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 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 U.S. government effort to build an experimental time machine, known as “The Time Tunnel” due to its appearance as a cylindrical hallway. The base for Project Tic-Toc is a huge, hidden underground complex in Arizona, 800 floors deep and employing over 36,000 people. The directors of the project are Dr. Douglas Phillips (Robert Colbert), Dr. Anthony Newman (James Darren), and Lt. General Heywood Kirk (Whit Bissell). The specialists assisting them are Dr. Raymond Swain (John Zaremba), a foremost expert in electronics, and Dr. Ann MacGregor (Lee Meriwether), an electro-biologist supervising the unit that determines how much force and heat a time traveler is able to withstand. The series is set in 1968, two years into the future of the actual broadcast season, 1966-67.
Project Tic-Toc is in its tenth year when United States Senator Leroy Clark (Gary Merrill) comes to investigate in order to determine whether the project, which has cost 7.5 billion dollars, is worth continuing. Senator Clark feels the project is a waste of government funds. When speaking to Phillips, Kirk, and Newman in front of the Time Tunnel, he delivers an ultimatum: either they send someone into time and return him during the course of his visit or their funding will cease. Tony volunteers for this endeavor, but he is turned down by project director Doug Phillips. Defying this decision, Tony sends himself into time. Doug follows shortly after to rescue him, but they both continue to be lost in time. Senator Clark returns to Washington with the promise that funding will not be cut off to the project, leaving General Kirk in charge.
The stage is set for the progress of the series as Tony and Doug are now “switched” from one period in history to another, allowing episodes to be set in the past and future. Each episode (up to episode 24) begins with the following narration (voiced by Dick Tufeld):
“Two American scientists are lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages, during the first experiments on America’s greatest and most secret project, the Time Tunnel. Tony Newman and Doug Phillips now tumble helplessly toward a new fantastic adventure, somewhere along the infinite corridors of time.”
Tony and Doug become participants of notable past events like the Sinking of the Titanic, the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the eruption of Krakatoa, Custer’s Last Stand, and the Battle of the Alamo among others. General Kirk, Ray, and Ann in the control room are able to locate them in time and space, observe them, communicate with them through voice contact, and send help. When the series is abruptly cancelled in the summer of 1967, they do not film an episode in which Tony and Doug are safely returned to the Time Tunnel complex.
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. […]
Mama is a weekly Maxwell House and Post-sponsored CBS television comedy-drama series that ran from July 1st, 1949 until March 17th, 1957. It is based on the memoir Mama’s Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes, which was also adapted for the 1944 John Van Druten play and the subsequent 1948 film I Remember Mama, and told […]
Arthur Godfrey and His Friends is an American television variety show hosted by Arthur Godfrey. The hour-long series aired on CBS Television from January 1949 to June 1957 (as The Arthur Godfrey Show after September 1956), then again as a half-hour show from September 1958 to April 1959. Many of Godfrey’s musical acts were culled from Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, which was airing on […]
The Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, is a radio-TV comedy series that ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy. Jack Benny made his TV debut in the 1949 season. There is a kinescope of his later November 1949 TV appearance on the intermittent Jack Benny Program special […]
Perry Como made the move to television when NBC initially televised the Chesterfield Supper Club radio program on December 24th, 1948. A very special guest on that first television show was Como’s eight-year-old son, Ronnie, as part of a boys’ choir singing “Silent Night” with his father. The show was the usual Friday night Chesterfield Supper Club with an important […]
Studio One is an American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. In 1948, Markle made a quantum leap from radio to television. Sponsored by Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the television series was seen on CBS (which Westinghouse owned between 1995 and 2000), from 1948 through 1958, under several variant titles: Studio One […]
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 […]
Ford Theatre, spelled Ford Theater for the radio version and known as Ford Television Theatre for the TV version, was a radio and television anthology series broadcast in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. At various times the television series appeared on all three major television networks, while the radio version was broadcast on two separate networks and on two separate […]
Douglas Edwards was America‘s first network news television anchor, anchoring CBS‘s first nightly news broadcast from 1948–1962, which was later to be titled CBS Evening News. In 1948, as CBS’s top correspondents and commentators shunned the fledgling medium of television, Edwards was chosen to present regular CBS television news programs and to host CBS’s television coverage of the 1948 Democratic […]
Our Miss Brooks is an American situation comedy starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television (1952–56), it became one of the medium’s earliest hits. Our Miss Brooks was considered groundbreaking for showing […]
The Original Amateur Hour is an American radio and television program. The show was a continuation of Major Bowes Amateur Hour which had been a radio staple from 1934 to 1945. The television debut came on January 18th, 1948 on the DuMont Television Network with Mack as the host. The regular staff for the television […]
The Addams Family is an American television series based on the characters in Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons. The 30-minute series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons on ABC from September 18th, 1964, to April 8th, 1966, for a total of 64 episodes.
