96 Fun Facts About 50s TV

In I Love Lucy's 'Job Switching', Lucy and Ethel fall behind wrapping what on a speeding conveyor belt?

Chocolates outran Lucy and Ethel at Kramer's Kandy Kitchen, so they hid them in their hats and blouses and ate the rest; Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance had practised beforehand at a real See's Candies factory.

Where did Desilu, the studio owned by I Love Lucy's married stars, get its name?

The couple's first names, Desi and Lucille, were combined as Desilu; Ball bought Arnaz out in 1962, after their divorce, and ran the studio that launched Star Trek and Mission: Impossible.

What happens in the January 1953 I Love Lucy episode that drew a record 44 million viewers?

Little Ricky is born in 'Lucy Goes to the Hospital', which aired the night before Eisenhower's inauguration and outdrew it; the date was chosen to match Lucille Ball's real delivery of Desi Arnaz Jr.

Why was I Love Lucy filmed in Hollywood instead of New York?

Stars refused to move east, so the show was filmed with three cameras before a studio audience; the sharp prints could be rerun for decades, while rivals had only blurry kinescopes of their live shows.

What job did Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden hold on The Honeymooners?

Ralph was a Bus driver for the fictional Gotham Bus Company, though he was almost never shown behind the wheel; New York City later named a Brooklyn bus depot after Gleason.

On The Honeymooners, where did Ralph Kramden's upstairs neighbour Ed Norton work?

The city sewers employed Ed Norton, and Art Carney made him so popular that Yogi Bear's outfit and personality were later modelled on the character.

Before the "Classic 39" on CBS, The Honeymooners began as sketches on Cavalcade of Stars on which network?

The Honeymooners debuted as a sketch on DuMont's Cavalcade of Stars in 1951; when Gleason left DuMont the next year, Audrey Meadows replaced Pert Kelton, who had been blacklisted, as Alice.

Who played Marshal Matt Dillon on the TV version of Gunsmoke?

James Arness, six foot seven, played Dillon for the show's entire run; William Conrad had voiced the marshal on radio, and John Wayne introduced the 1955 premiere, recommending Arness to viewers.

Gunsmoke was set in which frontier town?

Gunsmoke was set in Dodge City, Kansas, where the Long Branch Saloon had been a real 1880s establishment; the modern town's Boot Hill Museum trades on the connection.

Which series passed Gunsmoke's 635 episodes, the American scripted primetime record, in 2018?

The Simpsons marked its 636th episode with an opening gag in which baby Maggie outdraws Marshal Matt Dillon; the western it overtook had run for 20 seasons.

Who created and hosted The Twilight Zone, which premiered on CBS in October 1959?

Rod Serling, tired of censors and sponsors gutting his realistic teleplays, turned to fantasy so that he could tackle the same issues in disguise.

What breaks at the end of The Twilight Zone's 'Time Enough at Last'?

His glasses shatter outside a ruined library, leaving bank teller Henry Bemis, the last man alive, among books he can no longer read; Burgess Meredith played him.

In which fictional town do the Cleavers live in Leave It to Beaver?

Mayfield is never placed in any state on the show, and it outlived the original run: the 1980s sequel series brought the grown-up Cleaver boys back to the same town.

'Beaver' Cleaver's real first name is what?

Theodore was the Beaver's given name; what set the show apart from other family sitcoms was that all 234 episodes were told from his point of view rather than his parents'.

Which Leave It to Beaver character was polite to adults and a wise guy behind their backs?

Eddie Haskell, played by Ken Osmond for the whole run, returned in the 1980s sequel as an adult contractor with a son, played by Osmond's real son, who was just as two-faced.

Under what title did The Ed Sullivan Show originally air from 1948?

Toast of the Town premiered in June 1948; viewers called it The Ed Sullivan Show for years before that became the official title in September 1955.

Twenty-One champion Charles Van Doren, later exposed as having been fed the answers, taught at which university?

