1.
Golden Age of Radio
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The old-time radio era, sometimes referred to as the Golden Age of Radio, was an era of radio programming in the United States during which radio was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the beginning of broadcasting in the early 1920s and lasted until the 1950s. During this period radio was the only broadcast medium, and people regularly tuned into their favourite radio programs, according to a 1947 C. E. Hooper survey,82 out of 100 Americans were found to be radio listeners. Since this era, radio programming has shifted to a narrow format of news, talk, sports. It allowed subscribers to eavesdrop on live performances and hear news reports by means of a network of telephone lines. The development of radio eliminated the wires and subscription charges from this concept, on Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden is said to have broadcast the first radio program, consisting of some violin playing and passages from the Bible. The first apparent published reference to the event was made in 1928 by H. P, davis, Vice President of Westinghouse, in a lecture given at Harvard University. In 1932 Fessenden cited the Christmas Eve 1906 broadcast event in a letter he wrote to Vice President S. M, Fessendens wife Helen recounts the broadcast in her book Fessenden, Builder of Tomorrows, eight years after Fessendens death. The issue of whether the 1906 Fessenden broadcast actually happened is discussed in Donna Halpers article In Search of the Truth About Fessenden and also in James ONeals essays. It was not until after the Titanic catastrophe in 1912 that radio for communication came into vogue. Radio was especially important during World War I as it was vital for air, after the war, numerous radio stations were born in the United States and set the standard for later radio programs. The first radio program was broadcast on August 31,1920 on the station 8MK in Detroit, owned by The Detroit News. This was followed in 1920 with the first commercial station in the United States, KDKA. The first regular entertainment programs were broadcast in 1922, and on March 10, Variety carried the front page headline, a highlight of this time was the first Rose Bowl being broadcast on January 1,1923 on the Los Angeles station KHJ. Several radio networks broadcast in the United States, airing programs nationwide and their distribution made the golden age of radio possible. The networks declined in the early 1960s, Mutual and NBC both closed down their operations in the 1980s, while ABC lasted until 2007 and CBS still operates its network as of 2016. Mutual, ABC and NBCs radio assets now reside with Cumulus Medias Westwood One division through numerous mergers, cBSs radio assets are in the process of being integrated with Entercom as of 2017. Mutual was run as a cooperative in which the stations owned the network
2.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
3.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
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Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted and executive produced by Alfred Hitchcock, which aired on CBS and NBC between 1955 and 1965. It featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries, by the time it premiered on October 2,1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades. Time magazine named it one of The 100 Best TV Shows of all time, the Writers Guild of America ranked it #79 on their list of the 101 Best-Written TV Series tying it with Monty Pythons Flying Circus, Star Trek, The Next Generation and Upstairs, Downstairs. A series of anthologies with the running title Alfred Hitchcock Presents were issued to capitalize on the success of the television series. Alfred Hitchcock Presents is well known for its title sequence, the camera fades in on a simple line-drawing caricature of Hitchcocks rotund profile. He then almost always says Good evening, the caricature drawing, which Hitchcock created, and the use of Gounods Funeral March of a Marionette as theme music have become indelibly associated with Hitchcock in popular culture. At least two versions of the opening were shot for every episode, a version intended for the American audience would often spoof a recent popular commercial or poke fun at the sponsor, leading into the commercial. An alternative version for European audiences would instead include jokes at the expense of Americans in general, for later seasons, opening remarks were also filmed with Hitchcock speaking in French and German for the shows international presentations. Hitchcock closed the show in much the way as it opened. He told TV Guide that his reassurances that the criminal had been apprehended were a necessary gesture to morality, Alfred Hitchcock Presents finished at #6 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1956–57 season, and at #12 in 1957–58, #24 in 1958–59 and #25 in 1959–60. Originally 25 minutes per episode, the series was expanded to 50 minutes in 1962, Hitchcock directed 17 of the 267 filmed episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and one of the 50-minute episodes, I Saw the Whole Thing with John Forsythe. The last new episode aired on June 26,1965, in 1985, NBC aired a new TV movie pilot based upon the series, combining four newly filmed stories with colorized footage of Hitchcock from the original series to introduce each segment. The movie was a ratings success. Alfred Hitchcock Presents revival series debuted in the fall of 1985 and retained the format as the pilot. The new series lasted one season before NBC cancelled it. Other notable directors included Robert Altman, Ida Lupino, Stuart Rosenberg, Robert Stevenson, David Swift and William Friedkin, who ended up directing what would be the last episode. Alfred Hitchcock Presents,25 minutes long, aired weekly at 9,30 on CBS on Sunday nights from 1955 to 1960, and then at 8,30 on NBC on Tuesday nights from 1960 to 1962. It was followed by The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, which lasted for three seasons, September 1962 to June 1965, adding another 93 episodes to the 268 already produced for Alfred Hitchcock Presents
4.
