The Big Payoff was a daytime and primetime game show that premiered on NBC in 1951, and ended its network run on CBS in 1959. It had a brief syndication revival in 1962. NBC used The Big Payoff to replace the 15-minute show Miss Susan starring Susan Peters, which had gone off the air in December 1951.
Contestants were selected from men who mailed in letters explaining why the women in their lives deserved prizes. The men were asked four questions in order to win prizes like a mink coat or a vacation. Late in the network run, the format changed to three competing couples. For the 1962 revival, there were only two couples.
On Tuesdays, the format changed to the "Little Big Payoff" in which children sent in a letter in which they voiced the reason that they should appear. Four questions were asked, and prizes awarded for each correct answer.
It was called the "Big Payoff" because when a contestant won they had the opportunity to answer one final question. Getting this question correct, the individual was awarded a
There Goes the Neighborhood is an American prime-time reality television program on CBS. The show premiered on August 9, 2009, and features eight suburban families shut out from the outside world with no television, internet, phones, or contact with anybody outside of their neighborhood. The families will compete in challenges against each other. Each week, one family will be banished from the neighborhood, thereby eliminating the family from contention for the show's $250,000 prize fund. The show's executive producers are Jay Bienstock and Mike Fleiss. The show's presenter is Matt Rogers, a finalist on American Idol 3.
Abe Burrows' Almanac is an American television series that aired on CBS in 1950. The live program, hosted by Abe Burrows, featured music, song and comedy performances by guests. The show was broadcast on Wednesday evenings at 9:00 PM. Milton DeLugg conducted the orchestra.
While Burrows had a successful nightclub act and made regular appearances as a performer on CBS radio programs, this short-lived series is notable for being his only featured role in a television program.
The Will is an American reality television series on CBS that lasted only one episode, shown on Saturday, January 8, 2005. It centered on the "Benefactor", a multi-millionaire from Arizona named Bill Long. Ten of his friends and relatives competed in a series of challenges to win the right to inherit his "prized possession", a huge Kansas ranch.
The show was created by Mike Fleiss, who produced The Bachelor for ABC. The Will is one of only a handful of series in American history to be pulled after one episode.
In the case of The Will, cancellation was due to very low ratings. Despite receiving a heavy promotional push from CBS, the program averaged only 4.2 million viewers during its 8:00-9:30PM ET/PT time slot, which made it CBS's lowest-ranked show of the week. The following Saturday, the network replaced it with a re-run of Cold Case, a crime drama.
The quick cancellation of The Will was lampooned on an episode of the ABC late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! with a montage of clips from the show, and the m
Frontier Justice is a CBS television Western anthology series which had thirty-one telecasts over the summers of 1958, 1959, and 1961. It was a repackaging of episodes from CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, and was hosted by Lew Ayres, Melvyn Douglas, and Ralph Bellamy, one each summer. The program was a production of Four Star Television.
Starring in various episodes were Eddie Albert, Phyllis Avery, Russ Conway, John Derek, William Fawcett, Dean Jagger, David Janssen, Ida Lupino, Strother Martin, Jack Palance, John Payne, Judson Pratt, Denver Pyle, Robert Ryan, Stuart Whitman, and James Whitmore, among others.
The half-hour, black-and-white program, a summer-replacement series, debuted on Monday, July 7, 1958, and ended its run on Thursday, September 28, 1961. It was produced by Four Star Television, co-owned by Dick Powell, David Niven, Charles Boyer, and Ida Lupino.
A curated live feed from inside the house to give viewers a peek into the housemates' lives that they don't always get to see during the prime-time shows.
The Brighter Day is an American daytime soap opera which aired on CBS from January 4, 1954 to September 28, 1962. Originally created for NBC radio by Irna Phillips in 1948, the radio and television versions ran simultaneously from 1954-1956. Set in New Hope, Wisconsin, the series revolved around Reverend Richard Dennis and his four children, Althea, Patsy, Babby and Grayling.
The Brighter Day was the first soap opera to air on network television with an explicitly religious theme. Another soap opera created by Phillips, The Guiding Light, initially had a religious theme as a radio show but dropped it by the time the series moved to television.
Stolen Women: Captured Hearts is a 1997 made-for-television film directed by Jerry London. The film stars Janine Turner as Anna Morgan, a woman living on the plains of Kansas in 1868 who is kidnapped by a band of Lakota Indians. It also stars Patrick Bergin, Jean Louisa Kelly, Michael Greyeyes, and Rodney A. Grant. The story is loosely based on the real Anna Morgan who was taken by Cheyenne Indians for approximately one year before being returned to her husband.
What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown! is the 17th primetime animated TV specials based upon the popular comic strip Peanuts, created by Charles M. Schulz. It was originally aired on Thursday, February 23, 1978, at 8:00 P.M. ET/PT on CBS. The special is unusual in that Snoopy and Charlie Brown are the only members of the Peanuts cast to appear in it. The plot is similar to that of Jack London's Call of the Wild. This was the first special Bill Melendez directed since 1973's "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving".
In June 2010, the special was released on DVD as part of the Peanuts 1970's Collection, Volume Two set on Warner Home Video.
Air Power is a historical educational television series broadcast during the 1956-1957 television season over the CBS television network dealing with the rise of aviation as a military weapon. It starred Walter Cronkite as the narrator and featured a musical score by Norman Dello Joio.
Celebrated American pianist Vladimir Horowitz in his first televised piano recital, taped at Carnegie Hall on February 1, 1968, and broadcast nationwide by CBS on September 22 of that year.
48 Hours: Suspicion is a limited-run series from the team at CBS News' award-winning true-crime series 48 Hours. The series features intriguing cases where people live under suspicion, but the truth is often elusive.
That's My Line was a summer CBS reality show developed by Mark Goodson, one of the creators of What's My Line?. The show highlights the unusual occupations of ordinary people, but unlike What's My Line?, it has no panel or game components; the show is rather along the same lines as NBC's Real People and ABC's That's Incredible!.
It was hosted by Bob Barker and announced by Johnny Olson, both associated with Goodson-Todman's hit game show, The Price Is Right. The series was co-hosted by Suzanne Childs and Tiiu Leek, and joined during the 1981 run by Kerry Millerick. The thrust of the show during the 1981 season also changed from unusual occupations to an emphasis on the funny, bizarre, or ridiculous.
Notable moments included voice artist Mel Blanc having a contest with an audience member on who does voice acting the best and magician James Randi contesting James Hydrick's psychic abilities.
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.
Celebrities in sports, music and entertainment are given the chance to gift a surprise home renovation to a meaningful person who helped guide them to success.