Van Doren was an English instructor at Columbia, where his father Mark was a celebrated professor; his run made the cover of Time in February 1957 before the fixing was exposed.

Herb Stempel was ordered to lose on Twenty-One by missing which Best Picture winner?

Stempel was told to miss Marty, the 1955 Best Picture winner, and name the prior year's winner instead; Marty was one of his favourite films, which made the dive sting more.

Before which body did Charles Van Doren admit in 1959 that Twenty-One was fixed?

A House committee heard his confession on 2 November 1959: "I was involved, deeply involved, in a deception," said the man who had long denied any wrongdoing.

Which actor-director made the 1994 film Quiz Show, about the rigging of Twenty-One?

Robert Redford directed Quiz Show, with Ralph Fiennes as Charles Van Doren and John Turturro as Herb Stempel; the real Van Doren was offered a consultant's fee and turned it down.

Howdy Doody's 48 freckles stood for what?

US states: one freckle for each of the 48 in the Union when he was built, a count that went out of date when Alaska joined in January 1959, while the show was still running.

Which future children's TV star first played Howdy Doody's mute clown?

Bob Keeshan, who later created and starred as Captain Kangaroo, was the original Clarabell; the clown communicated only with a horn and a seltzer bottle.

Jack Webb played which Los Angeles police sergeant on Dragnet?

Webb created, produced and directed Dragnet as well as playing Sergeant Joe Friday; the cases were drawn from real LAPD files, with names changed to protect the innocent.

Under what title was the 1950s Dragnet later syndicated?

Badge 714 was the number on the hero's shield, so the reruns took it as their title; when Jack Webb died in 1982 the LAPD retired the number and gave him a funeral with full police honours.

Which cosmetics company sponsored The $64,000 Question, lending its name to the isolation booth?

Revlon sponsored the show and gave its name to the Revlon isolation booth; broadcasts went out live from Studio 52 in New York, the building that later housed the disco Studio 54.

Psychologist Joyce Brothers became famous by winning The $64,000 Question on which subject?

Brothers won the top prize in 1955 answering questions on Boxing, a subject she had crammed from reference books; the win launched four decades of advice columns and television.

Raymond Burr originally auditioned for which role on Perry Mason?

Prosecutor Hamilton Burger was the part Burr first read for; told he suited the lead but was 60 pounds too heavy, he crash-dieted for a month and came back to test as Mason, a role he kept for nine seasons.

Perry Mason was based on detective novels by which lawyer-turned-writer?

Erle Stanley Gardner spent years as a California trial lawyer defending poor clients before Perry Mason made him rich, and later founded the Court of Last Resort to help people he believed wrongly imprisoned.

American Bandstand was broadcast from which city before it moved to Los Angeles in 1964?

Philadelphia's WFIL-TV launched Bandstand in 1952 with disc jockey Bob Horn; after his 1956 drunk-driving arrest the station turned to 26-year-old Dick Clark, who took the show national on ABC the next year.

Which Mouseketeer guest-starred in a three-episode story on Disney's Zorro?

Annette Funicello played Anita Cabrillo in three Zorro episodes, reportedly Walt Disney's sixteenth-birthday present to a teenager with a crush on the show's star, Guy Williams; pop hits and the beach-party films followed.

In Lassie's first four seasons, before Timmy, the collie belonged to a farm boy named what?

Jeff Miller, played by Tommy Rettig, owned Lassie for the first four seasons; after George Cleveland, who played Gramps, died in 1957, the Millers left and Lassie stayed with Timmy and the Martins.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents opened to which piece of music?

The theme was Gounod's Funeral March of a Marionette; the profile caricature the camera fades in on was Hitchcock's own drawing, and he stepped into its outline each week.

Who was Sid Caesar's co-star on the live 90-minute Your Show of Shows?

Imogene Coca partnered Caesar from 1950 to 1954, often as the bickering Hickenloopers; cast member Carl Reiner later turned his years on the show into The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Which company sponsored Milton Berle's Tuesday-night hit that made him 'Mr. Television'?

