NBC

Greatest Moments in Sports

Greatest Moments in Sports is a sports commentary program hosted by Walter Kiernan that aired on NBC from July 30, 1954 to February 4, 1955. The series was a mix of interviews with famous sports personalities and clips of memorable sports events.

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First Love

First Love is an American soap opera which ran on NBC Daytime from July 5, 1954 to December 30, 1955. The series aired at 4:15 p.m. EST, between Golden Windows and Concerning Miss Marlowe. Although the show had a strong fan following, at the time NBC had little use for developing any of their daytime shows and canceled First Love after a year and a half. Many cast members such as Patricia Barry, Val Dufour and Rosemary Prinz went on to become long-running daytime stars. Created by Adrian Samish and written by Manya Starr, the series centered around jet engineer Zach James and his difficult marriage to Laurie James. Due to being neglected as a child, Zach was obsessed with building a name for himself. Laurie tried to understand him but was unable to help him deal with his problems, as he went on trial for the murder of an aviatrix he may have been having an affair with. The show became known chiefly for a major blooper early in its run. A Friday cliffhanger involved Zach seeing his friend Chris crash his plane. Zach ran to tell Chris' wife Amy, "Chris cracked up the plane." In his rush, Dufour blurted out, "Chris crapped", then abruptly added, "...on the plane." Patricia Barry began to giggle. When the camera cut to a "bereaved" Prinz, she was shaking with laughter. Supposedly NBC nearly fired all three actors, but changed their minds after fans wrote in praising them for the scene. In 2003 Prinz denied such a scene ever made it to the air.

The Duke

The Duke is an American comedy series that aired on NBC from July to September 1954.

The Marriage

The Marriage is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from July to August 1954. The series is noted as the first prime-time network television series to be broadcast regularly in color. Broadcast live by NBC for seven episodes in the summer of 1954, the series stars real-life couple Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy as a New York lawyer and his wife with two children, played by Susan Strasberg and Malcolm Brodrick.

The World of Mr. Sweeney

The World of Mr. Sweeney is an American sitcom that aired on NBC in primetime and daytime. The series first aired live in primetime from June 30, 1954 to August 20, 1954, four nights a week from Tuesday to Friday, and from October 1954 to December 1955 five days a week in daytime. A total of 345 episodes were produced. The series began as a segment on The Kate Smith Evening Hour.

The Tony Martin Show

The Tony Martin Show is a 15-minute weekly musical variety television series hosted by entertainer Tony Martin, which aired in NBC prime time from April 26, 1954, to February 27, 1956. It was produced by Bud Yorkin and featured the singing group The Interludes and the Hal Bourne and David Rose orchestras, the latter affiliated with The Red Skelton Show. Martin began each episode with a song at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on Mondays. Then he chatted with a celebrity guest and urged viewers to remain for the 15-minute nightly newcast, which followed his program. At times, Martin performed popular tunes, such as "Secret Love", "All of You", "All the Things You Are", "Here, "There's No Tomorrow", and "Rainy Day". The first two episodes were filmed in New York City, but then the program shifted to Los Angeles, California, for the remaining segments. Singers Margaret Whiting and Dinah Shore each appeared as guest stars.Shore had her own 15-minute program on NBC from 1951 to 1956, after which she launced the one-hour Dinah Shore Chevy Show. "Our Waltz" served as the series theme song.

Justice

Justice is an NBC half-hour drama television series about attorneys of the Legal Aid Society of New York, which aired from April 8, 1954 to March 25, 1956. In the 1954-1955 season, Justice starred Dane Clark as Richard Adams and Gary Merrill as Jason Tyler. In the 1955-1956 season, William Prince replaced Clark in the role of Richard Adams. Westbrook Van Voorhis was the series narrator.

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Letter to Loretta

Letter to Loretta 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.

Bonino

Bonino is an ethnic situation comedy television series starring Ezio Pinza as an Italian-American opera singer trying to rear his six children after the death of their mother. The program aired on live NBC from September 12 to December 26, 1953. Pinza's character is named Babbo Bonino. Character actress Mary Wickes portrayed Martha the housekeeper, a role which she filled over the years in numerous other series. The actors portraying the children were Conrad Janis as eldest son Edward, Lenka Peterson as older daughter Doris, Chet Allen as Jerry; Oliver Andes as Carlo, Gaye Huston as Fancesca, and Van Dyke Parks as Andrew, the youngest. Allen had earlier appeared as Amahl in Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors on NBC's Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1951-1952. Parks, who grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, became a rock-music producer and composer who cowrote with Brian Wilson the Beach Boys' hits "Heroes and Villains" and "Surf's Up".Mike Kellin, who was cast the following year in Celeste Holm's short-lived CBS sitcom Honestly, Celeste!, appeared in the role of Rusty. David Opatoshu, portrayed Walter Rogers, Babbo's agent, who tries to convince him to return to singing. As each episode unfolds, Bonino realizes that his children are more independent than he thought. Pinza sang in each episode.Anthony Eisley, later of ABC's detective series Hawaiian Eye, guest starred in Bonino as John Clinton.

