TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "Your Show of Shows" from NBC (early-1950s)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Shawm Kreitzman'
Length - 12:45

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

"Your Show of Shows" was one of the most celebrated comedy programs of the early-TV era. Airing on NBC from 1950-1954, it starred Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, was produced by Max Liebman, and served as a training ground for performing arts talent such as Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and Neil Simon. It was one of the first comedy sketch programs, and as such it laid the ground for later shows like "Laugh-In" and "Saturday Night Live". Because it was the early-1950s, "Your Show of Shows" was a live program, and Coca and others associated with it have discussed how this was a vital ingredient in the show's comedy mix.

The clip above is a sketch about a husband and wife's bickering about the husband forgetting about the wife's birthday (Caesar and Coca often portrayed married couples). The sketch displays the duo's skill at executing a scene that has looping emotional arcs as the two characters spiral back and forth among being angry, put-upon, wounded, resentful, and tender as they trade places several times in terms of which is the victim and which is the perpetrator.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The Arthur Murray Show" from DuMont (Oct. 22, 1950)

Posted to Internet Archive by user 'zigoto'
Length - 29:26

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

Although not widely remembered today, Arthur Murray was a huge cultural presence from the 1930s through the 1950s due to his franchised chain of dance studios and then his television programs. By the end of the 1930s, Arthur Murray Studios had begun to establish a presence in most major American cities, and it's safe to say that by the time his TV program started in 1950, around the time of the above episode, that "Arthur Murray" had become synonymous with dance instruction in the U.S.

Murray's TV show aired for a decade between 1950 and 1960, at different times on all four networks and at different lengths ranging from 15 minutes to 60 minutes. For almost all of its run the show was called "The Arthur Murray Party", except for the year-and-a-half that it was on the DuMont network, when it was simply called "The Arthur Murray Show".

In the clip above, which is the second half of an hour-long episode from October of 1950, from during the show's DuMont run, we see host Kathryn Murray, Arthur Murray's wife and business partner, vivaciously usher guests and dancing couples in and out of the spotlight. (Curiously, Arthur Murray himself does not appear in this half-episode; it's not clear whether or not he appeared regularly.) Actors Reginald Gardiner and Beatrice Lillie guest star on this episode and both appear in comedy bits (Lillie alongside a very young Carl Reiner).

The entire program comes off more or less like an infomercial for Arthur Murray Dance Studios, as the chain of studios and the lessons available therein is mentioned several times throughout. This includes one segment with a dancing couple who had had just two Arthur Murray Studio dance lessons!

TFTP's Monochrome Monday (Special On This Day Edition): "What's My Line? at 25" from ABC (May 28, 1975)

Posted to YouTube by user 'What's My Line?'
Length - 1:26:57

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

We bring you this special edition of Monochrome Monday with a program that was partly in color, but was celebrating a show that was in classic black & white for the almost all of its 17 year run: "What's My Line?"

It Was 43 Years Ago Today: "What's My Line?" stands among the most important shows ever in the game show genre--the program, which aired on CBS from 1950-1967 and then in syndication until 1975, helped establish the popularity and venerability of the TV game show. Right as "WML" was going off the air in 1975, this program, "What's My Line? at 25"--originally airing 43 years ago today on May 28, 1975--appeared as a retrospective of its quarter-century history.

Airing as an installment of the ABC late-night umbrella series "Wide World of Entertainment" (after CBS passed on the special), "What's My Line? at 25" features the three individuals most responsible for the show's success: producer Mark Goodson, host John Charles Daly, and panelist Arlene Francis. Goodson, Daly, and Francis moderate the special by sharing some of their memories but also by introducing dozens of clips from over the years.

Celebrated in the special are the panelists who guessed contestants' jobs (including Fred Allen, Steve Allen, Woody Allen, and others not named Allen, such as Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf, and Francis herself); the many celebrity "mystery guests" and some of the shenanigans (such as fake voices) they used to trick the panel; some of the more interesting "lines" (or occupations) guessed by the panel; and a look back at the hairstyles worn on the show by Arlene Francis.

TFTP has featured "What's My Line?" a few times in the past, including the premiere episode from 1950 (which was also the premiere post for TFTP back in 2014), a commercial for longtime "WML" sponsor Remington-Rand (introduced by Daly), and early panelist Fred Allen's first appearance (with Buffalo Bob Smith and Howdy Doody as mystery guests!).

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The Big Record" from CBS (May 14, 1958)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MattTheSaiyan'
Length - 29:01

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

"The Big Record" was a musical variety show that aired on CBS for about a year in 1957 and 1958. Singer Patti Page hosted what started as an hour-long series but was cut back to a half-hour midway through its run. There were some similarities to a show like "Your Hit Parade" in that currently-popular songs were featured, although "The Big Record" had no countdown.

