The United States Steel Hour is an anthology series which brought hour-long dramas to television from 1953 to 1963. The television series and the radio program that preceded it were both sponsored by the United States Steel Corporation. The series originated on radio in the 1940s as Theatre Guild on the Air.
The television version aired from 1953 to 1955 on ABC, and from 1955 to 1963 on CBS. Like its radio predecessor, it was a live dramatic anthology series. During its first season on television, the program alternated bi-weekly with The Motorola Television Hour. By 1963, the year it went off the air, it was the last surviving live anthology series from the Golden Age of Television. It was still on the air during President John F. Kennedy’s famous April 11th, 1962 confrontation with steel companies over the hefty raising of their prices. The show featured a range of television acting talent, as its episodes explored a wide variety of contemporary social issues, from the mundane to the controversial.
Notable guest actors included Martin Balsam, Tallulah Bankhead, James Dean, Keir Dullea, Andy Griffith, Rex Harrison, Celeste Holm, Sally Ann Howes, Jack Klugman, Peter Lorre, Walter Matthau, Paul Newman, George Peppard, Suzanne Storrs, Albert Salmi, and Johnny Washbrook. Washbrook played Johnny Sullivan in The Roads Home in his first-ever screen role.
Griffith made his onscreen debut in the show’s production of No Time For Sergeants, and would reprise the lead role in the 1958 big screen adaptation. Child actor Darryl Richard, later of The Donna Reed Show, also made his acting debut on the Steel Hour as Tony in the episode “The Bogey Man,” which aired January 18th, 1955. In 1960 Johnny Carson starred with Anne Francis in the presentation Queen of the Orange Bowl.
Episodes were contributed by many notable writers, including Ira Levin, Richard Maibaum and Rod Serling. The program also telecast one-hour musical versions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The United States Steel Hour telecast The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on November 20th, 1957 with a cast starring Jimmy Boyd, Earle Hyman, Basil Rathbone, Jack Carson and Florence Henderson. Boyd had previously played Huckleberry in the earlier telecast of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
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, anchored by John Cameron Swayze. The program ran for 15 minutes at its inception but expanded to 30 minutes on September 9th, 1963, exactly a week after CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite did so. It was developed and produced initially by Reuven Frank. Frank left the program in 1962 to produce documentaries (Eliot Frankel replaced him) but returned to the program the following year when it expanded to 30 minutes. He was succeeded as executive producer in 1965 by Robert “Shad” Northshield and in 1969 by Wallace Westfeldt.
By 1956, NBC executives had grown dissatisfied with Swayze in his role anchoring the network’s evening news program, which fell behind its main competition, CBS’s Douglas Edwards with the News, in 1955. Network executive Ben Park suggested replacing Swayze with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, who had garnered favorable attention anchoring NBC’s coverage of the national political conventions that summer. Bill McAndrew, NBC’s director of news (later NBC News president), had seen a highly rated local news program on NBC affiliate WSAZ-TV in Huntington, West Virginia, with two anchors reporting from different cities. He replaced Camel News Caravan with the Huntley-Brinkley Report, which premiered on October 29th, 1956, with Huntley in New York and Brinkley in Washington. Producer Reuven Frank, who had advocated pairing Huntley and Brinkley for the convention coverage, thought using two anchors on a regular news program “was one of the dumber ideas I had ever heard.” Nonetheless, on the day of the new program’s first broadcast, Frank authored the program’s closing line, “Good night, Chet. Good night, David. And good night, for NBC News.” This exchange became one of television’s most famous catchphrases even though both Huntley and Brinkley initially disliked it.
Huntley handled the bulk of the news most nights, with Brinkley specializing in Washington-area news (i.e., the White House, U.S. Congress, the Pentagon). Having two anchors also helped during vacation periods; one could handle the full show if necessary, leaving viewers with a familiar anchor instead of a little-known substitute such as a field reporter. When only Huntley or Brinkley was on the program, that one would merely say “Good night for NBC News”. The closing credits music for the broadcast was the second movement (scherzo) of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, from the 1952 studio recording with Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra.
Initially, the program lost audience from Swayze’s program, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower let it be known that he was displeased by the switch. In the summer of 1957, the program had no advertisers. As its content improved, though, it began attracting critical praise and a larger audience, and by 1958, it had pulled even with CBS’s program. The program received a big boost when, in June 1958, Texaco began purchasing all of its advertising, an arrangement that continued for three years.
