Kukla, Fran and Ollie is an early American television show using puppets, originally created for children but soon watched by more adults than children. It did not have a script and was entirely ad-libbed. It aired from 1947 to 1957.
Mary Kay and Johnny is an American situation comedy starring real-life married couple Mary Kay Stearns and Johnny Stearns. It was the first sitcom broadcast on a network television in the United States. Mary Kay and Johnny initially aired live on the DuMont Television Network before moving to CBS and then NBC.
Texaco Star Theater is an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave Milton Berle the nickname "Mr. Television".
The classic 1940–44 version of the program, hosted by radio's Fred Allen, was followed by a radio series on ABC in the spring of 1948. When Texaco first took it to television on NBC on June 8, 1948, the show had a huge cultural impact.
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the CBS Sunday Night Movie, which ran only one season and was eventually replaced by other shows.
In 2002, The Ed Sullivan Show was ranked #15 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
Candid Camera is an American hidden camera/practical joke reality television series created and produced by Allen Funt, which initially began on radio as Candid Microphone June 28, 1947. After a series of theatrical film shorts, also titled Candid Microphone, Funt's concept came to television on August 10, 1948. The show last aired for 10 episodes in 2014 on the TV Land network. A documentary about Allen Funt is currently in the works by the Candid Camera crew.
The format has appeared on U.S. TV networks and in syndication in each succeeding decade, as either a regular show or a series of specials. Allen Funt himself hosted or co-hosted almost all of the TV versions until a 1993 stroke from which he never recovered. His son Peter Funt, who had co-hosted the specials with his father since 1987, became the producer and host.
The Morey Amsterdam Show is an American sitcom which ran from 1948-1949 on CBS Television and 1949-1950 on the DuMont Television Network, for a total of 71 episodes.
The Hartmans is an American television sitcom that aired live on NBC on Sunday nights from February 27 to April 24, 1949. The series stars Paul and Grace Hartman, a married couple who performed together on the vaudeville circuit and on the Broadway stage.
The Goldbergs is a comedy-drama broadcast from 1929 to 1946 on American radio, and from 1949 to 1956 on American television. It was adapted into a 1948 play, Me and Molly, a 1950 film The Goldbergs, and a 1973 Broadway musical, Molly.
Wesley is an early American sitcom that aired live on CBS from May 8, 1949 to August 30, 1949.
Riley worked in an aircraft plant in California, but viewers usually saw him at home, cheerfully disrupting life with his malapropisms and ill timed intervention into minor problems. His stock answer to every turn of fate became a catch phrase: 'What a revoltin' development this is!"
The Herb Shriner Show was the title of two different American television series shown in prime time by CBS during the late 1940s and 1950s. A similar program, also hosted by Herb Shriner, was Herb Shriner Time, which was aired by ABC as part of its 1951-52 lineup.
The first Herb Shriner Show was essentially a continuation of what Shriner had previously done on radio. It was aired by CBS five nights a week from 7:55 to 8:00 P.M. Eastern time and consisted solely of Shriner's folksy monologues, which had already earned him comparisons to Will Rogers. This program was seen only from November 1949 until February 1950.
Herb Shriner Time was a half-hour format aired by ABC on Thursday nights at 9 PM Eastern from October 1951 to April 1952. In addition to the comedy monologues, this format provided time for guest stars, and also allowed for Shriner to play his harmonica and act in comedy sketches.
Four panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while blindfolded, their identity - by asking only "yes" or "no" questions.
Your Show of Shows was a live 90-minute variety show that was broadcast weekly in the United States on NBC, from February 25, 1950, until June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.
Other featured performers were Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Bill Hayes, Judy Johnson, The Hamilton Trio and the soprano Marguerite Piazza. José Ferrer made several guest appearances on the series. The series was telecast from the now-demolished International Theatre at 5 Columbus Circle and the Century Theater, now demolished, in New York.
During 2002, Your Show of Shows was ranked #30 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
The Bob Hope Show hosted by Bob Hope, debuted on April 9, 1950. During the 1952-1953 season, NBC rotated with other variety shows in a Sunday night block known as "The Colgate Comedy Hour" (Sept. 1950 to Dec. 1955). Also known as, "The Chevy Show with Bob Hope." When the first special debuted in October of 1950 it was the most expensive television program made up to that point - costing an astronomical $1,500 a minute to produce. Bob Hope had his own television show and radio show at the same time. For the next three seasons, The Bob Hope Show was broadcast once a month on Tuesday nights, giving Milton Berle a week off. Bob ended his radio show in April, 1956. Bob Hope also had another show by a similar name, "The Bob Hope Show (All Star Revue)". In addition, he performed in "Specials" for many years. It is the longest running variety program in television's history with a record of 45 years of televised entertainment.
The Arthur Murray Party is an American television variety show which ran from July 1950 until September 1960. The show was hosted by famous dancers Arthur and Kathryn Murray, and was basically one long advertisement for their chain of dance studios. Each week the couple performed a mystery dance, and the viewer who correctly identified the dance would receive two free lessons at a local studio.
The Arthur Murray Party is notable for being one of the few TV series—the others were Down You Go; The Ernie Kovacs Show; Pantomime Quiz; Tom Corbett, Space Cadet; and The Original Amateur Hour—broadcast on all four major commercial networks in the 1950s during the Golden Age of Television. It may, in fact, be the only series which had a run on all four networks at least twice.
The Gene Autry Show is an American western/cowboy television series which aired for 91 episodes on CBS from July 23, 1950 until August 7, 1956, originally sponsored by Wrigley's Doublemint chewing gum.
Crusader Rabbit is the first animated series produced specifically for television. The concept was test marketed in 1948, while the initial episode - Crusader vs. the State of Texas - aired on KNBH in Los Angeles, California on August 1, 1950.
The Hank McCune Show is an American television situation comedy. Filmed without a studio audience, the series is notable for being the first program to incorporate a laugh track.
The series began as a local Los Angeles program in 1949. NBC placed it on its national primetime schedule at the start of the 1950-51 season. It debuted at 7:00pm Eastern Time on September 9 and was cancelled three months later.
The Colgate Comedy Hour is an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show starred many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Fred Allen, Donald O'Connor, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Ben Blue, Robert Paige, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Broadway dancer Wayne Lamb and Spike Jones and His City Slickers.