It is often compared to its CBS rival, The Munsters, which ran for the same two seasons and achieved somewhat higher Nielsen ratings. The show is the first adaptation of the Addams family characters to feature The Addams Family Theme. The Addams Family was originally produced by Filmways, Inc. at General Service Studios in Hollywood, California.
The Addamses are a close-knit extended family with decidedly macabre interests. They are humans with supernatural abilities. No explanation for their powers is explicitly given in the series.
The very wealthy, endlessly enthusiastic Gomez Addams (John Astin) is madly in love with his refined wife, the former Morticia Frump (Carolyn Jones). Along with their daughter Wednesday (Lisa Loring), their son Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax), Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan), and Grandmama (Blossom Rock), they reside at 0001 Cemetery Lane in an ornate, gloomy, Second Empire-style mansion, attended by their servants: Lurch (Ted Cassidy), the towering butler, and Thing (billed as “itself” but played by Cassidy and occasionally by Jack Voglin), a disembodied hand that usually appears out of a small wooden box. Occasionally, episodes would feature relatives or other members of their weird subculture, such as Cousin Itt (Felix Silla) or Morticia’s older sister, Ophelia (also played by Carolyn Jones).
Much of the humor derives from their culture clash with the rest of the world. They invariably treat normal visitors with great warmth and courtesy, even though their guests often have evil intentions. They are puzzled by the horrified reactions to their good-natured and normal behavior since they are under the impression that their tastes are shared by most of society. Accordingly they view “conventional” tastes with generally tolerant suspicion. For example, Fester once cites a neighboring family’s meticulously maintained petunia patches as evidence that they are “nothing but riff-raff.” A recurring theme in the epilogue of many episodes was the Addamses getting an update on the most recent visitor to their home, either via something in the newspaper or a phone call. Invariably, as a result of their visit to the Addamses, the visitor would be institutionalized, change professions, move out of the country, or have some other negative life-changing event. The Addamses would always misinterpret the update and see it as good news for that most recent visitor.
The tone was set by series producer Nat Perrin who was a close friend of Groucho Marx and writer of several Marx Brothers films. Perrin created story ideas, directed one episode, and rewrote every script. Much of the dialog is his (albeit uncredited). As a result, Gomez, with his sardonic remarks, backwards logic, and ever-present cigar (pulled from his breast pocket already lit), is often compared to Groucho Marx. The series often employed the same type of zany satire and screwball humor seen in the Marx Brothers films. It lampooned politics (“Gomez, The Politician” and “Gomez, The People’s Choice”), the legal system (“The Addams Family in Court”), Beatlemania (“Lurch, The Teenage Idol”), and Hollywood (“My Fair Cousin Itt”).
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, […]
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 […]
The Camel News Caravan was a 15-minute American television news program aired by NBC News from February 14th, 1949, to October 26th, 1956. Sponsored by the Camel cigarette brand and anchored by John Cameron Swayze, it was the first NBC news program to use NBC filmed news stories rather than movie newsreels. On February 16, 1954, the Camel News Caravan became the first news program broadcast in color, making use of 16mm color film.In early […]
Douglas Edwards was America‘s first network news television anchor, anchoring CBS‘s first nightly news broadcast from 1948–1962, which was later to be titled CBS Evening News. In 1948, as CBS’s top correspondents and commentators shunned the fledgling medium of television, Edwards was chosen to present regular CBS television news programs and to host CBS’s television coverage of the 1948 Democratic […]
The Honeymooners is an American situation comedy, based on a recurring 1951–55 sketch of the same name. It originally aired on the DuMont network’s Cavalcade of Stars and subsequently on the CBS network’s The Jackie Gleason Show, which was filmed before a live audience. The Honeymooners debuted as a half-hour series on October 1st, 1955. […]