Critics considered Huntley to possess one of the best broadcast voices ever heard, and Brinkley’s dry, often witty, newswriting presented viewers a contrast to the often sober output from CBS News. The program received a Peabody Award in 1958 for “Outstanding Achievement in News,” the awards committee noting that the anchors had “developed a mature and intelligent treatment of the news that has become a welcome and refreshing institution for millions of viewers.” The program received the award again two years later in the same category, the committee concluding that Huntley and Brinkley had “dominated the news division of television so completely in the past year that it would be unthinkable to present a Peabody Award in that category to anybody else.” By that time, the program had surpassed CBS’s evening news program, Douglas Edwards with the News, in ratings and maintained higher viewership levels for much of the 1960s, even after Walter Cronkite took over CBS’s competing program (initially named Walter Cronkite with the News in 1962 and renamed the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in 1963). It received eight Emmy Awards in its 14-year run.
Huntley and Brinkley conveyed a strong chemistry, and a survey for NBC later found that viewers liked that the anchors talked to each other. In fact, aside from their sign-off, Huntley and Brinkley’s only communication came when one anchor finished a story and handed off to the other by saying the other’s name, a signal to an AT&T technician to switch the long-distance transmission lines from New York to Washington or vice versa. The anchors gained great celebrity, and surveys showed them better known than John Wayne, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, or the Beatles. In 1961, Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle entertained a crowd in Washington by singing, to the tune of “Love and Marriage,” “Huntley,Brinkley/Huntley,Brinkley/One is glum, the other quite twinkly.”
Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. was shown in a 1964 photograph watching the Huntley-Brinkley Report on a television backstage in his dressing room in Life magazine, who quoted him saying, “My only contact with reality. Whatever I’m doing, I stop to watch these guys.”
It’s pretty simple really. We grew up on 3 channel Prime Time TV. These shows remind us about every aspect of growing up in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, and we share this site with you, so we can all enjoy looking back at a time when it really did seem so much simpler and easier.
The Bing Crosby Show is a 28-episode situation comedy television program starring crooner, film star, iconic phenomenon, and businessman Bing Crosby and actress Beverly Garland as a middle-aged couple, Bing and Ellie Collins, rearing two teenaged daughters during the early 1960s. In this format, Crosby portrayed a former entertainer turned architectural designer with a penchant for singing, and each episode usually contained at least one song. Produced by Crosby’s own company, affiliated with Desilu Studios and subsequently CBS Paramount Television, the series aired on ABC from September 14th, 1964, to April 19th, 1965. Rebroadcasts continued until June 14th.
The roles of the daughters Janice and Joyce Collins were played by Carol Faylen and Diane Sherry, respectively. Top Warner Bros. character actor Frank McHugh appeared as Willie Walters, the Collins’s live-in handyman. Christopher Riordan and Pamela Austin appeared twice on the program, Riordan as an unnamed “Neighbor” and Austin as Clarissa Roberts.
Guest stars included Herbert Anderson, Frankie Avalon, Jack Benny, Jimmy Boyd, Macdonald Carey, Vikki Carr, Dennis Day, Roger Ewing, Glenda Farrell, Joan Fontaine, Kathy Garver, George Gobel, Kathryn Grant (Crosby’s second wife, also known as Kathryn Crosby), Pat Harrington, Jr., Phil Harris, Charles Lane, Nobu McCarthy, Gary Morton, Ken Murray, Lloyd Nolan, Ruth Roman, and James Shigeta.
The Bing Crosby Show, alternately sponsored by Ford Motor Company’s Lincoln-Mercury division and Lever Brothers, aired at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on Mondays. The series faced competition on CBS from the sitcom Many Happy Returns, and on NBC, Crosby faced the second half of the popular The Andy Williams Show, which alternated with a Jonathan Winters variety show, The Jonathan Winters Show (the 1956 TV series).
