The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports is an American network radio program and later television program that included broadcasts of a variety of sports, although it is primarily remembered by many for its focus on boxing. The diversified field of sporting events continued onto television, reportedly including at least two golfing tournaments as well (beginning in 1958) with football’s Rose Bowl. With all of this, however, […]
Then Came Bronson is an American adventure/drama television series starring Michael Parks that aired on NBC from 1969 to 1970, and was produced by MGM Television. The series, created by Denne Bart Petitclerc, began with a movie pilot on Monday, March 24th, 1969. The series was approved for one year and began its first run on September 17th, 1969.
The series features Parks as the protagonist, James “Jim” Bronson, a newspaperman who becomes disillusioned after the suicide of his best friend Nick (Martin Sheen) and, after a heated argument with his editor, “working for the man.”
In order to renew his soul, Bronson becomes a vagabond searching for the meaning of life and seeking the experiences life has to offer (as revealed in the series pilot). During his travels, he shares his values with the people he meets along the way and lends a helping hand when he can. Bronson rides a Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle and, as such, he was viewed by some as a modern version of the solitary cowboy wandering the American west. The motorcycle had previously been sold to Nick by Bronson. After it is left at the suicide scene by his friend, Bronson buys it back from the widow.
Curiously, though the opening promises a journey of self-discovery, the premise of each episode is that Bronson enters someone else’s life at a crucial point and acts as a catalyst for change. When Bronson encounters an Amish community, for example, a local boy becomes enraptured by the outside world and steals Bronson’s motorcycle to run off to Reno, Nevada. In another episode, located in Reno, Nevada, Bronson meets his cousin Eve on her wedding day and lends her money for the wedding service, but she runs off to the casinos and blows it.
The first three episodes, including the end credits scenes, were shot in and around Jackson, Wyoming. The premier pilot movie was also shown at the town’s then only theatre to give the locals a sense of what the series was about, since they were shooting in town and at local area popular spots. Bronson is committed to pacifism and often redirects an antagonist’s anger into self-examination. Always, like a true catalyst, he rolls out of every episode unchanged.
The show had obvious similarities to the early 1960s series Route 66 (in which Michael Parks guest-starred in one episode). It was also sometimes erroneously described as a knock-off of the movie Easy Rider, but it actually preceded the release of that movie.
The People’s Choice is an American television situation comedy that aired on NBC from 1955 to 1958, primarily sponsored by The Borden Company.
It stars Jackie Cooper as Socrates “Sock” Miller, an ex-Marine and a young politician in fictitious New City, California. Sock has a basset hound named “Cleo”, whose thoughts (voiced by Mary Jane Croft), as she balefully observes Sock’s dilemmas, are recorded on the soundtrack for the viewers’ amusement. Cleo’s real name was Bernadette. Much of Cleo’s dialog consists of wisecracks. The popularity of the basset hound breed increased markedly with the run of the show.
In the first season, Sock is an ornithologist living in a trailer park with his Aunt Gus (Margaret Irving). A city council member, he is dating Mandy Peoples (Patricia Breslin), the daughter of the mayor (Paul Maxey), who does not entirely approve of the relationship but gradually warms to Sock.
Later, Sock takes courses (though he is not in law school) to pass the California bar exam to become an attorney, so that he can afford to marry Mandy. In the first season finale, Sock suddenly proposes to Mandy and wants to elope. He is afraid the mayor will want to stage a big wedding, and they won’t be able to get married for many months. The couple drives to Nevada for a quickie wedding, intending to return in time for Sock to take his bar exam. On the way back, they are arrested for a traffic violation, spend the night in jail, and Sock misses the bar exam. Sock wants to be independent of his father-in-law; so they agree to keep their marriage a secret from the mayor until Sock gets his law license.