Texaco Star Theater ran on NBC from 1948 to 1953 and made Berle's Tuesday night appointment viewing, credited with selling millions of television sets; Buick took over the sponsorship in 1953.

Which sitcom starred a real family whose son Ricky became a rock 'n' roll star?

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet cast the real Nelsons as themselves for 14 seasons; when Ricky sang on the show in 1957, his first single became a hit and a No. 1 album followed that year.

Which cereal maker sponsored Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves?

Kellogg's sponsored the series; its last four seasons were filmed in colour but first broadcast in black and white, so 1950s viewers never saw the red cape in colour.

Which chess piece appears on Paladin's calling card in Have Gun – Will Travel?

The knight chess piece, a paladin being one of Charlemagne's legendary knights, marked Richard Boone's card, which read "Have Gun – Will Travel, Wire Paladin, San Francisco"; he lived at the Hotel Carlton between jobs.

From episode eight, Bret Maverick was joined by a brother, played by Jack Kelly, named what?

Bart Maverick, Jack Kelly's character, first appeared in the eighth episode; the show alternated the two poker-playing brothers because a single unit could not turn out an hour-long episode every week.

NBC's parent company RCA kept Bonanza on the air in its early days partly to sell what?

Colour television sets were what RCA made, so its network kept the costly Bonanza, filmed in colour around Lake Tahoe, even though executives had considered cancelling it before the premiere.

Jack Paar took over NBC's Tonight in July 1957, restoring the format of which original host?

Steve Allen had launched Tonight in 1954; after his departure NBC tried the news-style Tonight! America After Dark, which flopped, and Paar restored the desk-and-guests format in July 1957.

J. Fred Muggs, a regular on NBC's Today from 1953 to 1957, was what kind of animal?

A chimpanzee named J. Fred Muggs joined Today in January 1953 and is credited with helping Dave Garroway's struggling morning show find an audience; he left the programme in 1957.

Which CBS newsman hosted See It Now, the documentary series remembered for its Red Scare episodes?

Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly grew See It Now out of their radio series Hear It Now; the March 1954 broadcast attacked Senator McCarthy largely with film of his own speeches.

On What's My Line?, the celebrity panel questioned each contestant to guess their what?

The panel asked yes-or-no questions to deduce each contestant's Occupation; for the weekly mystery guest they were blindfolded, and on the 1967 network finale the last mystery guest was host John Daly himself.

Where did Captain Kangaroo get his name?

The big pockets on his coat, roomy as a kangaroo's pouch, named the Captain; the show was built on the warm bond between grandparents and children, and it ran on CBS for nearly thirty years.

Who hosted the original The Price Is Right when it launched on NBC in 1956?

Bill Cullen hosted the original until its cancellation in 1965; the format looked finished until a 1972 revival under Bob Barker turned it into a daytime fixture for decades.

On Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life, what dropped from the ceiling on the secret word?

A duck wearing Groucho's glasses and moustache dropped from the ceiling whenever a contestant said the secret word, bringing a $100 prize; George Fenneman was the announcer.

What did Robert Young's Jim Anderson do for a living on Father Knows Best?

Jim Anderson was an Insurance agent with the General Insurance Company in Springfield; the series began on radio in 1949, where Jim was far more sarcastic than the gentle television father.

Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto on The Lone Ranger, was born into which Indigenous nation?

Jay Silverheels, a Mohawk from Ontario's Six Nations reserve, came to Hollywood through lacrosse: comedian Joe E. Brown saw him play on a 1937 tour and urged him to take a screen test.

Walt Disney's 1954 anthology series was created largely to finance what?

A theme park, Disneyland, was what ABC agreed to help fund in exchange for the weekly series after the two bigger networks passed; the show's Davy Crockett episodes set off the coonskin-cap craze of 1955.

Who played Davy Crockett in Disney's 1954–55 episodes that spawned a national merchandise craze?

