having been zapped for the earlier episode "The Other Martin Loring"?

Facts on topics related to American Broadcasting Company

CBS

• Alan Cumming guest-starred in "Bang", an episode of the CBS drama series The Good Wife, as a political consultant commentators said mirrored Rahm Emanuel?
• Annie Fargé, who played a scatterbrained French wife to an American architect in the 1960 CBS sitcom Angel, was described by Time as "easily the brightest newcomer to situation comedy" though the series folded after one season?
• baritone Earl Wrightson won an Emmy Award for hosting the 1950s CBS Sunday afternoon television show The American Musical Theater?
• Ann Northrop gave up a successful career at CBS to eventually become an AIDS educator for the Hetrick-Martin Institute and co-host of TV news program Gay USA?
• Howard A. Chinn, while working as chief audio engineer at CBS in 1943, wrote a classified report about enemy radar?
• Nancy Dickerson was the first female news correspondent on the CBS television network?
• Robert Bray (forest ranger Corey Stuart in CBS's Lassie), turned down a role in director Joshua Logan's 1958 hit film South Pacific, much to Bray's longstanding regret?
• Little Miss Sunshine producer David T. Friendly is the son of former CBS president Fred W. Friendly?
• Saturday Night Live comedian Ana Gasteyer appeared in a serious role as a judge in "Fleas", an episode of the CBS drama, The Good Wife?
• Cinderella, as broadcast on CBS in March 1957, is the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written for television?

NBC

• "94 Meetings", an episode of NBC's comedy Parks and Recreation, featured the return of several actors who had previously appeared in the series, such as Alison Becker and Susan Yeagley?
• "Christmas Scandal", an episode of NBC's comedy series Parks and Recreation, marked the last in a string of guest performances by stand-up comedian Louis C.K.?
• "Company Picnic", which aired on NBC on May 14, 2009, was the 100th episode of the comedy series, The Office?
• "Greenzo", an episode of 30 Rock, was part of NBC’s Green Week that aimed at having every primetime program aired during the second week of November 2007 contain an environmental theme?
• "Greg Pikitis", an episode of NBC's comedy series Parks and Recreation, featured actress Rashida Jones dressed as Raggedy Ann?
• "Jack-Tor", an episode of 30 Rock, was the first episode of the series to air as part of NBC's "Comedy Night Done Right"?
• "Kaboom", an episode of NBC's Parks and Recreation, featured the real-life charity KaBOOM! as part of a multi-network television campaign to spotlight volunteerism?
• "Leslie's House", an episode of the NBC comedy series Parks and Recreation, features references to Wikipedia, Nirvana, Montell Jordan and the Iran–Contra affair?
• "Ron and Tammy", an episode of NBC's Parks and Recreation, features comedienne Megan Mullally playing the ex-wife of a character played by her real-life husband, Nick Offerman?
• "Telethon" was the first episode of the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation to be written by star Amy Poehler?

Fox Broadcasting Company

• voice actress Maggie Roswell left The Simpsons in 1999 after a pay dispute with Fox Broadcasting Company, but returned in 2002?
• the Fox television series Herman's Head used characters to represent different aspect of the main character's psyche, similar to Eric Berne's concept of transactional analysis?
• the premiere of Million Dollar Challenge on Fox Broadcasting Company was the most watched poker television show of all time?

Broadcast syndication

• 97% of the letters from viewers of The Rejected, the first documentary about homosexuality to air on American television, were positive?
• four months after the one-time-only U.S. airing of the 1991 Disney television pilot Acting Sheriff, Disney sold bonds that promised to pay up to a 20 percent return if Acting Sheriff were syndicated?

National Broadcasting Company

• Jack Benny was so impressed with native Canadian singer Gisele MacKenzie that he was co-executive producer of her NBC variety show, The Gisele MacKenzie Show?
• NBC's The Road West featured Andrew Prine and Brenda Scott in 1966 as brother and sister though the actors had been married to each other?
• Darby Hinton, who played Fess Parker's son on NBC's Daniel Boone, as an infant lost his father in a plane crash but remains close to Parker nearly 40 years after the series ended?
• Empire, a 1962–1963 NBC Western dramatic series set on a New Mexico ranch, provided the first recurring role for future film star Ryan O'Neal?
• Ensign O'Toole, a 1962–1963 NBC military comedy series starring Dean Jones, was filmed aboard the USS Frank E. Evans, which was thereafter destroyed following a collision?
• The Californians, an NBC western which aired from 1957 to 1959, featured later Jeopardy! host Art Fleming as an ambitious lawyer?
• actor Don Collier, who co-starred on NBC's western series Outlaws and The High Chaparral, played football for the Brigham Young Cougars?
• the 1959 NBC series Five Fingers features David Hedison as an American counterintelligence officer in the Cold War who poses as a theatrical agent to investigate communist activities in Europe?
• the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show (1956–1957) featured Virginia Gregg as Mary Surratt, the woman hanged for conspiracy stemming from the Lincoln assassination?