| Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Variety show |
| Presented by | Faye Emerson Skitch Henderson |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 42 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Gil Fates |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | June 16, 1951 – April 12, 1952 |
Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town, also known as Wonderful Town, USA, is a half-hour variety television series that aired on CBS from June 16, 1951, to April 19, 1952, in which Faye Emerson visits various cities. [1] Episodes of the program were also shown to American military personnel overseas via Kinescope. [2]
Wonderful Town is one of several 1950s series in which Emerson, called the "first lady of television," had a starring role. Emerson's third husband, bandleader Skitch Henderson, appeared with her on the series. Because the series was broadcast on location, it was particularly expensive to produce. [3]
Music, drama, and narrative in each episode were tailored to the city from which it originated. Guest stars were people associated with the city. [4]
In the premiere episode, Emerson visits Boston, Massachusetts. [1] On July 7, 1951, she hosted Barry Bingham, Sr., publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal , when the program visited Louisville, Kentucky. In the fifth episode based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which aired on July 14, former mayor and then U.S. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey and actor Richard Carlson were among the guests. On October 27, 1951, humorist and author Abe Burrows was the guest star in his native The Bronx borough of New York City.
On December 1, 1951, Emerson focuses on four college towns, Los Angeles: UCLA, Dallas: Southern Methodist University, and in New England: Smith College and Dartmouth College. On December 8, 1951, Emerson visited the city where she was reared, San Diego, California, with Mayor John D. Butler and Florence Chadwick, a swimmer of the English Channel, as the guests. On January 19, 1952, Emerson hosted columnist Earl Wilson in Columbus, Ohio. On February 2, the host city is Washington, D.C., featuring U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. On March 1, 1952, the editor Virginius Dabney was the guest as the series visited Richmond, Virginia. Other segments focus on Paris, Mexico City, and Brooklyn. The last episode is set in Times Square.
Emerson hosted one Wonderful Town program from New Orleans.
The Don Large Chorus performed on Wonderful Town, which aired on Saturdays at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
The year 1951 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1951.
Nancy Walker was an American actress and comedian of stage, screen, and television. She was also a film and television director. During her five-decade-long career, she may be best remembered for her long-running roles as Mildred on McMillan & Wife and Ida Morgenstern, who first appeared on several episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and later became a prominent recurring character on the spinoff series Rhoda.
Wallace Maynard Cox was an American actor. He began his career as a standup comedian and then became the title character of the popular early U.S. television series Mister Peepers from 1952 to 1955. He also appeared as a character actor in over 20 films and dozens of television episodes. Cox was the voice of the animated canine superhero Underdog of the TV show of the same name.
Gale Gordon was an American character actor who was Lucille Ball's longtime television foil, particularly as cantankerously combustible, tightfisted bank executive Theodore J. Mooney, on Ball's second television sitcom The Lucy Show. Gordon also appeared in I Love Lucy and had starring roles in Ball's successful third series Here's Lucy and her short-lived fourth and final series Life with Lucy.
Jane Waddington Wyatt was an American actress. She starred in a number of Hollywood films, such as Frank Capra's Lost Horizon, but is likely best known for her role as homemaker and mother Margaret Anderson on the CBS and NBC television comedy series Father Knows Best, and as Amanda Grayson, the human mother of Spock on the science-fiction television series Star Trek. Wyatt was a three-time Emmy Award–winner.
Lyle Russel "Skitch" Henderson was an American pianist, conductor, and composer. His nickname "Skitch" came from his ability to "re-sketch" a song in a different key. Bing Crosby suggested that he should use the name professionally.
Cornelia Otis Skinner was an American writer and actress.
Parley Edward Baer was an American actor in radio and later in television and film. Despite dozens of appearances in television series and theatrical films, he remains best known as the original "Chester" in the radio version of Gunsmoke, and as the Mayor of Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show.
Abe Burrows was an American humorist, author, and director for radio and the stage. He won a Tony Award and was selected for two Pulitzer Prizes, only one of which was awarded.
Faye Margaret Emerson was an American film and stage actress and television interviewer who gained fame as a film actress in the 1940s before transitioning to television in the 1950s and hosting her own talk show.
Richard Dutoit Carlson was an American actor, television and film director, and screenwriter.
Johnny Desmond was an American singer who was popular in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
George Barry Bingham Sr. was the patriarch of a family that dominated local media in Louisville for several decades in the 20th century.
John D. Butler was an American Republican politician from California. John Butler was born in San Diego and played football at San Diego State, where he was named an All-American. He was a transactional lawyer. During World War II, he served in the United States Navy.
Henry Watterson Hull was an American character actor who played the lead in Universal Pictures's Werewolf of London (1935). For most of his career, he was a lead actor on stage and a character actor on screen.
The following is the 1950–51 network television schedule for the four major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1950 through March 1951. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1949–50 season. This season became the first in which primetime was entirely covered by the networks. It was also the inaugural season of the Nielsen rating system. Late in the season, the coast-to-coast link was in service.
Author Meets the Critics is an American radio and television talk show. After beginning on radio, it was also broadcast on television by the National Broadcasting Company, American Broadcasting Company, and then the DuMont Television Network.
Harvey Earl Wilson was an American journalist, gossip columnist, and author, perhaps best known for his 6-day a week nationally syndicated newspaper column, It Happened Last Night.
Harry V. Cheshire, originally from Emporia, Kansas, was an American character actor who appeared in over 100 films, mostly playing small roles. He was also a stage actor and performed on a St. Louis radio station's musical program. He may be best known for playing Judge Ben Wiley on Buffalo Bill, Jr.
American Inventory was a thirty-minute weekly filmed educational series that first aired as a summer replacement Sunday nights during 1951 on NBC. It was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with NBC donating the broadcast time and facilities. The series incorporated panel discussions, lectures from experts, film of activities and events taking place out of the studio, and occasional in-studio dramatic scenes. It was an ambitious project, the first educational series produced and broadcast by a network.
