This short film is one of a series entitled “Quicky Quiz!”, which were developed and produced by Los Angeles TV personality Jim Hawthorne. Billed as the “world’s shortest TV show”, each Quicky Quiz! posed a question for viewers to answer. In this case, the question is “What was the name of the woman who famously leapt from the Russian consulate in 1948?” If you got the right answer, you must be very smart so take a bow!
The background on this — Mrs. K–, jumped from a third floor window of the Soviet Consulate in New York as part of an attempt to escape, but not kill herself. She revealed to the press, while recovering in Roosevelt Hospital, that she had decided to escape from Russia even before she left there to teach the children of Soviet diplomats in the United States. Kasenkina later disappeared and was believed by the American public to have been abducted by Soviet officials after supposedly wishing to seek asylum in the United States. Decades later it was revealed that K– suffered from emotional instability and erratic behavior, and that the “leap to freedom” was likely an attempt at self harm. The incident led to a breach of consular relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Short format shows of this type don’t really exist today, but back in the early era of television — especially during the live era when show lengths were irregular — programs such as Quicky Quiz! were important to fill dead air.
Jim Hawthorne (1918 –2007) was a beloved radio personality, disc jockey and TV comic actor who produced (in addition to Quicky Quiz!) the short format show “Jim Hawthorne’s Funny World”. He worked for a variety of TV stations including KLAC / Los Angeles Channel 13, where he created the first late evening talk show on television, “This Is Hawthorne.”
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