Fess Parker went from unknown to national star in the coonskin cap; children wanted one so badly that the price of raccoon skins jumped almost overnight, and Parker later played Daniel Boone for six seasons.

Which Mary Martin Broadway musical was broadcast live in colour on NBC in March 1955?

Peter Pan, with Mary Martin flying as Peter and Cyril Ritchard as Hook, drew a then-record audience on 7 March 1955; the cast restaged it live on television again in January 1956.

Sergeant Bilko ran the motor pool at which sleepy Army post on The Phil Silvers Show?

Fort Baxter, in fictional Roseville, Kansas, was where Bilko ran his motor-pool schemes; creator Nat Hiken, a sports fan, is said to have borrowed the surname from minor-league slugger Steve Bilko.

In the puppet show Kukla, Fran and Ollie, what kind of character was Ollie?

Ollie, short for Oliver J. Dragon, was A one-toothed dragon; Burr Tillstrom voiced and operated every puppet himself, and Fran Allison was usually the only human on screen.

Which organisation formally protested the 1951 TV Amos 'n' Andy as 'a gross libel of the Negro'?

The NAACP protested as soon as the series reached television in 1951; production stopped in 1953, yet reruns stayed in syndication until 1966, when the network finally withdrew them under pressure.

In The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, orphan Rusty and his dog were adopted by cavalry at which post?

Fort Apache, in Arizona, housed the 101st Cavalry, which made Rusty an honorary corporal; the series was shot at Corriganville, the movie ranch also used for John Ford's 1948 film Fort Apache.

Which film actor starred as wagon master Major Seth Adams when Wagon Train debuted in 1957?

Ward Bond, a John Ford regular, led the train until his death in November 1960; Ford directed the episode The Colter Craven Story as a favour to him, slipping John Wayne in under the name Michael Morris.

Clint Eastwood played which cattle-drive character on Rawhide from 1959?

Rowdy Yates made Eastwood a television regular; tired of playing the clean-cut hero, he spent a break from the series in Spain filming A Fistful of Dollars for Sergio Leone, for a fee of $15,000.

Edd Byrnes's breakout character Kookie on 77 Sunset Strip was famous for constantly doing what?

Kookie's habit of Combing his hair became a national catchphrase and spawned the 1959 novelty hit "Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)", a duet with Connie Stevens that reached the top five.

Which Boston lawyer served as the Army's special counsel in the televised 1954 Army–McCarthy hearings?

Joseph Welch, of the Boston firm Hale and Dorr, delivered the famous "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" rebuke on 9 June 1954; the Senate censured McCarthy that December.

In Richard Nixon's 1952 televised 'Checkers' speech, what breed of dog was Checkers?

Checkers was a black-and-white Cocker spaniel, a gift to the family that Nixon vowed to keep; about 60 million Americans watched the September 1952 broadcast, and it kept him on Eisenhower's ticket.

Which prime minister argued against letting television cameras film Elizabeth II's 1953 coronation?

Winston Churchill opposed live cameras at the ceremony, but the broadcast went ahead and more than twenty million Britons watched, many buying or renting a television for the day.

Steve McQueen's bounty hunter in Wanted Dead or Alive carried a sawn-off Winchester nicknamed what?

The Mare's Leg was a Winchester Model 1892 rifle with barrel and stock cut down so Josh Randall could draw it from a leg holster; the show ran from 1958 to 1961.

Broderick Crawford's Highway Patrol popularised which radio code meaning 'acknowledged'?

Crawford's Dan Mathews barked "10-4" into his radio microphone in nearly every episode, pushing the police code for "acknowledged" into everyday American speech; the show ran in syndication from 1955 to 1959.

Who played beatnik sidekick Maynard G. Krebs on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis?

Bob Denver's Maynard was briefly written out in 1959 when the actor was drafted; he failed the Army physical and returned, and later became Gilligan.

What was the name of the aeroplane flown by rancher-hero Sky King?

