Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Abbott & Costello Show



Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were the top comedy duo in film, on radio and the stage during the 1940's and into the 1950's. When television came along it was only natural that they moved into that medium as well. Initially, they were one of the rotating hosts of the very popular Colgate Comedy Hour on NBC, then in 1952 Lou Costello financed the production of The Abbott & Costello Show which was a syndicated sitcom carried in every major market by stations on all three networks. The show remained active until May 1954. In 1994, when his Seinfeld sitcom was the #1 rated show in the country, Jerry Seinfeld stated that the Abbott & Costello Show was the inspiration for Seinfeld.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Abbott and Costello Show

Friday, March 2, 2012

Make Room For Daddy / The Danny Thomas Show






Make Room For Daddy debuted on ABC in the 1953-1954 TV season. Starring nightclub, radio and occasional film performer Danny Thomas with Jean Hagen as his wife and Sherry Jackson and Rusty Hamer as his kids. At the end of the third season Hagen left the show which didn't please Thomas so he had her killed off. The fourth season featured just Thomas as a widowed father with the two kids, but near the end of the season he began wooing nurse Kathy played by Marjorie Lord (certainly one of the more memorable TV moms from that era) and the fifth season saw the name changed to The Danny Thomas Show with new wife Kathy and her daughter Linda (played by Angela Cartwright) and a switch to CBS and about 3 seasons as a very popular sitcom. In all, the show lasted for 11 seasons and some 350 episodes (136 of which are found on these discs). The final episode came in April 1964.
Sherry Jackson was unceremoniously booted off the show in 1958. Hans Conried, Louise Beavers, Amanda Randolph, Ben Lessy, Sid Melton, Sheldon Leonard, Jesse White were some of the other actors that had recurring roles. 
The show also shared crossover episodes with The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour and the Joey Bishop Show, had an episode that served as the pilot of the Andy Griffith Show and helped launch The Bill Dana Show.
There are people selling sets of this show but they are all singularly sourced and whoever did up the original got most of the episodes wrong and also stretched the video picture out ridiculously wide to the point of distortion. I have corrected those problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Danny Thomas Show