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.
The World's Greatest Magic was a series of American television specials showcasing magic acts. The first of five shows was broadcast by NBC in 1994, and continued with annual editions through 1998. These shows were most often first telecast during the Thanksgiving holidays when special programming would occur. These specials reran occasionally on ABC Family from October 1996 to early 2002.
The first episode was hosted by Robert Urich, the second by Alan Thicke, and the final three episodes by John Ritter. Before each commercial break of every episode, in a segment known as the Mac King School of Magic, Mac King showed viewers a simple magic trick, and would break its steps down after the commercial break so that the audience could perform the same trick for family and friends.
Here's a list of the closing illusions for each of the five shows, and the magicians that performed them:
⁕World's Greatest Magic I: Franz Harary - Space Shuttle vanish
⁕World's Greatest Magic II: Penn and Teller - Magic bulle
1, 2, 3 Go is an American filmed children's television series hosted by Jack Lescoulie with Richard Thomas. The 30-minute educational series was telecast on NBC in 1961-62. Each episode had a theme and was narrated by Thomas. The show established that adult and child were on an equal footing, sometimes with the child in a superior position.
Your Hit Parade is an American radio and television music program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1955 on radio, and seen from 1950 to 1959 on television. It was sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes. During this 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or groups. Many listeners and viewers casually referred to the show with the incorrect title The Hit Parade.
When the show debuted, there was no agreement as to what it should be called. The press referred to it in a variety of ways, with the most common being "Hit Parade," "The Hit Parade," and even "The Lucky Strike Hit Parade". The program's title was not officially changed to "Your Hit Parade" until November 9, 1935
Each Saturday evening, the program offered the most popular and bestselling songs of the week. The earliest format involved a presentation of the top 15 songs. Later, a countdown with fanfares led to the top three finalists, with the number one song for the finale. Occasional performances of standards and othe
Shoot for the Stars is a game show created and produced by Bob Stewart, and aired on the NBC television network. The show aired from January 3 to September 30, 1977, and was produced in New York City. During most of its run, it had originally videotaped at NBC's headquarters in Rockefeller Center, but some weeks of episodes were recorded at Studio 50 at CBS, also known as the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Shoot for The Stars was the last NBC game show to originate from New York City. Geoff Edwards hosted the show, with Bob Clayton as announcer. Frequent celebrity players included Debralee Scott, Nipsey Russell, Anita Gillette, Tony Randall, and Bill Cullen.
Leeza is an NBC and syndicated daytime television talk show. It premiered on June 14, 1993 as John & Leeza from Hollywood, hosted by John Tesh and Leeza Gibbons. Tesh left the show after seven months, and on January 17, 1994, the program was retitled Leeza, and Gibbons became the sole host remaining in that capacity throughout the remainder of its run.
The show ran on NBC between 1993 and 1999, showing on other stations in markets where the local NBC affiliate pre-empted it in favor of other programming, and then aired as a syndicated program from 1999-2000. It was taped at Paramount Studios on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California, and was produced by Gibbons' production company and Paramount Television.
Gibbons was also a hands-on executive producer in addition to host of the show, involved in every aspect from selecting show topics to finding guests. Each week, Gibbons worked with her team to track stories and to bring the audience new, in-depth and real perspective on the issues of the time.
Recurring topi
Frances Farmer Presents is an American anthology series that aired on Indianapolis station WFBM-TV. The series premiered on October 13, 1958 and ended in September 1964.
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
Call My Bluff was a short-lived American game show from Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions that aired on NBC daytime from March 29 to September 24, 1965. Bill Leyden was emcee, with Johnny Olson and Wayne Howell as announcers.
Call My Bluff originated from Studio 6A at NBC Studios in the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The word editor for the series was Eric Lieber, who would later create and produce Love Connection.
Jacobo Timerman: Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number is a TV movie centering on the story of Argentine newspaper publisher Jacobo Timerman's experiences and torture in a secret prison.
Time Machine is an American game show where contestants compete to answer trivia questions about popular culture and recent history to win prizes. The show aired on NBC from January 7 through April 26, 1985 and was hosted by John Davidson. Charlie Tuna was the announcer, with Rich Jeffries as his substitute. Reg Grundy Productions produced the series, and upon its premiere Time Machine was one of three Grundy series airing on NBC.
Most of the questions used focused on nostalgia, popular culture, and recent history, and more specifically what year a particular event occurred.
Future Card Sharks model Suzanna Williams appeared as one of the prize models in this series.
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 episod
NBC News at Sunrise is an American early morning television news program that aired on NBC from 1983 to 1999. The program featured the top news headlines of the morning, sports and weather reports, and business segments. Many of the program's anchors also appeared on NBC's morning news program Today.
Welcome Aboard is an American variety show that was televised live on Sundays at 7:30pm EST on NBC. The series was initially titled Admiral Presents the Five Star Revue—Welcome Aboard, when it was sponsored by Admiral but was retitled when sponsorship was dropped in December 1948.
The premiere episode featured Martin and Lewis, and Phil Silvers. The second episode on October 10 also featured Martin and Lewis, and a kinescope of this latter show is preserved in the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Three additional episodes are held by the Library of Congress
Wrangler is an American Western television series starring Jason Evers that aired on the NBC television network from August 4 to September 15, 1960.
In Wrangler, Evers played Pitcairn, a wrangler who roamed the Old West, finding adventures along the way. However, Wrangler did not have much of a chance to find adventure because the series lasted only for six episodes. It was a summer replacement series for The Ford Show Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, but did not garner high enough ratings to become a full-fledged series.
Guest stars included Tyler McVey in the episode "Incident at the Bar M".
Three years after Wrangler, Evers landed the lead in the 26-episode ABC drama Channing set on a fictitious college campus.
All Star Secrets is an NBC daytime game show that aired from January 8 to August 10, 1979. A Hill-Eubanks Production, the show was hosted by co-creator Bob Eubanks and announced first by Charlie O'Donnell, but due to conflicts with his announcing duties on Wheel Of Fortune, he was later replaced by Tony McClay, who was a sub-announcer on Eubanks' famed game show The Newlywed Game.
Name Your Adventure is an American reality series that aired on Saturday mornings during NBC's TNBC line-up. Hosted by Mario Lopez, Jordan Brady, and Tatyana Ali, the series ran from September 1992 to September 1995.