The episode above, from May 1958, features singer Bill Hayes, singer Helen Forest, Harry James and his orchestra, and a female singing group called the Deftones, the winners of a high school talent competition. Page sings several numbers, the Deftones make their TV debut, Hayes belts out a song in a sailor's suit, and James and his orchestra provide a few tunes, to one of which Forest adds the vocals. A couple of filmed commercials for sponsor Oldsmobile also appear, introduced by Page.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The General Electric Theater" from CBS (Dec. 18, 1955)

Posted to YouTube by user 'HORDE'
Length - 29:17

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

Everyone knows that Ronald Reagan, America's 40th president, had been an actor. But that doesn't mean its not still a little jarring to see him actually act, as in this episode of "The General Electric Theater". "GE Theater", which Reagan was also host of for its entire run from 1953 to 1962, was an anthology drama in which a different story with different actors appeared each week. The early years of TV had many such shows, although "GE Theater" was one of the few remaining by the end of its run in the early-1960s.

This 1955 episode of "GE Theater" is entitled "Let It Rain", and in addition to Reagan it features a very young Cloris Leachman. Reagan plays a journalist who has stopped off in the southern small-town where Leachman's character lives. The journalist ends up trying to debunk a local legend about a Civil War-era sword that was lodged in a tree trunk, while also carrying on a love affair with Leachman. (It's especially jarring to see Reagan in these romantic scenes.)

The episode is typical of early-TV anthology series: only a handful of characters, just a few locations (all of them sets on a soundstage), and stories that tended towards the personal and intimate--all of which worked well with the smaller budgets and smaller screen of early television.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "All-Star Revue" from NBC (Feb. 14, 1953)

Posted to Internet Archive by user 'HappySwordsman'
Length - 56:57

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

In the fall of 1950, NBC launched a new variety show called "Four Star Revue"; the name derived from the four rotating hosts--Ed Wynn, Danny Thomas, Jack Carson, and Jimmy Durante. With the beginning of the show's second season in the fall of 1951--and an expanded roster of rotating hosts--the program's name was changed to "All-Star Revue". The episode above, hosted by singer Perry Como, is from the show's third season and originally aired on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1953.

The episode begins with a rather lengthy and elaborate musical number that has Como arriving at his office and being attended to by a large group of chorus girls, servants, deliverymen, even a shoeshine boy. The rest of the episode features comedy sketches with Joan Blondell, Ben Blue, and Patti Page; songs by Page ("How Much is That Doggie in the Window?"), Como ("You'll Never Walk Alone" from the play "Carousel"), and Page and Como duetting ("Side by Side"). There is also a very strange sketch near the middle in which Como and his kids tour an art museum in which the paintings all come to life and the figures in the paintings do short commercials for sponsor Pet Milk.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "Break the Bank" from ABC (Dec. 1955)

Posted by YouTube by user 'Shokus Video'
Length - 27:35

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

"Break the Bank" was a pretty simple game show, both from a gameplay perspective and from a production values perspective. Host Bert Parks and contestants simply stood on a mostly bare stage as Parks asked questions for progressively higher amounts of money ($25, then $50, then $100, $200, $300, and $500). At the top of the money ladder was a final question that if answered correctly would "break the bank" and win the contestants whatever amount the "bank" had built up to (starting at $1000 and rising with each set of contestants that didn't win it).

Contestants generally were couples or groups, as with the young family and then the older couple in the above episode. The family in the first part of the episode is successful in its attempt to "break the bank" (to the tune of $1300), whereas the older couple is not. In some respects, as with a lot of 1950s game shows ("You Bet Your Life" for sure, probably others), on "Break the Bank" it's the interaction between host and contestants that is just as important as whatever game is being played.

"Break the Bank" was sponsored by Dodge automobiles, so there are a couple of filmed Dodge ads in the mix in this episode, as well as the Dodge logo that is displayed prominently on the backdrop on stage.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "School House" from DuMont (Mar. 22, 1949)

Posted to Internet Archive by user 'zigoto'
Length - 26:05

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

Although little-known today (except among those well-versed in TV history), from the late-1940s through the mid-1950s there was a fourth national TV network, the DuMont network. DuMont Laboratories was an electronics firm founded and run by inventor Allen DuMont, and the DuMont network was an offshoot of his television set manufacturing business. Many of the programs DuMont aired were a little eclectic, even peculiar, compared to the other networks. "School House" is one of those programs.