The Dotty Mack Show is an American variety show originally broadcast on the now defunct DuMont Television Network in 1953, and on ABC from 1953 to 1956. The program, produced and distributed from Cincinnati, aired Monday at 10:45 pm on most DuMont affiliates until July 1953, when it moved to Tuesdays at 9:30 pm. Originally […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Life Begins at Eighty is a panel discussion series which aired on American television from 1950 to 1956. The show first aired on NBC on January 13th, 1950, then on DuMont from March 21st, 1952 to July 24th, 1955, and finally on ABC. The last show was aired on ABC on February 25th, 1956. In […]
The Original Amateur Hour is an American radio and television program. The show was a continuation of Major Bowes Amateur Hour which had been a radio staple from 1934 to 1945. The television debut came on January 18th, 1948 on the DuMont Television Network with Mack as the host. The regular staff for the television […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
For the People is an American Legal drama that aired Sundays from January 31st until May 9th, 1965 on CBS. This one season, thirteen episode drama had William Shatner playing an assistant district attorney in New York City. The show’s cancellation left Shatner free to accept the role of Captain James T. Kirk on Star […]
Mr. Broadway is an American 13-episode CBS adventure and drama television series starring Craig Stevens as New York City public relations specialist Mike Bell. The program aired at 9 p.m. Eastern time Saturdays from September 26th to December 26th, 1964. Also featured were Bell’s assistant, Toki, portrayed by Lani Miyazaki, and his police contact, Hank […]
The Reporter is an American drama series that aired on CBS from September 25th to December 18th, 1964. The series was created by Jerome Weidman and developed by executive producers Keefe Brasselle and John Simon. The series stars Harry Guardino as Danny Taylor, a reporter for the fictitious New York Globe newspaper. Guardino’s co-stars were […]
12 O’Clock High (also known as Twelve O’Clock High) is an American drama series set in World War II. This TV series originally broadcast on ABC for two-and-one-half seasons from September 18th, 1964, through January 13th, 1967 and was based on the motion picture Twelve O’Clock High (1949). The series was a co-production of 20th […]
Letter to Loretta (also known as The Loretta Young Show) is an American anthology drama series telecast on NBC from September 1953 to June 1961 for a total of 165 episodes. The filmed show was hosted by Loretta Young who also played the lead in various episodes. Letter to Loretta was sponsored by Procter & Gamble from 1953 through 1960. The final season’s sponsor was Warner-Lambert’s Listerine. The program […]
Crusader (sometimes erroneously listed as The Crusader) is a half-hour black-and-white American adventure/drama series that aired on CBS for two seasons from October 7th, 1955 to December 28th, 1956. The series stars Brian Keith as the fictitious free-lance journalist Matt Anders, whose mother’s death in a World War II Nazi concentration camp in German-occupied Poland […]
The 20th Century Fox Hour is an American drama anthology series televised in the United States on CBS from 1955 to 1957. Presenting both originals and remakes, The 20th Century Fox Hour was telecast on Wednesday nights at 10pm, alternating each week with The U.S. Steel Hour. Many of the programs were shortened versions of […]
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a British television series comprising 143 half-hour, black and white episodes broadcast weekly between 1955 and 1959 on ITV. It stars Richard Greene as the outlaw Robin Hood and Alan Wheatley as his nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham. The show followed the legendary character Robin Hood and his band of merry men in Sherwood Forest and the surrounding vicinity. While some episodes dramatised the traditional Robin Hood […]
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 […]
Damon Runyon Theatre is an American television program that presented dramatized versions of Damon Runyon‘s short stories. Hosted by Donald Woods, the program, sponsored by Anheuser-Busch‘s Budweiser beer, aired for a total of 39 episodes on CBS from April 1955 through February 1956 (repeats continued through June).
