TFTP's Monochrome March: "Cavalcade of Stars" from DuMont (Oct. 26, 1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'WABDtv'
Length - 49:48

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!

"Cavalcade of Stars" started in June of 1949 on the DuMont network as a garden-variety early TV variety show--with dancers, singers, comedy sketches, and rotating hosts. Starting in July of 1950, one of those rotating hosts -- soon to become the show's only host -- was comedian Jackie Gleason. Gleason had been kicking around Hollywood for a number of years by 1950 and had appeared the previous year in the first version of the "Life of Riley" TV sitcom. "Cavalcade of Stars" would become the vehicle by which Gleason rocketed to stardom in TV comedy.

By fall of 1952, Gleason had been snapped up by the more prestigious CBS and "Cavalcade of Stars" moved over to the Tiffany Network, renamed "The Jackie Gleason Show". But before that, Gleason had a couple of solid seasons on DuMont as his star rose, and this episode is from the middle of that period, October of 1951. Most of Gleason's famous characters originated on the DuMont show, including Charlie Bratten ("The Loudmouth") and Reggie Van Gleason (both of which appear in the above episode), as well as the Honeymooners--which had appeared for the first time a few weeks before this episode aired.

This episode, after a brief monologue from Gleason (and his signature line "And away we go!"), begins with a dance number by the June Taylor Dancers, followed by a song from Georgia Gibbs. Gleason does a magic act which is followed by a musical/dance number called "Hangin' Around With You". The Loudmouth makes his appearance (with Art Carney's Clem Finch supporting) followed by a pair of songs. The show closes with a long sketch (that includes a comic musical performance) featuring Reggie Van Gleason, a character that lampoons upper class pretensions.

TFTP On This Day: "The Dinah Shore Show" from NBC (Jan. 10, 1952)

Posted to YouTube by user 'balsamwoods'
Length - 14:50

It Was 66 Years Ago Today: This episode of "The Dinah Shore Show", originally aired 66 years ago today, is a good example of two different things: first, of the early career of Dinah Shore, a television icon who had a broadcasting career (in radio and TV) that spanned forty years from the early-1940s until about 1980; and secondly, of the type of fifteen-minute music program that was common in the earliest period of TV from the late-1940s through the 1950s.

Dinah Shore had a singing career that went back even earlier than her broadcasting career, and in the early years her TV programs, including the one featured here, consisted mostly of music. By the mid-1950s, her show (now expanded to sixty minutes) had become a full-fledged variety show. At the beginning of the 1970s, she shifted mostly away from music to daytime talk-show hosting.

At the time of this 1952 episode, her show was only fifteen minutes long, and this was a fairly common program-length at the time for music shows that aired on the early fringe of prime-time. These programs often aired twice a week and alternated in the same timeslot with another fifteen-minute program that aired on two other nights of the week. For instance, during the 1953-54 season, Dinah's show aired on NBC from 7:30-7:45 Eastern on Tuesdays and Thursdays and alternated with "Coke Time with Eddie Fisher" that aired at the same time on Wednesdays and Fridays.

This episode, atypically for most of these fifteen-minute programs, actually has a loose storyline in which Dinah is put up for an audition that then leads to a screen test, with the two performances making up the bulk of the episode. At the time of this episode, Dinah's longtime sponsorship by Chevrolet autos (her later variety show was titled "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show") had already begun, and there are opening and closing Chevrolet segments with a mid-show commercial inserted as well.