This Is Your Life was an American documentary series broadcast on NBC radio 1948 to 1952, and on NBC television 1952 to 1961. It was originally hosted by its producer Ralph Edwards. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience, including special […]
Cavalcade of America is an anthology drama series that was sponsored by the DuPont Company, although it occasionally presented a musical, such as an adaptation of Show Boat, and condensed biographies of popular composers. It was initially broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1953, and later on television from 1952 to 1957. Originally on CBS, […]
Two for the Money is an American game show television program which ran from 1952 to 1957. The show ran for one season on NBC, and four seasons on CBS. It was a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production, and was initially sponsored by Old Gold cigarettes. Humorist Herb Shriner was the host for most of the […]
Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953 (both sponsors’ names alternated as part of the show’s title in its initial broadcasts). […]
Chance of a Lifetime was a competitive talent show which aired on ABC in 1952 – 1953 and 1955 – 1956 and on DuMont 1953 – 1955. Dennis James was the host of the ABC version which ended on August 20th, 1953, and John Reed King was the host of the DuMont version, which ran […]
Masquerade Party is an American television game show. During its original run from 1952–1960, the show appeared at various times on all three major networks except DuMont (ABC, NBC, and CBS). A syndicated revival was produced for one season in 1974-75. A panel of celebrities met with another celebrity that was in heavy make-up and/or costume; this disguise would always […]
I’ve Got a Secret is a panel game show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS television. Created by comedy writers Allan Sherman and Howard Merrill, it was a derivative of Goodson-Todman’s own panel show What’s My Line?. Instead of celebrity panelists trying to determine a contestant’s occupation, the panel tries to determine a contestant’s “secret”: something that is unusual, amazing, embarrassing, or humorous about that person. The […]
Life is Worth Living is an inspirational American television series which ran on the DuMont Television Network from February 12th, 1952 to April 26th, 1955, then on ABC until 1957, featuring the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. (Similar series, also featuring Sheen, followed in 1958–61 and 1961–68.) Hosted by Bishop (later Archbishop) Fulton J. Sheen, the series consisted mainly of Sheen speaking to the camera and […]
“Ladies and Gentlemen: The story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.” Dragnet is an American radio, television and motion picture series, enacting the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show takes its name from the […]
The Dinah Shore Show is an American variety show which was broadcast by NBC from November 1951 to January 1956, sponsored by General Motors’ Chevrolet division. For most of the program’s run, it aired from 7:30 to 7:45 Eastern Time on Tuesday and Thursday nights, rounding out the time slot which featured the network’s regular […]
I Love Lucy is a landmark American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15th, 1951, to May 6th, 1957, on CBS. After the series ended in 1957, however, a modified version continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials, running from 1957 to 1960, known first as The Lucille Ball-Desi […]
The Goodyear Television Playhouse is an American anthology series that was telecast live on NBC from 1951 to 1957 during the “Golden Age of Television.” Sponsored by Goodyear, Goodyear alternated sponsorship with Philco, and the Philco Television Playhouse was seen on alternate weeks. In 1955, the title was shortened to The Goodyear Playhouse and it […]
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars is an anthology series that was telecast from 1951 until 1959 on CBS. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. The title was shortened to Schlitz Playhouse, beginning with the fall 1957 season. Initially, the show was broadcast live, but starting in the […]
The Red Skelton Show is an American variety show that was a television staple for two decades, from 1951 to 1971. The host of the show, Richard Bernard “Red” Skelton, who had previously been a radio star, had appeared in several motion pictures as well. Although his television series is largely associated with CBS, where it appeared for more than fifteen years, it actually began and […]
Midwestern Hayride, sometimes known as Midwest Hayride, was an American country music show originating in the 1930s from WLW-AM and later from WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio. During the 1950s it was carried nationally by NBC and then ABC television. The program featured live country music (performed mainly by local musicians but on lesser occasions by national stars) and what was then called “hayseed” comedy, much of which […]
Down You Go is an American television game show originally broadcast on the DuMont Television Network. The Emmy Award-nominated series ran from 1951–1956 as a prime time series primarily hosted by Dr. Bergen Evans. Down You Go was similar to “Hangman”, with a group of four celebrity panelists who were asked to guess a word […]
You Asked for It was a popular human interest show created and hosted by Art Baker. Initially titled The Art Baker Show, the program originally aired on American television between 1950 and 1959. On the show, viewers were asked to send in postcards describing something that they wanted to see on television, such as the […]
Burns and Allen, an American comedy duo consisting of George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen, worked together as a comedy team in vaudeville, films, radio and television and achieved great success over four decades. Burns and Allen met in 1922 and first performed together at the Hill Street Theatre in Newark, New Jersey, continued in small town vaudeville theaters, married in Cleveland on January 7, 1926, and moved up […]
