TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The Bob Hope Chevy Show" from NBC (Oct. 21, 1956)

Posted to YouTube by user 'balsamwoods'
Length - 54:59

TFTP's Monochrome Monday brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week....

Here is one of the many Bob Hope specials that the legendary comedian did for decades on NBC, this one from fairly early in that stretch, on October 21, 1956. This one is pretty standard for Hope's output in the earlier years of his TV career--he comes out and does a monologue, then several comedy sketches with guest stars fill out the hour.

The first guest star, who comes out at the tail end of the monologue, is British actress Diana Dors (a pretty obscure figure now). Dors banters with Hope before the two of them mount a two-part sketch. In the first part, Dors plays a doting wife to Hope's lord of the manor in a portrayal of a British couple; part two reverses the roles in an American portrayal with Hope becoming the doting one to Dors' spoiled wife. Next up is New York Yankees star pitcher Don Larsen, fresh off of his perfect game in the 1956 World Series. He too banters with Hope before they engage in a less-ambitious playact in which Larsen "re-enacts" his historic pitching performance with Hope as a hapless batter.

The "Hollywood Deb-Stars", a group of debutantes, are announced by Hope alongside guest James Cagney, prior to Cagney singing a musical number. Lastly, Hope joins the foursome from "I Love Lucy" (Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley) in a final lengthy sketch that scrambles the male roles from that top-ranking sitcom.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: Promo for Daytime Line-Up from NBC (1956)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MattTheSaiyan'
Length - 1:00

TFTP's Monochrome Monday brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week....

Network program promos don't get much more bare bones than this 1956 NBC daytime promo (unless they're strictly slides with announcer voiceover). The first half of this minute-long promo is a rather crude stationary drawing of two women with a voiceover of two women chatting with each other about TV. One of them is suggesting to the other viewing the morning line-up of shows on NBC. The voiceover conversation between the two continues into the second half of the promo as slides appear of the three shows under discussion, before ending with a slide that lists all three programs.

The three programs promoted are (1) "Home" with Arlene Francis, which had moved to a new timeslot; (2) game show "The Price is Right" with Bill Cullen ("that one with the bidding for prizes and all that" as described by one of the women); and (3) "Truth and Consequences" with Bob Barker.

TFTP Will Be Back After This Message: UNIVAC Computer commercial from "What's My Line?" (Feb. 5, 1956)

The first post for TFTP a couple of weeks ago was the debut episode of the panel game show "What's My Line?". This first commercial to appear on TFTP is one from the run of "What's My Line?", which for a number of years had as a sponsor Remington Rand, maker of UNIVAC computers. This 1956 commercial for UNIVAC is fascinating for several reasons: it is lengthy (much longer than we've become used to in recent years); it has an explanatory quality that was once common in commercials as late as the 1980s; it features John Charles Daly, WML's host, providing an introduction to it in the program, also once a common practice that has long since (mostly) disappeared; and it provides a really interesting glimpse at 1950s era computers!