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 Variety: "Solid Gold" from syndication (Jul. 12, 1986)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Michael Pannoni'
Length - 49:13

"Solid Gold", which was syndicated from 1980-1988, is from a genre of TV program that doesn't really exist anymore today--the weekly music countdown show. These programs highlighted the top charting pop songs of the week, sometimes by having the original artist sing them but just as often by featuring a stable of singers or dancers in re-enactments of the songs.

"Solid Gold" usually had dancers do a brief dance routine for the thirty seconds or so of a song that was featured when the original artist was not performing it. Sometimes these routines bordered on the ridiculous, like here with the John Mellencamp song "Rain on the Scarecrow" that features one dancer in a rhinestone scarecrow costume. In this episode, counting down the top ten songs for the week of July 12, 1986, the original artists performing are The Bangles for "If She Knew What She Wants" (#8) and Falco for "Vienna Calling" (#5). And when we say "perform", of course we mean "lip-sync".

Often there would be "performances" by artists that did not have songs in the week's top ten. Here that includes Smokey Robinson, a-ha, Patti Austin, and Kenny Loggins. There are also in this episode segments that seem a little random, such as regular people on the street lip-syncing to the Huey Lewis and the News song "The Heart of Rock and Roll" and a short dance segment based on jukebox hits of the past.

For the record, here's the entire top ten countdown featured in this episode of "Solid Gold": #10 - "Mothers Talk" by Tears for Fears; #9 - "Who's Johnny" by El DeBarge; #8 - "If She Knew What She Wants" by The Bangles; #7 - "Nothin' at All" by Heart; #6 - "Rain on the Scarecrow" by John Cougar Mellencamp; #5 - "Vienna Calling" by Falco; #4 - "There'll Be Sad Songs to Make You Cry" by Billy Ocean; #3 - "Crush on You" by The Jets; #2 - "Move Away" by Culture Club; and #1 - "On My Own" by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald (sung by the show's host, Dionne Warwick).

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 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 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.

Christmas at TFTP (On This Day Edition): "The Dean Martin Christmas Show" from NBC (Dec. 21, 1967)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Deano Martin'
Length - 51:29

It Was 50 Years Ago Today: Dean Martin had one of the top variety shows on TV for a whole decade from the mid-1960s straight into the mid-1970s. This gave him a whole career on his own after he broke up with comedy partner Jerry Lewis in which Martin became one of America's top singers. This Christmas special, aired on this day in 1967, fifty years ago today, represents Martin at the peak of his popularity as a singer and as a television star.

Martin was also famous, of course, as a member of the 1960s "rat pack" that included his pal Frank Sinatra. This yuletide episode of Martin's show is a holiday merger of the Martin and Sinatra families, as both men include their entire, rather large, families in a program that is packed full of songs, holiday and non-holiday in nature, sung by various combinations of the members of the two families.

Included are Nancy Sinatra singing a Christmas-themed version of her 1966 hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"; Nancy and Dean's daughter Gail Martin singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"; a group song by Dean and Frank along with Nancy and Gail; another group song by Dean and Frank along with Dean Jr. and Frank Jr.; a version of "Do Re Mi" (from "The Sound of Music") with Dean and Frank along with their other daughters Deana Martin and Tina Sinatra; a long medley by Dean and Frank of many of their collective hits; and another long show-closing medley of Christmas songs by different members of the combined brood that included "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays", "Let It Snow", "The Christmas Song", "White Christmas", "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", "Deck the Halls", "Joy to the World", and "Silent Night".

Christmas at TFTP: "The Andy Williams Christmas Show" from NBC (Dec. 18, 1966)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Cost Ander'
Length - 43:43

Andy Williams was a top variety show star of the 1960s, with a weekly variety show on NBC for most of the decade. This is his Christmas episode from December of 1966.

The program is a family affair, as Williams' three brothers, wife Claudine Longet (a French singer), and parents are all featured. Andy's first claim to fame was as a part of a vocal quartet with his brothers, and the Williams Brothers (clad in green from head to toe) sing a medley of Xmas songs here. The Osmond Brothers (including a very young Donny of "Donny and Marie" fame), regulars on Williams' variety show, perform a lengthy and elaborate choreographed musical number in a stylized candy factory with a red-and-white peppermint theme. And Andy performs a couple of numbers at the piano in his (soundstage set) living room.

The Christmas tunes featured here include "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (which opens the show with Williams' and companions "riding" in an old-fashioned auto against a green-screen wintery background), "We Need a Little Christmas", "The Christmas Song" (one of the songs sung by Williams at the living room piano), "Winter Wonderland", and a show-closing "Silent Night" sung by Williams against a stained-glass backdrop.

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.

Christmas at TFTP (Monochrome Monday Edition): "Your Hit Parade" from NBC (Dec. 24, 1955)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Mister Stereo'
Length (total of 3 parts) - 26:05

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

"Your Hit Parade" was a mainstay on NBC radio and TV for over twenty years, providing a review of the "hit parade" of top charting songs for each week. After fifteen years on radio, the TV version premiered in 1950 (the radio edition would continue for five additional years until 1955). On both radio and TV, a revolving cast of musicians and singers recounted the week's top songs for audiences in an era before music video and on-demand music streaming.

The episode of "Your Hit Parade" featured here was aired on Christmas Eve of 1955. As every week, the episode includes renditions of the top seven songs from the previous week ("Sixteen Tons" tops the list here), but Christmas Eve warranted the addition of a few holiday tunes. "Deck the Halls" with the entire Your Hit Parade ensemble opens the episode, with a "Christmas medley" in the mix, and a full-cast performance of "O Holy Night"--on the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink--closing out the show.

TFTP Variety: "Coke Time with Eddie Fisher" (Sep. 29, 1954)

Posted to Internet Archive's Classic TV Collection

Eddie Fisher is a name that not many people today would recognize, but he was a major A-list celeb in the 1950s; he was as famous for his wives as he was for his singing--he was one of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands after having been married to Debbie Reynolds (with whom he was the parent of "Star Wars" star Carrie Fisher). This post features a complete episode of Fisher's show "Coke Time".

"Coke Time" was Fisher's main star vehicle for a good chunk of the 1950s, running from 1953 to 1957 on NBC. Each episode of the twice-weekly series (as in the one featured here) had Fisher simply singing three or four songs, with few frills and little staging, punctuated with a commercial or two for Coca-Cola. "Coke Time" is a good example of a program that had the sponsor's name in the name of the show, which was, of course, very common in the late-1940s and 1950s.

The show is also a good example of a program type that would disappear by the end of the 1950s but which was fairly widespread at the time: the 15-minute-long musical variety show, a program type in which Perry Como and Dinah Shore were likewise featured at different times in the '50s. The quarter-hour show was used for genres other than music (such as news and interview shows), but the combination of genre and length was an easy one to fill with a a handful of songs and call it a show.