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It took a bit sleuthing in the Yahoo! Television History category, but a click on Timeline of Television History revealed the answer -- The Queen's Messenger, a drama broadcast in 1928. A search on "television Queen's Messenger" verified our finding and offered additional information. The modest 40-minute production was broadcast from Schenectady, New York, and the sound was carried on General Electric's local WGY radio station. A far cry from NYPD Blue and Seinfeld, The Queen's Messenger consisted of two WGY actors, two hand models, and thready camera shots. The station's WGY Players, were instrumental in fostering the radio drama of the early 20s, applying stage talents of the day to dramatic vignettes over the radio waves. It was only natural that WGY would be the first to translate radio's popularity to television. Though Americans can lay claim to the first show, it was Scottish inventor John Logie Baird who brought us the first boob tube. In early broadcast experiments, Baird used ventriloquist dummies as his first actors, as they could withstand the heat from the lighting better than human subjects.
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