Sort of a hybrid between a musical variety show and a sitcom, "School House" is set in a high school classroom where Kenny Delmar presides as the professor. Several students from his class--which includes later notables such as Wally Cox and Arnold Stang--sing, dance, juggle, and recite poetry in the episode above, the only known surviving episode, which aired on Mar. 22, 1949. (The series aired for only a few months between January and April of 1949.)

Part way through the episode, there is a very interesting ad for DuMont television sets, although it is entirely within the setting of the show's classroom. Wally Cox and another student have wandered over to a large console television that happens to be stationed at the side of the classroom, and Cox pontificates to Delmar and the class (and, of course, the viewers) about the qualities of the DuMont TV set.

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: "Our Miss Brooks" from CBS (May 20, 1955)

Posted to YouTube by user 'balsamwoods'
Length - 22:04

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

Like many early TV shows, "Our Miss Brooks" started out as a radio program (in 1948) and then was adapted for TV (in 1952). The radio and TV versions ran simultaneously then until both left the air in 1957. Eve Arden starred in both versions as Madison High School English teacher Connie Brooks. Arden was surrounded by a supporting cast made up of staff members and students of Madison High, including Gale Gordon (later best known as Lucille Ball's foil in her 1960s sitcoms) as Principal Conklin and Robert Rockwell as biology teacher Philip Boynton.

The episode above, from May of 1955, shows the dynamic between stuffy Principal Conklin and well-meaning but flighty Miss Brooks. It also is a great example of that perennial sitcom trope--the misunderstanding. Conklin wishes for Madison High to have a new mascot for the school's football team (to show up a rival at another high school); through a misunderstanding stemming from having received only part of a note from Conklin, Brooks ends up getting him a different mascot than he had in mind.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "Rate Your Mate" from CBS (1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'videoarchives1000'
Length - 26:31 (total)

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

Every single year of television history there have been pilot episodes made for programs that were never picked up by the network. The game show genre has had more of these pilots than most types. Here we have one of these game show pilots that was never picked up as a regular series.

"Rate Your Mate" was an early game show pilot by Goodson-Todman Productions, based on a radio version of the same concept, that was made for CBS in 1951. Goodson-Todman had been producing TV game shows for a few years by '51, with its early flagship program, "What's My Line?", having premiered the previous year. "Rate Your Mate" has some characteristics that are similar to other early-1950s game shows (Goodson-Todman or otherwise), including a format that features a married couple as contestants, relatively simple gameplay, extremely small stakes for winning (maximum $100 here), and fairly crude production values.

In "Rate Your Mate", hosted by comedian Joey Adams, one spouse goes into a soundproof booth while the other spouse guesses whether or not they will correctly answer questions that are posed to them. Some of the questions are straight factual questions but other ones involve models either wearing or displaying objects which must be correctly identified. Three different couples appear in this pilot, each with varying success.

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's Monochrome Monday: "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom" from ABC (Feb. 13, 1958)

Posted to the Internet Archive by user 'HappySwordsman'
Length - 25:45

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

Pat Boone was a major star and recording artist from the mid-1950s through the early-1960s, and while he has been known more in recent years for his conservative religious and political views, he was a big part of the popular music scene at the time of this episode from his ABC variety show.

"The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom"--which aired on ABC from October of 1957 through June of 1960--was one of a number of half-hour musical variety shows that were found in prime-time in the mid- to late-1950s. This episode, a Valentine's Day episode from February of 1958 (that aired on the same night as the Jack Benny 40th Birthday Celebration TFTP featured last week), features guest stars Gina Lollobrigida and Jimmy Dean. Pat banters with Lollobrigida, offering some pidgin-Italian that she playfully claims sounds like Hungarian, before later singing "That's Amore" with her. Jimmy Dean comes on and he and Pat sing a country song about "tater pie".

The program was sponsored by Chevrolet, of course, and near the opening Pat and his chorus offer a rousing round of the "See the USA in your Chevrolet" jingle. The rest of the Chevy ads from the episode--including one with Roy Rogers that Pat introduces--are unfortunately not in this copy of the program.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The Morning Show" w/ Jack Paar from CBS (c. 1956)

Posted to YouTube by user 'tvdays'
Length - 13:05

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

Before he became the second host of "The Tonight Show" in 1957, Jack Paar was host of the first early morning news program on CBS. After NBC premiered the "Today" show, CBS felt compelled to compete in the new early morning period, and so "The Morning Show" launched in March of 1954. For its first year the program was hosted by newsman (and future CBS anchor) Walter Cronkite, who was succeeded by Paar in 1955.