Most episodes in the second season are about Sock and Mandy trying to be together (as much as this could be depicted in the 1950s), while keeping the mayor from finding out that they are married. At some point during the season, Aunt Gus and the mayor get married, and she learns that Sock and Mandy are married and agrees to keep their secret from the mayor. By the end of the season, Sock has passed the bar, and their marriage is out in the open. Sock’s scheming Marine buddy, Rollo “The Hex” Hexley (Dick Wesson), moved in with Sock during the second season and appeared in twenty-seven episodes as well as the original 1955 pilot.
In the third season, Sock manages a residential real estate development called “Barkerville Estates.” They still return to New City often enough for Mayor Peoples and Aunt Gus to appear regularly.
The series was created and co-produced by Irving Brecher, who was also the creator of the 1949 situation comedy, The Life of Riley. Although The People’s Choice never made the top 30 programs, its ratings were respectable enough to warrant a three-year run on NBC. The show later became popular in syndication.
Gidget is an American situation comedy about a surfing, boy-crazy teenager called “Gidget” and her widowed father Russ Lawrence, a UCLA professor. Sally Field stars as Gidget with Don Porter as father Russell Lawrence. The series was first broadcast on ABC from September 15th, 1965 to April 21st, 1966.
The television series was based upon concepts and characters created by Frederick Kohner in his 1957 novel Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas, which Kohner based upon the adventures of his teenage daughter Kathy. The novel was adapted into a 1959 movie starring Sandra Dee, James Darren and Cliff Robertson. The 1965 weekly, half-hour television series is seen by some as a sequel to the 1959 film, despite numerous discontinuities in plot, time frame and other details. It can also be seen as an independent incarnation, related to but distinct from either the novels or the films. Kohner served as a script consultant on the show.
The series reintroduced Gidget’s friend Larue and married sister Anne Cooper, both of whom appear in Kohner’s original novel, but are absent from the motion picture series. Gidget’s brother-in-law, who appears in the novels as the intelligent but condescending child psychiatrist Larry Cooper is reinvented in the television series as John Cooper, an obtuse but lovable psychology student.
Gidget is about the father-daughter relationship between Frances “Gidget” Lawrence and her widowed father Russell Lawrence. Episodes follow Gidget’s adventures in school, at home, and at nearby beaches. Russell Lawrence guides his daughter through her fifteenth year, while married sister Anne and husband John offer often unsolicited child-rearing tips. Gidget’s friend Larue sometimes takes part in her escapades. More often than not, Gidget receives moral instruction from her father and gains wisdom from her experiences.
Each episode is narrated by Gidget; on occasion, she breaks the Fourth wall and directly addresses her audience, usually reflecting on what she has learned from the evening’s story, sometimes ending with “Toodles!” (an expression Field improvised during production).
Gidget was filmed at the Columbia/Warner Bros. Ranch in Burbank, California, with the exterior and kitchen set borrowed from the Hazel series, which was filming its final season at the time. The house situated next door to the Lawrence residence is the principal residence on Bewitched series, which was in production simultaneously.
The show launched the career of 18-year-old Sally Field, who defeated 75 other teenage girls for the title role. Field exaggerated her surfing experience to the show’s casting directors during her audition (she had none); she later took lessons from Phil Sauers just to be able to pretend to surf for the cameras. Sauers served as the series’ “Surfing Technical Consultant” and provided the surfboards used during filming of the series. While the Gidget of the novel and the original film are both blondes, the Gidget of the television series is a brunette.
The lyrics of the theme song “”(Wait ‘Til You See) My Gidget” were written by Howard Greenfield, with music by Jack Keller. The song was performed in the pilot by The Four Freshmen, and in the series by Johnny Tillotson.
Gidget faced stiff competition during its initial run. The show originally aired on Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m., opposite The Beverly Hillbillies (CBS) and The Virginian (NBC), two established shows with strong ratings. The series was moved to Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. starting with Episode 18 (“Like Voodoo”) where it performed poorly opposite CBS’s Gilligan’s Island, despite airing after the Top 5-rated Batman.
