12/22/43 from 9:15 to 9:30 pm on W2XVW. DuMont station was broadcasting 1941 Vitaphone short with footage shot in the pre-war Belgian Congo. 
12/22/48 from 9 to 10:15 pm on WCBS' "Film Theatre of the Air.'' Such was the supply of films available at this point that the Tiffany Network's flagship was not too proud to show 1943 PRC cheapie that premiered 2 months earlier on WATV.
12/22/53 from 10 to 11 am on WABC. Keaton plays yachtsman in Adrian Brunel's 1936 British cheapie with Lupita Tovar, Mexican-born mother of Susan Kohner and grandmother of directors Paul and Chris Weitz. She died in 2010.
12/22/58 from 7:30 to 9 pm on WOR's "Million Dollar Movie.'' Lucille Ball's only western (1942) did more for James Craig, who was put under contract by MGM.
NY TV debut 12/22/63 from 8 to 9 pm on WOR's "Big Preview.'' UA's Christian-themed 1949 Italian import reportedly managed more than a million dollars in US rentals.
12/22/68 at 1 pm on WNEW. First and best of three features that character actor Richard Haydn directed for Paramount, a very funny and little-seen 1948 farce. NY TV debut 11/3/60 on WCBS' "Late Show.''
12/22/73 at 11:30 pm on WCBS' "The Late Show.'' Channel 2, which debuted IAWL in 1956, rebooked it from 1969 to 1973, generally showing it on the Saturday night before Christmas. MEET JOHN DOE replaced it from 1974-76.
12/22/78 from 2:30 to 4:46 am on WCBS' "The Late Show.'' Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, sandwiched between a made-for and Stanley Siegel's eponymous talk show.
12/22/83 at 1 pm on WOR. Fields' last vehicle (1944), a surrealist masterpiece directed by Edward Cline, references his mock radio feud with Deanna Durbin by having one of her imitators, Gloria Jean, play his niece.
12/22/88 at 1:50 am on "TNT Overnight.'' Arguably W & W's peak, Seiter's 1933 musical satire shares screenwriters Joe Mankiewicz and Henry Myers with MILLION DOLLAR LEGS (1932) and attitude with Herman Mankiewicz-produced DUCK SOUP (1933).
12/22/93 from 2:30 to 5 am on USA Network. Power-hungry billionaire manipulates the press and public in Capra's 1941 warning against domestic fascism, prescient in ways nobody could have imagined in their wildest dreams.
12/22/98 from 4 to 6 am on A&E. Muni (as gangster) and Rains (Lucifer) got roped into writer Harry Segall's variation on his own HERE COMES MR. JORDAN. 1946 indie made NY TV debut 5/2/52 on WCBS. Copyright expired in 1974, so up for grabs by cable networks with hours to fill.