You Bet Your Life is an American quiz show that aired on both radio and television. The original and best-known version was hosted by Groucho Marx of the Marx Brothers, with announcer and assistant George Fenneman. The show debuted on ABC Radio in October 1947, then moved to CBS Radio in September 1949 before making the transition to NBC-TV in October 1950. Because of its simple format, it was […]
Big Town is a popular long-running radio drama series which was later adapted to both film and television and a comic book published by DC Comics. When Big Town moved to television, the program was telecast live, but in 1952 the production switched to film after the move from New York City to Hollywood. The television series ran on CBS from 1950 through 1954, continuing on NBC from 1955 through 1956. Repeat episodes aired on […]
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 Big Surprise is a television quiz game show broadcast in the United States by NBC from October 8th, 1955 to June 9th, 1956 and from September 18th, 1956 to April 2nd, 1957. It was hastily created by NBC in response to the overwhelming ratings success of The $64,000 Question, which had premiered on CBS in Summer 1955 and almost instantly became a smash hit. The Big Surprise […]
The $64,000 Question is an American game show broadcast from 1955–1958, which became embroiled in the scandals involving TV quiz shows of the day. The $64,000 Challenge (1956–1958) was its popular spin-off show. The $64,000 Question premiered June 7th, 1955 on CBS-TV, sponsored by cosmetics maker Revlon and originating from the start live from CBS-TV Studio 52 in New York (later the disco-theater Studio […]
People Are Funny is an American radio and television game show, created by John Guedel that remained popular throughout the 1940s and 1950s. The program ran from 1942 to 1960. The program’s stunts and audience participation were calculated to reveal the humorous side of human nature. After contestants were sent from the studio to perform […]
Dollar a Second is an American comedy game show hosted by Jan Murray which originally aired from September 20th, 1953 to June 14th, 1954 on the DuMont Television Network. One pair of contestants (or a solo player) were selected to perform a certain task, which could be anything. They earn one dollar for every second […]
Name That Tune is an American television game show that put two contestants against each other to test their knowledge of songs. Premiering in the United States on NBC Radio in 1952, the show was created and produced by Harry Salter and his wife Roberta. Name That Tune ran from 1953 to 1959 on NBC and CBS in prime time. The first hosts were Red Benson […]
Two for the Money is an American game show television program which ran from 1952 to 1957. The show ran for one season on NBC, and four seasons on CBS. It was a Mark Goodson-Bill Todman production, and was initially sponsored by Old Gold cigarettes. Humorist Herb Shriner was the host for most of the […]
Masquerade Party is an American television game show. During its original run from 1952–1960, the show appeared at various times on all three major networks except DuMont (ABC, NBC, and CBS). A syndicated revival was produced for one season in 1974-75. A panel of celebrities met with another celebrity that was in heavy make-up and/or costume; this disguise would always […]
I’ve Got a Secret is a panel game show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS television. Created by comedy writers Allan Sherman and Howard Merrill, it was a derivative of Goodson-Todman’s own panel show What’s My Line?. Instead of celebrity panelists trying to determine a contestant’s occupation, the panel tries to determine a contestant’s “secret”: something that is unusual, amazing, embarrassing, or humorous about that person. The […]
Down You Go is an American television game show originally broadcast on the DuMont Television Network. The Emmy Award-nominated series ran from 1951–1956 as a prime time series primarily hosted by Dr. Bergen Evans. Down You Go was similar to “Hangman”, with a group of four celebrity panelists who were asked to guess a word […]
You Bet Your Life is an American quiz show that aired on both radio and television. The original and best-known version was hosted by Groucho Marx of the Marx Brothers, with announcer and assistant George Fenneman. The show debuted on ABC Radio in October 1947, then moved to CBS Radio in September 1949 before making the transition to NBC-TV in October 1950. Because of its simple format, it was […]
Truth or Consequences is an American television game show originally hosted on NBC radio by Ralph Edwards (1940–1957) and later on television by Edwards (1950–1954), Jack Bailey (1954–1955), and Bob Barker (1956–1975). The television show ran on CBS, NBC and also in syndication. The premise of the show was to mix the original quiz element […]
Beat the Clock is a Goodson-Todman game show that aired on American television in several versions since 1950. The original show, hosted by Bud Collyer, ran on CBS from 1950 to 1958 and ABC from 1958 to 1961. The show was revived in syndication as The New Beat the Clock from 1969 to 1974, with Jack Narz as host until 1972, when he was replaced by the show’s […]
What’s My Line? is a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, with several international versions and subsequent U.S. revivals. The game tasks celebrity panelists with questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations. It is the longest-running U.S. primetime network television game-show. […]
Stop the Music was a prime time television game show that aired for an hour on Thursday evenings on ABC from May 5th, 1949 to April 24th, 1952, and again for a half-hour from September 7th, 1954 to June 14th, 1956. The show had also been broadcast on radio from 1948 to 1949. http://archive.org/download/stopTheMusic-Misc1955Episode/StopTheMusic1955.mp4 The program aired at 9 pm ET on Thursdays for […]
Break the Bank is an American quiz show which aired variously on Mutual Radio and ABC, CBS and NBC television from 1945 to 1957. From October 1956 to January 1957, NBC Television aired a short-lived prime-time version called Break the $250,000 Bank. Sponsored by Vicks, the series began on radio October 20, 1945, heard Saturdays on Mutual until April 13th, 1946. Initially, it featured different hosts each week, including John […]
The Johnny Carson Show is a 1955-56 half hour prime time television variety show starring Johnny Carson.