ABC cancelled Gidget in April 1966 — just as the show began to find a large teen audience. Summer reruns launched the show into the Top 10 as viewers looked for programs they had not seen during their original fall/winter broadcasts. ABC had a belated hit on their hands, but refused to renew the show because they would have to admit they were premature in its cancellation. In addition, industry practice at the time rarely allowed for cancelled shows to be resurrected.
Rather than squander their newly found audience which ABC was hurting for at the time, the network scrambled to find a new starring vehicle for Field. The result was The Flying Nun (1967–70), where Field reluctantly portrayed Sister Bertrille for three seasons. Field later commented that she has great affection for her young persona and was proud of her work on Gidget but was embarrassed with The Flying Nun.
Room 222 is an American comedy-drama television series produced by 20th Century Fox Television. The series aired on ABC for 112 episodes from September 17th, 1969 until January 11th, 1974. The series focused on an American history class at the fictional Walt Whitman High School in Los Angeles, California, although it also depicted other events […]
Land of the Giants is an hour-long American science fiction television program lasting two seasons beginning on September 22nd, 1968, and ending on March 22nd, 1970. The show was created and produced by Irwin Allen. Land of the Giants was the fourth of Allen’s science fiction TV series. The show was aired on ABC and […]
The Time Tunnel is a 1966–1967 U.S. color science fiction TV series, written around a theme of time travel adventure. The show was creator-producer Irwin Allen’s third science fiction television series, released by 20th Century Fox and broadcast on ABC. The show ran for one season of 30 episodes. Project Tic-Toc is a top secret […]
The Long, Hot Summer is an American drama series from 20th Century Fox Television that was broadcast on ABC-TV for one season from 1965-1966. Created by Dean Riesner, The Long, Hot Summer was based on the novel The Hamlet by William Faulkner, the short story “Barn Burning”, and the 1958 film of the same name. […]
Lost in Space is an American science fiction television series created and produced by Irwin Allen, filmed by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15th, 1965, and March 6th, 1968. Though the original television series concept centered on the Robinson family, […]
Daniel Boone is an American action-adventure television series starring Fess Parker as Daniel Boone that aired from September 24th, 1964 to September 10th, 1970 on NBC for 165 episodes, and was made by 20th Century Fox Television. Ed Ames co-starred as Mingo, Boone’s Cherokee friend, for the first four seasons of the series. Albert Salmi […]
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is a 1960s American science fiction television series based on the 1961 film of the same name. Both were created by Irwin Allen. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was the first of Irwin Allen’s four science fiction television series, as well as the longest running. It […]
The Doris Day Show is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS Television network from September 1968 until March 1973, remaining on the air for five seasons and 128 episodes. The Doris Day Show was also the title of her radio show which aired from Hollywood in 1952, with “It’s Magic” as […]
A “hippie” undercover cop show that ran on ABC from September 24th, 1968, until August 23rd, 1973. It starred Michael Cole as Pete Cochran, Peggy Lipton as Julie Barnes, Clarence Williams III as Linc Hayes, and Tige Andrews as Captain Adam Greer. The executive producers of the series were Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas. They were The Mod Squad (“One black, one white, one blond”), the hippest and first young undercover […]
Lancer is an American Western series that aired on CBS from September 1968, to May 1970. Lancer lasted for fifty-one hour-long episodes shot in color. The series stars Andrew Duggan, James Stacy, and Wayne Maunder as a father with two half-brother sons, an arrangement similar to the more successful Bonanza on NBC. Duggan stars as […]
Julia is an American sitcom notable for being one of the first weekly series to depict an African American woman in a non-stereotypical role. Previous television series featured African American lead characters, but the characters were usually servants. The show stars actress and singer Diahann Carroll, and ran for 86 episodes on NBC from September 17th, 1968 to March 23rd, 1971. The series was produced […]
My Mother the Car is an American fantasy sitcom which aired for a single season on NBC between September 14th, 1965 and April 5th, 1966. A total of 30 episodes were produced by United Artists Television. Critics and adult viewers generally panned the show, often savagely. My Mother the Car was an original variation on […]
Hullabaloo is an American musical variety series that ran on NBC from January 12th, 1965 through August 29th, 1966. Similar to Shindig! it ran in prime time in contrast to ABC’s American Bandstand. Directed by Steve Binder, who went on to direct Elvis Presley’s ’68 Comeback Special, Hullabaloo served as a big-budget, quality showcase for […]
