TFTP's Monochrome March: "You Asked for It" from DuMont (1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MeditationsBySharri'
Length - 29:22

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

"You Asked for It" is a program that defies categorization and which has no real counterpart in today's TV landscape. The title is quite literal in that viewers sent in letters asking for something (an answer to a question, a particular type of guest or presentation) and the show gave it to them--with host Art Baker declaring "You asked for it!"

Airing on the DuMont network from 1950-51 and then ABC until 1959, "You Asked for It" fulfilled hundreds of such requests over the course of its run. In the episode featured here, soldiers get to see pin-up girls act out the pin-up photos they've appeared in, a pair of trained birds do charming tricks, a Hawaiian country music singer performs, and a group of actors from the "Our Gang" comedy shorts has a reunion. Baker interviews each of the former child actors about their lives since "Our Gang" and the actors are also reunited with crew members from their films (plus there is cake!).

Sponsored by Skippy peanut butter, several commercials are included here as well, including one very weird one in which host Art Baker tries to hypnotize the audience into liking Skippy.