Bonanza
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Bonanza is an NBC television western series that ran from 1959 to 1973. The show continues to air in syndication, the show is set around the 1860s and it centers on the wealthy Cartwright family, who live in the area of Virginia City, Nevada, bordering Lake Tahoe. The series stars Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts, the show is known for presenting moral dilemmas. The shows theme song itself, called Bonanza, became a hit song in its own right, only instrumental renditions, absent Ray Evans words, were ever used during the series long run. In 2002, Bonanza was ranked No.43 on TV Guides 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, the time period for the television series is roughly between 1861 to 1867 during and shortly after the American Civil War. During the summer of 1972, NBC aired reruns of episodes from the 1967–1970 period in time on Tuesday evening under the title Ponderosa. The show chronicles the adventures of the Cartwright family, headed by the thrice-widowed patriarch Ben Cartwright. Via exposition and flashback episodes, each wife was accorded a different ancestry, English, Swedish, the familys cook was the Chinese immigrant Hop Sing. Greene, Roberts, Blocker, and Landon were billed equally, the opening credits would alternate the order among the four stars. The family lived on a 600, 000+ acre ranch called the Ponderosa on the shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada. The vast size of the Cartwrights land was quietly revised to half a million acres on Lorne Greenes 1964 song, the ranch name refers to the Ponderosa Pine, common in the West. The nearest town to the Ponderosa was Virginia City, where the Cartwrights would go to converse with Sheriff Roy Coffee, or his deputy Clem Foster. You always saw stories about family on comedies or on an anthology, but Bonanza was the first series that was week-to-week about a family, Bonanza was a period drama that attempted to confront contemporary social issues. That was very difficult to do on television, most shows that tried to do it failed because the sponsors didnt like it, and the networks were nervous about getting letters, explains Stephen Battaglio, a senior editor for TV Guide magazine. Episodes ranged from high drama, to comedy, and addressed issues such as the environment, substance abuse, domestic violence, anti-war sentiment. The series sought to illustrate the cruelty of bigotry against, Asians, African-Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Mormons, originally, the Cartwrights tended to be depicted as put-off by outsiders. Lorne Greene objected to this, pointing out that as the areas largest timber and livestock producer, the producers agreed with this observation and changed the Cartwrights to be more amiable. Though not familiar stars in 1959, the cast quickly became favorites of the first television generation, the order of billing at the beginning of the broadcast appeared to be shuffled randomly each week, with no relation whatsoever to the current episode featured that week
5.