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is an American television series that was broadcast on NBC from September 22nd, 1964, to January 15th, 1968. It follows the exploits of two secret agents, played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, who work for a fictitious secret international espionage and law-enforcement agency called U.N.C.L.E. Originally co-creator Sam Rolfe wanted […]
World War One is an American documentary television series that was shown on CBS during the 1964–1965 television season to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the war. The series was produced by CBS News, which featured 26 half-hour episodes, was narrated by Robert Ryan. World War One originally aired on Tuesday nights […]
Peyton Place is an American prime-time soap opera which aired on ABC in half-hour episodes from September 15th, 1964 to June 2nd, 1969. Based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious, the series was preceded by a 1957 film adaptation. A total of 514 episodes were broadcast, in black-and-white from 1964 […]
The Tycoon is a 32-episode American situation comedy television series broadcast by ABC. It starred Walter Brennan as the fictitious businessman Walter Andrews, similar to his birth name of Walter Andrew Brennan. The series aired with new episodes at 9 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday from September 15th, 1964, until April 27th, 1965. It continued in […]
The Huntley-Brinkley Report (sometimes known as The Texaco Huntley-Brinkley Report, for one of its early sponsors) was the NBC television network’s flagship evening news program from October 29th, 1956, until July 31st, 1970. It was anchored by Chet Huntley in New York City, and David Brinkley in Washington, D.C. It succeeded the Camel News Caravan, […]
The Golden Touch of Frankie Carle was a short-lived musical variety television series broadcast in the United States by NBC from August to October 1956. The Golden Touch of Frankie Carle featured the pianist and guest singers performing a variety of music, including popular standards and the current hits of the day. The program’s main […]
The Kaiser Aluminum Hour is a dramatic anthology television series which was broadcast in prime time in the United States during the 1956-57 season by NBC. The Kaiser Aluminum Hour was shown on alternate Tuesday nights at 9:30 pm Eastern time in rotation with the longer-running Armstrong Circle Theatre, with the first broadcast airing on July 3rd, 1956 and the final one on June […]
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the time the show premiered on October 2nd, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades. Alfred Hitchcock Presents is well known for its title sequence. The camera fades in on a simple line-drawing caricature of Hitchcock’s rotund […]
The Phil Silvers Show, originally titled You’ll Never Get Rich, was a situation comedy which ran on CBS from 1955 to 1959 for 142 episodes, plus a 1959 special. The series starred Phil Silvers as Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko of the United States Army. The series was created and largely written by Nat Hiken, and won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Comedy Series. The show […]
Navy Log is an American drama anthology series that initially aired for one season on CBS. It relates the greatest survival war stories in the history of the United States Navy. This series premiered on September 20th, 1955, but the following year, it was moved to ABC, where it aired until September 25th, 1958. The […]
Warner Bros. Presents is the umbrella title for three series telecast as part of the 1955-56 season on ABC: Cheyenne, a new Western series that originated on Presents, and two based on classic Warner Bros. films, Casablanca and Kings Row. At first, Warner Bros., like most other Hollywood studios, had seen television as a threat that it wished would disappear. Jack Warner tried to dismiss it as a mere passing fad, but by […]
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is a western television series loosely based on the life of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour black-and-white program aired for 229 episodes on ABC from 1955 to 1961 and featured Hugh O’Brian in the title role. O’Brian was chosen for the role in part because of his […]
John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly (generally known as John Charles Daly or simply John Daly (February 20th, 1914 – February 24th, 1991) was an American journalist, game show host and radio personality, probably best known for hosting the panel show What’s My Line?. He was the vice president of ABC during the 1950s. On December […]
Talent Varieties is a country music talent show on American network television and radio in 1955 that featured performers hoping to achieve fame in the entertainment business.The weekly ABC-TV program was a live half-hour summer replacement series hosted by Slim Wilson. Wilson introduced the amateur and professional talent, including music and comedy acts (many from the Ozarks); and his Tall Timber Trio, composed of Speedy Haworth (guitar), Bob White (bass […]
High Finance is a quiz show created and hosted by Dennis James which aired on CBS from July 7th to December 15th, 1956. It followed Gunsmoke on the CBS schedule. High Finance aired at 10:30 p.m. Saturdays opposite NBC’s Your Hit Parade.