While working as a staff writer on The Red Skelton Show, local Los Angeles television comedian Carson filled in as host when Skelton was injured during a show rehearsal. As a result of Carson’s performance, CBS created the primetime variety program The Johnny Carson Show, a traditional potpourri of comedy, music, dance, skits and monologues. It aired on Thursday nights at 10pm ET.
The short-lived 1955-56 series served as a precursor of what would come later for Carson, planting the seeds for sketches he would perform on the later The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson such as “Mighty Carson Art Players”. However, the show flopped in the ratings and was quickly cancelled. This show was produced in Los Angeles at CBS Television City. The show was alternately sponsored by Revlon, and General Foods (Jell-O, instant Sanka, and Minute Rice).
Johnny Carson wound up hosting a daytime game show called Who Do You Trust? (1957–62) until he was tapped by NBC to replace the departing Jack Paar as host of The Tonight Show in 1962.
The Lineup is an American police drama which aired on CBS radio from 1950 to 1953 and on CBS television from 1954 to 1960.
The television version was set specifically in San Francisco and was produced with the cooperation of the San Francisco Police Department, which received a credit at the close of each episode. It starred Warner Anderson as Guthrie and Tom Tully as Grebb, who was now an inspector instead of a sergeant, because at the time the series was made, there was no such rank as sergeant in the Bureau of Inspectors, SFPD’s investigative division. A full inspector was the closest equivalent to the generic detective sergeant the character had been on radio. The TV version, a CBS Television Production, was filmed on location, using Desilu’s production facilities. In the final season, the show expanded to an hour, and the Grebb character was replaced by a number of younger officers. Syndicated reruns of the series were broadcast under the title San Francisco Beat.
The Johnny Cash Show was an American television music variety show hosted by Johnny Cash. The Screen Gems 58-episode series ran from June 7th, 1969 to March 31st, 1971 on ABC; it was taped at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. The show reached No. 17 in the Nielsen ratings in 1970. Cash opened each […]
This Is Tom Jones was an ATV variety series starring Tom Jones. The series was exported to the United States by ITC Entertainment and was networked there by ABC. The series ran between 1969 and 1971 to total 65 color episodes. Jones was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for “Best Actor In a Television […]
The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour is an American network television music and comedy variety show hosted by singer Glen Campbell from January 1969 through June 1972 on CBS. He was offered the show after he hosted a 1968 summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Campbell used “Gentle on My Mind” as the theme song of the show. The […]
The Ghost & Mrs. Muir is an American situation comedy based on the 1947 film of the same name, which was based on the 1945 novel by R. A. Dick. Itpremiered in September 1968 on NBC. After NBC canceled the series, it aired on ABC for one season before being canceled a final time. The series stars Hope Lange as Carolyn Muir, a young widow […]
Blondie (also known as The New Blondie) is an American sitcom that aired on CBS during the 1968-1969 television season. The series is an updated version of the 1957 TV series that was based on the comic strip of the same name. The series stars Will Hutchins as Dagwood Bumstead and Jim Backusas his boss Mr. Dithers, and featured child character actress Pamelyn Ferdin as the Bumstead’s daughter, and […]
The Ugliest Girl in Town is a short-lived American sitcom produced by Screen Gems for ABC. It ran from September 26th, 1968 to January 30th, 1969. Timothy Blair is a Hollywood talent agent. He falls in love with Julie Renfield, a British actress who is visiting the United States to do a movie. After that movie is finished, she returns to […]
Here Come the Brides is an American comedy Western series from Screen Gems that aired on the ABC television network from September 25th, 1968 to April 3rd, 1970. The series was loosely based upon the Mercer Girls, Asa Mercer‘s efforts to bring civilization to old Seattle by importing marriageable women from the east coast of the United States in the 1860s, where the ravages of the American Civil […]
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 […]
Mayberry R.F.D. is an American television series produced as a spin-off and direct continuation of The Andy Griffith Show. When star Andy Griffith decided to leave his series, most of the supporting characters returned for the new program, which ran for three seasons (78 episodes) on the CBS Television Network from 1968–1971. During the final season of The Andy Griffith Show, widower farmer Sam Jones (Ken […]