Songbird was a twin-engine Cessna, first a wartime T-50 and later a 310B, and it did the hero's work: each week Sky King used it to run down criminals and spies and to find lost hikers.

What was the profession of Donna Stone's husband Alex on The Donna Reed Show?

Paediatrician Alex Stone was played by Carl Betz; when Shelley Fabares, as his daughter Mary, sang 'Johnny Angel' on the show in 1962, the single went to number one.

Winky Dink and You, hailed as the first interactive TV show, had kids draw on the set using what?

A static-cling vinyl sheet, sold in a 50-cent kit with crayons, stuck to the screen so children could draw bridges and ladders for Winky Dink; Jack Barry hosted the show.

Which Oscar-winning character actor starred as Grandpa Amos in The Real McCoys (1957-63)?

Walter Brennan, winner of three supporting-actor Oscars, played the head of a West Virginia mountain family who move to California to work a farm they have inherited.

Which 1955 ABC series was television's first hour-long western?

Cheyenne outlasted its own star's walkout: when Clint Walker went on strike for better terms in 1958, the studio kept the slot going with another cowboy, Bronco.

Which composer wrote the famous theme for the 1958 private-eye series Peter Gunn?

Henry Mancini's score brought jazz into television background music; the theme became a hit single, and the soundtrack album won the first Grammy for Album of the Year.

In Disney's Zorro, which mild-mannered character is secretly the masked hero?

Don Diego de la Vega comes home from his studies in Spain to the Los Angeles of 1820 and plays the harmless gentleman so that nobody links him to the masked rider.

Lloyd Bridges played former Navy diver Mike Nelson in which syndicated 1958-61 series?

Sea Hunt was turned down by all three networks, which doubted a series set underwater could last, so it was sold station by station instead and ran for 155 episodes.

In The Rifleman (1958-63), Chuck Connors's Lucas McCain raises his son in which town?

North Fork, in New Mexico Territory, was the McCains' home; Lucas's rapid-fire Winchester Model 1892 was an anachronism in a show set in the 1880s.

Which gossip columnist provided the terse narration on The Untouchables (1959-63)?

Walter Winchell had been broadcasting on radio since the early 1930s, the years the show is set in, and his terse narration became its hallmark; Robert Stack won a 1960 Emmy as Eliot Ness.

Why was CBS's live anthology drama series Playhouse 90 given that name?

It ran 90 minutes when most live anthology dramas ran an hour; its Requiem for a Heavyweight, with Jack Palance, later ranked among TV Guide's greatest episodes.

Eve Arden's Our Miss Brooks, a TV hit from 1952, cast her in what job?

Connie Brooks was a High-school English teacher at Madison High, forever pursuing biology teacher Mr Boynton; the show had begun on radio in 1948 and became a feature film in 1956.

Lawrence Welk's ABC show, which went national in 1955, branded its easy-listening style as what?

Champagne music is said to date from an engagement at Pittsburgh's William Penn Hotel, where a dancer called the band's sound light and bubbly as champagne; Welk's theme tune was 'Bubbles in the Wine'.

NBC adopted which symbol in 1956 to flag its colour broadcasts?

A peacock with eleven feathers, drawn by art director John J. Graham, appeared before colour programmes from 1956; it was only a colour marker at first and became the network's main logo much later.

How did Dinah Shore always close her 1950s TV shows?

Blowing a big kiss to the camera was Shore's signature sign-off on her Chevrolet-sponsored NBC colour show, where she also sang the sponsor's jingle, "See the USA in Your Chevrolet".

Who played the title role in Rodgers and Hammerstein's live 1957 TV musical Cinderella?

Julie Andrews, then starring in My Fair Lady on Broadway, played Cinderella live on 31 March 1957 to more than 100 million viewers, and it was remade for television in 1965 and again in 1997.

Which comedian's TV show, launched in 1951, featured the tramp character Freddie the Freeloader?

Red Skelton introduced Freddie in 1952, a year into his show's run, basing the clown makeup on that of his own father, a Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus clown who died before Red was born.