Judge for Yourself

Judge for Yourself, at first subtitled The Fred Allen Show, is a Mark Goodson and Bill Todman nontraditional court show/quiz show, with comedian Fred Allen as the emcee. It aired on NBC from August 18, 1953 to May 11, 1954. Dennis James was the series announcer but took over as host in January 1954. Each week three performers – singers, dancers, musicians, or comedians – were judged by two panels, one of professional entertainers and the other from the studio audience. If one of the amateur judges rated the acts 1, 2, or 3 in the same order as the celebrities, that individual would win a $1,000 prize. Two instrumental jazz groups that appeared on Judge for Yourself had considerable success thereafter, vibraphonist Terry Gibbs and the Marian McPartland Trio. The original intent of the series was to allow Allen to interact with guests, much as Groucho Marx did on his own NBC series, You Bet Your Life. The complicated format first employed, however, was revamped in the middle of the season. On the episode which aired on January 5, 1954, the professional judges were dropped, and the studio audience panel rated new songs to predict future hits, the comparable format of ABC's Jukebox Jury, which also aired in the 1953–1954 season.

Atom Squad

Atom Squad was an American science-fiction series that was broadcast live by the NBC network, July 6, 1953 to January 22, 1954, Monday-Friday, 5:00 to 5:15 PM EST.

Coke Time with Eddie Fisher

Coke Time with Eddie Fisher is an American musical variety television series starring singer Eddie Fisher which was broadcast by NBC on Wednesday nights in early prime time from 1953 to 1957. The program was aired from 7:30 to 7:45 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays and Fridays, and was not seen during the summer months..

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The Oscars

An annual American awards ceremony honoring cinematic achievements in the film industry. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially the Academy Award of Merit, that is better known by its nickname Oscar.

Your Favorite Story

Your Favorite Story is the title of a TV comedy anthology series that aired from 1953 through 1955. It premiered in December 1954 with the title Your Favorite Playhouse. This program was adapted from the radio show Favorite Story which ran from 1946 through 1949. The program's 25 episodes starred Adolphe Menjou and featured episodes originally written by Leonard St. Clair, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Frank R. Stockton.

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The Life Of Riley

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.

Name That Tune

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 1953–1959 on NBC and CBS in prime time. The first hosts were Red Benson and later Bill Cullen, but George DeWitt became most identified with the show. Richard Hayes also emceed a local edition from 1970–1971, which ran for 26 weeks in a small number of markets. However, the best-remembered syndicated Name That Tune aired once a week from 1974–1981 with host Tom Kennedy. The series was revived for daily syndication in 1984, and its lone season was hosted by Jim Lange. For the last two of these series, John Harlan served as announcer. The centerpiece of each Name That Tune series was an orchestra, which would play the songs for the contestants to guess. The syndicated series' orchestras were conducted by Bob Alberti, Tommy Oliver, and Stan Worth. A second band, Dan Sawyer and the Sound System, was also featured from 1978–1981. Beginning in 1976 and continuing for the remainder of the weekly syndicated series, as well as for the entire 1984 run, the show's title became The $100,000 Name That Tune.

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Ding Dong School

Ding Dong School, billed as "the nursery school of the air", was a half-hour children's TV show which began on WNBQ-TV in Chicago, Illinois a few months before its four-year run on NBC. A precursor to both Sesame Street and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the show was hosted live by Frances Horwich, and at one point was the most popular TV series aimed at preschoolers. The show and its host, Miss Frances, were mentioned in the comic strip Peanuts in 1955 and 1956. The show was revived in 1959 as a syndicated program, now videotaped and distributed by National Telefilm Associates. This iteration ran until 1965. Five NBC kinescoped episodes from 1954-1955 are housed at the Library of Congress, in the J. Fred and Leslie W. MacDonald Collection.

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Omnibus

Omnibus is an American, commercially sponsored, educational television series.

My Hero