Mayor Fletcher Bowron of Los Angeles welcomed people to the first Emmy Awards ceremony, which was held Jan. 25, 1949, at the Hollywood Athletic Club. Before there was a Peak TV era, before there were performances from Mary Tyler Moore, Cloris Leachman or Julia Louis-Dreyfus, there was Judy Splinters. “Judy Splinters,” a children’s television show hosted by a 20-year-old ventriloquist named Shirley Dinsdale and her puppet — wait for it — Judy Splinters, was nominated for the so-called most popular program at the very first Emmy Awards. All nominated shows had to have been filmed in Los Angeles, and the award show itself was only broadcast on a local station in Los Angeles. “It was so brand-new,” Dinsdale told The Los Angeles Times in 1998.

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Persons: Fletcher Bowron, Mary Tyler Moore, Cloris Leachman, Julia Louis, Dreyfus, Judy, Shirley Dinsdale, Dinsdale, John Leverence, —, ” Dinsdale, “, ” Leverence, ”, That’s Organizations: Hollywood Athletic Club, Television Academy, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, KTLA, Times, Lucky Locations: Los Angeles, Los