On the program, contestants answered questions about current events. The player would be asked five questions based on three newspapers which he or she studied before the show. Each correct answer earned $300. Three correct answers allowed the player to play the “investment segment” in which he or she wagered any amount of the money won on answering a question. A correct answer won the wager and a prize, plus the option to risk any prizes won and return the next week to play another “investment segment” or keep any prizes won and leave the show. A fourth win would earn that player his or her “dream prize”, such as a miniature golf course or a restaurant. A fifth successful “investment segment” won that player an additional $75,000.
MGM Parade is the title of a documentary television series produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and broadcast by the ABC network during the 1955-56 season on Wednesdays at 8:30pm (E.S.T.), under the alternate sponsorship of American Tobacco (Pall Mall), and General Foods (Instant Maxwell House).
Hosted by George Murphy (September 14th, 1955 – March 7th, 1956), Walter Pidgeon (March 14th – May 2nd, 1956) and other MGM stars, the series went into the MGM vaults to offer segments extracted from such past productions as Good News (1947) and The Pirate (1948); in December, a condensed edition of the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol was presented for the first time on television. Exploring the inner workings of the MGM studios, it featured interviews with prominent MGM actresses and actors to promote current and upcoming releases. The program also presented edited “selected short subjects” from the studio’s library (Carey Wilson’s Miniatures, John Nesbitt’s Passing Parade, Pete Smith’s Specialties, Robert Benchley, Tex Avery’s cartoons, et al.). After Walter Pidgeon became the host, the format was slightly altered to include edited multi-part versions of “classic” MGM feature films, including Captains Courageous and The Pirate, as well as a biography of Greta Garbo.
The Alcoa Hour is an American anthology television series that was aired live on NBC from 1955 to 1957. The series was sponsored by Alcoa.
Like the Philco Television Playhouse and Goodyear Television Playhouse that had preceded it, The Alcoa Hour was a one-hour live dramatic anthology series presenting both original stories and adaptations of popular works. The three series were essentially the same, with the only real difference being the name of the sponsor.
The series alternated weeks in the same time slot with the Goodyear Television Playhouse until both series ended in 1957.
One of the series’ memorable episodes was the December 23rd, 1956, telecast of The Stingiest Man in Town, a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, starring Basil Rathbone as Scrooge and Martyn Green as Bob Cratchit.
The show garnered press in February 1956 for actor Lloyd Bridges’ emotional performance in an episode titled “Tragedy in a Temporary Town”, directed by Sidney Lumet. During the performance, Bridges inadvertently slipped some profanity in while ad-libbing. Although the slip of the lip generated hundreds of complaints, the episode won a Robert E. Sherwood Television Award, with Bridges’ slip being defended even by some members of the clergy. The episode, during which an innocent Latino man is targeted by a mob for a sexual crime, was cited by the Anti-Defamation League as “the best dramatic program of the year dealing with inter-ethnic group relations.”