Paar had begun his career in radio as a substitute host on shows like "The Breakfast Club" and as a humorous disc jockey in local radio, and those influences show in this clip from during Paar's stint as host of "The Morning Show". Sitting at a nondescript desk with clock behind him on the wall, Paar leads a light banter with the camera and with his stable of regulars. These regulars (including musician Jose Melis and singer Rosemary Clooney) engage with Paar in a long spoof ad for selling air, while both Melis and Clooney offer musical performances that help to punctuate Paar's banter. Charles Collingwood reads the news in a curious style in front of a mock-wood-paneled-study backdrop (while discreetly putting out a cigarette).

This easy banter carried over into the rest of the TV shows Paar hosted in his career, including the "Tonight Show" and his 1960s prime-time variety show. To some extent, this type of light back and forth had a lasting influence on the network morning show as well, probably in larger proportion than Paar's relatively short (only about two year) stint as "Morning Show" host would suggest.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The Pinky Lee Show" from NBC (1954)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MeditationsBySharri'
Length - 27:23

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

"The Pinky Lee Show" was perhaps the epitome of the manic, unhinged kids show of the 1950s. Pinky Lee began as a vaudeville slapstick comic of the "baggy pants" variety--which was the genesis of his trademark checked suit and hat that he continued to wear in his TV shows. He also carried over from vaudeville the kind of frantic and physical style of comedy that made his early-1950s prime-time variety show and this afternoon kids' show such fonts of nonstop zaniness.

The episode above demonstrates this with the chasing around kissing audience members and jumping into a woman's lap during his opening song. It continues in the Sherlock Holmes parody sketch that follows, where Lee is hunting for clues with a magnifying glass and it turns into a manic dance number. Pinky's regular distribution of "Pinky Pops" turns into yet another crazy song and dance routine, and the zany goes right through the end of the episode, with a number where Pinky brings down several adults from the audience to participate in a sort of dance-line.

Lee's kids' show, which was nominated for an Emmy in 1956, represented the peak of his career. He'd appeared in a few movies in the 1940s and early-1950s, and had both a half-hour variety show and a 15-minute sitcom for about a year each in the early-1950s. But this kids' show, with its audience gallery, its juvenile sketches, and its opportunity for Pinky Lee to demonstrate his strengths as a comic is what he's best known for today.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: Commercials/Promos from ABC (Dec. 18, 1957)

Posted to YouTube by user 'pannoni4'
Length - 8:05

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

Although not a flow sequence in terms of all having been aired continuously in a solid block of airtime, here is a series of commercials and (mostly) promos from ABC from December of 1957. A pair of minute-long 7-Up commercials kick things off, with one very odd commercial featuring several birds (ducks?) performing different tasks (packing pickles, picking cotton, etc.) made more tolerable by having a bottle of 7-Up. This is followed by a second 7-Up commercial in a bullfighting setting (again with one of the strange birds as a matador).

Most of the rest of the block is ABC network promos, beginning with a short one for "The Frank Sinatra Show" with guest Bing Crosby. An ABC network ID follows, succeeded by a PSA for the U.S. Mail. A station ID for Philadelphia's WFIL-TV leads into a promo for "Wild Bill Hickok"; a lengthy "Season's Greetings" spot with names of ABC personalities displayed; promos for "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom", "Wednesday Night Fights", and "The Saga of Andy Burnett" (a serial shown on "Disneyland"); and a closing, longer promo for the episode of "The Frank Sinatra Show" with guest Bing Crosby, a Christmas episode featuring various carols and holiday songs.

Interspersed among these are a couple of bumpers for "American Bandstand", an episode from which came all of the promos and other spots in this block.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "Video Village" from CBS (Sep. 16, 1960)

Posted to YouTube by user 'videoarchives1000'
Length (total) - 29:28

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

"Video Village" is one of the more interesting game shows in TV history. It's basically a life-size board game--with the contestants themselves as the pawns marking where they are on the board. The show's set is a large representation of an undulating ribbon of game spaces, each space indicating a different kind of action--some with cash prizes, some located in front of mock storefronts with merchandise prizes, some dictating certain types of movements (e.g., trading places with the other contestant), some sending the contestant to jail (like in Monopoly, but with an actual mock jail cell).