Appointment with Adventure is a half-hour adventure dramatic anthology television series broadcast live on CBS from 1955-1956. The program has no host. It aired at 10 p.m. EST on the Sunday evening schedule between the better known Alfred Hitchcock Presents and What’s My Line? It ran opposite The Loretta Young Show on NBC and Life […]
TV Reader’s Digest is the title of a 30 minute American television anthology drama series which aired on the ABC from 1955 to 1956. Based on articles that appeared in Reader’s Digest magazine, the episodes based on true stories which were varied in their themes, plots and content. Themes included crime, heroism, mystery, romance, and […]
The first incarnation of the Walt Disney anthology television series, commonly called The Wonderful World of Disney, premiered on ABC on Wednesday night, October 27th, 1954 under the name Disneyland. The same basic show has since appeared on several networks under a variety of titles. Originally hosted by Walt Disney himself, the series presented animated cartoons and other material (some […]
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin is an American children’s television program. The show ran for five seasons on ABC on Friday evenings from October 1954 to May 1959, airing 166 episodes. ABC reran the series on late afternoons from September 1959 to September 1961. It starred child actor Lee Aaker as Rusty, a boy orphaned in an Indian raid, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
ABC Scope is a public affairs program that appeared on the ABC television network from 1964–1968, hosted by Howard K. Smith, the future anchor of the ABC Evening News. News reporters Louis Rukeyser, Frank Reynolds and John Scali also appeared. The program provided its viewer with an in-depth look at the important political, economic and […]
Profiles in Courage is an American historical anthology series that was telecast weekly on NBC from November 8th, 1964 to May 9th, 1965 (Sundays, 6:30-7:30pm, Eastern). The series was based on the recently-assassinated President John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage. The series lasted for 26 episodes, each of which would feature […]
90 Bristol Court is the umbrella title of a short-lived NBC experiment comprising three situation comedies set in a Southern California apartment complex located at the title address. The 90-minute block aired Monday nights and consisted of Karen (7:30-8:00pm), Harris Against the World (8:00-8:30pm), and Tom, Dick, and Mary (8:30-9:00pm). While they were promoted as […]
My Living Doll is an American science fiction sitcom that aired for 26 episodes on CBS from September 27th, 1964 to March 17th, 1965. This series was produced by Jack Chertok and was filmed at Desilu studios by Jack Chertok Television, Inc., in association with the CBS Television Network. The series was unusual in that […]
Mr. Broadway is an American 13-episode CBS adventure and drama television series starring Craig Stevens as New York City public relations specialist Mike Bell. The program aired at 9 p.m. Eastern time Saturdays from September 26th to December 26th, 1964. Also featured were Bell’s assistant, Toki, portrayed by Lani Miyazaki, and his police contact, Hank […]
Gilligan’s Island is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Russell Johnson, Tina Louise, and Dawn Wells. It aired for three seasons on the CBS network from September 26th, 1964, to April […]
The Reporter is an American drama series that aired on CBS from September 25th to December 18th, 1964. The series was created by Jerome Weidman and developed by executive producers Keefe Brasselle and John Simon. The series stars Harry Guardino as Danny Taylor, a reporter for the fictitious New York Globe newspaper. Guardino’s co-stars were […]
Gomer Pyle, USMC is an American situation comedy that originally aired on CBS from September 25th, 1964, to May 2nd, 1969. The series was a spin-off of The Andy Griffith Show, and the pilot episode was aired as the season finale of the fourth season of its parent series on May 18th, 1964. The show […]
The Entertainers is a one-hour American variety show that aired on CBS from September 25th, 1964 through March 27th, 1965. The series, produced by Joe Hamilton, featured three stars, Hamilton’s wife Carol Burnett, Caterina Valente, and Bob Newhart. Each week, the series, originating from New York, presented comedy sketches and musical numbers performed by a […]
The Baileys of Balboa is an American sitcom that appeared on CBS in the 1964-1965 season on Thursdays at 9:30pm ET. The show was directed by Gary Nelson and Bob Sweeney. The show was primarily developed for the network because its president, James T. Aubrey, insisted that Gilligan’s Island, which premiered the same season (and […]
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 […]
The Munsters is an American television sitcom depicting the home life of a family of benign monsters. The series originally aired on Thursday at 7:30pm on CBS from September 24th, 1964, to May 12th, 1966. Seventy episodes were produced. The series stars Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster and Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily […]
The Cara Williams Show is an American sitcom that aired in 1964 on CBS. Cara Williams starred with costars Frank Aletter, previously the star of Bringing Up Buddy on CBS, and Jack Sheldon, later star of the short-lived 1966 series, Run, Buddy, Run, also on CBS. On the series, Williams and Aletter played Cara and […]
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 […]
Slattery’s People is a 1964-1965 American television series about local politics starring Richard Crenna as title character James Slattery, a state legislator, co-starring Ed Asner and Tol Avery, and featuring Carroll O’Connor and Warren Oates in a couple of episodes each. James E. Moser was executive producer. The program, telecast on CBS, was nominated for […]
Many Happy Returns is an American situation comedy that ran on CBS for twenty-six episodes, from September 21st, 1964 to April 12th, 1965, under the sponsorship of General Foods. The Tagline of the show was Krockmeyer’s Appreciates Your Patronage. The show stars character actor John McGiver. Known for his emphatic, precise, dogmatic bearing and firm […]
Broadside is an American sitcom that aired on ABC during the 1964-1965 TV season. There were 32 episodes, the first of which aired September 20th, 1964. The series, produced by McHale’s Navy creator Edward Montagne, starred Kathleen Nolan, formerly of The Real McCoys (her character, Lieutenant Morgan, had first appeared on McHale’s Navy the previous […]
The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo is an animated television series, produced by United Productions of America, which aired on NBC for one season (1964 –1965) of 24 episodes. The television series was based on the original cartoon of the same name, with Jim Backus reprising the voice over of the role he did on […]