Which actor spent $350,000 buying the TV rights to his own Hopalong Cassidy films?

William Boyd sold or mortgaged nearly everything he owned to buy the rights, and in June 1949 Hopalong Cassidy on NBC became the first network western series; merchandising then made Boyd rich.

Ernie Kovacs's recurring Nairobi Trio sketch featured musicians in what kind of costume?

A trio of musicians in Gorilla suits, derby hats and overcoats mimed to the tune "Solfeggio" while the drummer bonked the conductor, Kovacs himself, on the head; Jack Lemmon once played one of the apes.

Which future film star worked as a stunt tester on Beat the Clock before he was famous?

James Dean tested stunts for the show after moving to New York in 1951; East of Eden made him a star in 1955, and he died that September with his other two films still unreleased.

Zenith's 1955 Flash-Matic, the first wireless TV remote, worked by aiming what at the set?

A beam of light from the pistol-shaped Flash-Matic hit photocells in the set's corners, which could not tell it from sunlight, so channels sometimes changed by themselves; the 1956 Space Command switched to ultrasound.

Which BBC programme, first broadcast in April 1957, kept the same presenter for over 55 years?

The Sky at Night began on 24 April 1957, and Patrick Moore presented every monthly edition but one until his death in December 2012; food poisoning from a goose egg kept him away in July 2004.

Twelve Angry Men began in 1954 as a live teleplay on which anthology series?

Studio One broadcast Reginald Rose's teleplay live in September 1954; Robert Cummings played the holdout juror and won an Emmy for it, and Henry Fonda took the part in the 1957 film.

Quaker Oats tied its Mountie series Sergeant Preston to a 1955 cereal-box giveaway of what?

Quaker Oats put twenty-one million deeds to One square inch of Yukon land into cereal boxes in 1955; the plots were never registered, and the company's title lapsed in 1965 for unpaid taxes.

Accepting his Emmy, Bishop Fulton Sheen credited which 'four writers' for his success?

Sheen accepted the 1952 Emmy for Most Outstanding Television Personality by thanking his four writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; his Life Is Worth Living ran opposite Milton Berle on Tuesday nights.

The 1955 ITV series The Adventures of Robin Hood secretly gave work to which group?

Blacklisted Hollywood writers including Ring Lardner Jr. and Waldo Salt scripted episodes under pseudonyms; producer Hannah Weinstein, an American expatriate, set up the show partly to employ them.

Who composed Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera written for American television?

Gian Carlo Menotti wrote Amahl on commission from NBC, inspired by Bosch's Adoration of the Magi; it premiered live on Christmas Eve 1951 as the first Hallmark Hall of Fame.

To spoil ITV's launch night in September 1955, the BBC killed a character in which radio soap?

The Archers killed off Grace Archer on 22 September 1955, the evening ITV went on air: she ran into a burning stable to save a horse and died, five months after marrying Phil.

Which game show was abruptly cancelled in August 1958 after a standby contestant found a rival's notebook of answers?

Dotto, the top-rated daytime quiz, was pulled after standby Edward Hilgemeier found a winner's notes backstage; his sworn complaint that August gave weight to charges already made against Twenty-One.

Which singer became the first Black actress to star in a TV sitcom, in ABC's Beulah (1950)?

Ethel Waters played the title maid for the first season, filming in New York while appearing on Broadway in The Member of the Wedding; she quit in 1951 and Hattie McDaniel, then Louise Beavers, took over.

Which 1950 syndicated western was the first television series to be filmed in colour?

The Cisco Kid was shot in colour from its 1950 start, although almost every home set was black and white, so few viewers saw it that way until 1960s reruns; Duncan Renaldo and Leo Carrillo starred.

The BBC's 1953 serial The Quatermass Experiment reached its alien climax in which London landmark?

The creature was confronted inside Westminster Abbey: writer Nigel Kneale's gloved hands, covered in plant matter, poked through a photographic blow-up of the interior, with help from his future wife Judith Kerr.