Get Smart
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Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. It was created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry and had its premiere on September 18,1965. The show stars Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, and Edward Platt as Thaddeus, the Chief. Henry said that they created the show at the request of Daniel Melnick to capitalize on the two biggest things in the entertainment world today, James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, Brooks said, Its an insane combination of James Bond and Mel Brooks comedy. The show generated a number of popular catchphrases during its run, sorry about that, Chief, The Old Trick, And loving it, and I asked you not to tell me that. The show was followed by the films The Nude Bomb and Get Smart, Again. as well as a 1995 revival series and a 2008 film remake. In 2010, TV Guide ranked Get Smarts opening title sequence at No.2 on its list of TVs Top 10 Credits Sequences as selected by readers, the show ended its 4½-year run on May 15,1970, having a total of 5 seasons and 138 episodes. The series centers on bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart, also known as Agent 86 and his female partner, Agents 86 and 99 work for CONTROL, a secret U. S. government counter-intelligence agency based in Washington, D. C. The pair investigates and thwarts various threats to the world, though Smarts bumbling nature, however, Smart never fails to save the day. Looking on is the head of CONTROL, who is addressed simply as Chief. The nemesis of CONTROL is KAOS, described as an organization of evil. In the series, KAOS was supposedly formed in Bucharest, Romania, neither CONTROL nor KAOS is actually an acronym. Many guest actors appeared as KAOS agents, including William Schallert, conrad Siegfried, played by Bernie Kopell, as Smarts KAOS archenemy. King Moody portrayed the dim-witted but burly Shtarker, Siegfrieds assistant, the enemies, world-takeover plots and gadgets seen in Get Smart parody the James Bond movies. Do what they did except just stretch it half an inch, Max and 99 marry in season four, and have twins in season five. Agent 99 became the first woman on an American hit sitcom to keep her job after marriage, Talent Associates commissioned Mel Brooks and Buck Henry to write a script about a bungling James Bond-like hero. Brooks described the premise for the show which they created in an October 1965 Time magazine article and they were such distortions of life. If a maid ever took over my house like Hazel, Id set her hair on fire, I wanted to do a crazy, unreal comic-strip kind of thing about something besides a family
6.
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
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The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, sometimes called The Burns and Allen Show, is a half-hour television series broadcast from 1950 to 1958 on CBS. It stars George Burns and Gracie Allen, one of the most enduring acts in entertainment history, Burns and Allen were headliners in vaudeville in the 1920s, and radio stars in the 1930s and 1940s. Their situation comedy TV series received Emmy Award nominations throughout its eight-year run. A half-hour TV series broadcast October 12,1950 – September 22,1958, on CBS, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show was initially staged live, in fall 1952, it became a weekly series filmed on the West Coast. From March 1953 through September 1958, The Burns and Allen Show aired Mondays at 8 pm ET, the show was an immediate success. Six episodes were produced live from the Mansfield Theatre in New York, the show relocated to the CBS Columbia Square facilities in Hollywood beginning with the seventh episode. Ever the businessman, Burns realized it would be efficient to do the series on film. With 291 episodes, the show had a network run through 1958. The sets were designed to look like the couples real-life residence, an establishing shot of the actual house on Maple Drive in Beverly Hills, California, was often used. Although extensively remodeled, that still exists today—including the study over the garage where George would escape from Gracies illogical logic. Burns lived in the house until his death in 1996, at the age of 100, the format had George watching all the action and breaking the fourth wall by commenting upon it to the viewers. Another running gag was Georges weekly firing of announcer Harry Von Zell after he turned up aiding, abetting, during the course of the eight-year run, the TV show had remarkable consistency in its cast and crew. The episodes were produced and directed by Ralph Levy, Frederick de Cordova, later director of NBCs The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, the original writing staff consisted of Sid Dorfman, Harvey Helm, Paul Henning, and William Burns. Later writers included Nate Monaster, Jesse Goldstein, Norman Paul, the associate producer was Al Simon, the director of photography was Philip Tannura, A. S. C. and the editor was Larry Heath. The shows primary sponsor was Carnation Evaporated Milk, later alternating with B. F. Goodrich, Bea Benaderet carried over from the Burns and Allen radio show, portraying neighbor Blanche Morton, but over the course of the series, four different actors played her husband. The characters first name was Harry, the same first name as the real-life announcer Harry Von Zell, blanches husband Harry Morton was first portrayed by Hal March, then John Brown, and after that, Fred Clark, until 1953. He introduces Larry Keating, who enters, and then calls over Bea Benaderet to introduce the two saying, This is Larry Keating and he is going to be your husband now, the pair greet and chat briefly, complimenting each other on their previous work. George remarks that if they are going to be so nice to each other, Burns then gives a cue, Blanche resumes her position, and the scene continues where it stopped as if nothing had happened