The program, from game-show impresarios Heatter-Quigley (best known for "Hollywood Squares"), had both daytime and prime-time versions that debuted within days of each other in July 1960. The daytime edition lasted for two years, until June 1962, but the prime-time version only made it a few months, until September 12, 1960, with the episode featured above. Jack Narz hosted both versions until the prime-time run ended; Monty Hall took over the daytime version thereafter; Red Rowe substituted for this final prime-time episode.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The Burns and Allen Show" from CBS (Jul. 17, 1952)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Shokus Video'
Length - 29:32

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

George Burns and Gracie Allen were a comedy team (and a marital team) that lasted for decades through vaudeville, radio, and television. By the time their TV show--a pioneering situation comedy--premiered in 1950, their act and their appeal had been long established. George was the straight man, calm and bemused in the face of ditzy Gracie's hijinx. Although in the episode above George strays further than usual into wackiness, this division of comedic labor held for the most part in "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show", which aired on CBS from 1950-1958.

Like most TV programs from this earliest period, "The Burns and Allen Show" was originally aired live. We see here many of the trappings of that mode of presentation, including an actual curtain that raises at the beginning of the story. Also like most programs from this earliest period, it had a single sponsor, in this case Carnation Evaporated Milk, featured in the opening and closing as well as in an ad at the very end of the program.

The plot in this episode (from July 1952) is a version of one that would become a sitcom staple: mistaken identity. George thinks that everyone else thinks he's a great singer, when they actually think the opposite. This leads to some comic moments throughout the episode, as George and Gracie banter with friends at home and then as they become mistaken for another couple (one with a husband who can sing well) by a record producer.

Christmas at TFTP (Monochrome Monday Edition): "The Steve Allen Christmas Show" from ABC (Dec. 20, 1961)

Posted to YouTube by user 'RayHoffmanOnAir'
Length - 54:10

Steve Allen was a pioneering television comedian, starting in local TV in the early '50s, continuing with his stint as the first host of the "Tonight Show" from 1954-1957, and culminating with his legendary prime-time variety show on NBC from 1956-1960. This Christmas special is not from that series, but from what was known as the "'New' Steve Allen Show" that aired on ABC for less than a full season in 1961-62.

Even though this is Allen just ever so slightly past his peak, this Christmas show still wonderfully represents his comedy. The show takes place entirely at Allen's and wife Jayne Meadow's home, and it begins with them welcoming the guests and cast (including the Smothers Brothers and Tim Conway early in their careers, as well as Allen regulars Louis Nye and Bill Dana) at their door as one would for a normal social gathering. Then, Allen and Meadows give a short tour of their home, with gag stock footage providing the punchline behind each door (e.g., a closet door yields to an image of an entire warehouse of men's suits). Meadows' game--and skillful--participation in this bit reminds us how underrated she was as Allen's comedic (as well as life) partner.

Parts of the rest of the program take place on the patio around the home's swimming pool (with one synchronized swimming segment taking place IN the pool). Back inside, the Smothers Brothers do a number in the halting, comic style for which they would become known. Later, Allen's own sons perform a savvy parody of their dad's own show--labeled the "The New Steve Allen Jr. Show"--with Steve Jr. doing an impeccable impression of dad and his two younger brothers effectively lampooning the Smothers Brothers.

Steve Sr. returns dressed as Santa and welcomes several youngsters (kids of cast and crew, including Allen's youngest son) to his lap where Santa Steverino demonstrates his legendary ad-lib skills. The program ends back out by the pool with a group finale of "Silent Night".

Christmas at TFTP (Monochrome Monday Edition): "The Lawrence Welk Show" from ABC (Dec. 24, 1958)

Posted to YouTube by user 'John Smith'
Length - 59:29

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

"The Lawrence Welk Show" has been a TV mainstay for many decades--for the last thirty years on public television, during the 1970s in syndication, and from 1955-1971 (including at the time of this 1958 Christmas Eve episode) in prime-time on ABC. During the 1958-59 season, when the program aired from 7:30-8:30 pm on Wednesday nights, it was officially called "Lawrence Welk's Plymouth Show"; Plymouth branding is visible on the curtain behind the orchestra throughout the episode, and a very short Plymouth ad appears midway through.

Welk, whose big-band orchestra conducting cred went back to the 1930s, gained a reputation for presenting what was called "champagne music", or music that was insubstantial but enjoyable. Much of the music on his programs can seem impenetrable now (and certainly not enjoyable), but in his heyday of the late-1950s through the early-1970s there were few impresarios more popular.

The music in this episode, all of it Christmas themed, is much more accessible--if only because most of the songs remain familiar today. Among the Xmas tunes packed into this episode are an instrumental rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (which opens the episode), "O Holy Night" by the Lennon Sisters (who were one of the most popular parts of Welk's "musical family"), a harp performance of "Winter Wonderland" by Betsy Mills, an instrumental "Jingle Bells" on trumpet and clarinet, "Silent Night" by a choir of Welk regulars, and a second, show-closing performance of "Jingle Bells" sung by all of the Welk show musicians and singers along with their children.