Candid Camera is an American hidden camera reality television series, with versions of the show appeared on television from 1948 until 2014. Originally created and produced by Allen Funt, it often featured practical jokes, and initially began on radio as The Candid Microphone on June 28, 1947.
Amos 'n' Andy was an American radio sitcom about black characters, initially set in Chicago then later in the Harlem section of New York City. While the show had a brief life on 1950s television with black actors, the 1928 to 1960 radio show was created, written and voiced by two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, who played Amos Jones (Gosden) and Andrew Hogg Brown (Correll), as well as incidental characters. On television, 1951–1953, black actors took over the majority of the roles; white characters were infrequent.
The Goldbergs is a comedy-drama broadcast from 1929 to 1946 on American radio, and from 1949 to 1956 on American television. It was adapted into a 1948 play, Me and Molly; a 1950 film The Goldbergs, and a 1973 Broadway musical, Molly. It also briefly spun off a comic strip from June 8, 1944, to December 21, 1945, with art by Irwin Hasen, a comic book artist who worked on various DC Comics titles and would later do the Dondi comic strip.
Gertrude Berg was an American actress, screenwriter, and producer. A pioneer of classic radio, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce, and star in a long-running hit when she premiered her serial comedy-drama The Rise of the Goldbergs (1929), later known as The Goldbergs. Her career achievements included winning a Tony Award and an Emmy Award, both for Best Lead Actress.
Richard Diamond, Private Detective is an American detective drama, created by Blake Edwards, which aired on radio from 1949 to 1953, and on television from 1957 to 1960.
The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the middle-class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz co-stars as her pediatrician husband Dr. Alex Stone, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children, Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC from September 24, 1958, to March 19, 1966.
Alan Reed was an American actor, best known as the original voice of Fred Flintstone on The Flintstones and various spinoff series. He also appeared in many films, including Days of Glory, The Tarnished Angels, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Viva Zapata!, and Nob Hill, and various television and radio series.
The Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, is a radio and television comedy series, which ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy. He played one role throughout his radio and television career, a caricature of himself as a minimally talented musician and penny-pincher who was the butt of all the jokes. The show's producer, Hilliard Marks, was the brother of Benny's wife, Mary Livingstone.
The Life of Riley is an American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, as well as two different television series, and a comic book.
Father Knows Best is an American sitcom starring Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray and Lauren Chapin. The series, which began on radio in 1949, aired as a television show for six seasons and 203 episodes. Created by Ed James, Father Knows Best follows the lives of the Andersons, a middle-class family living in the town of Springfield. The state in which Springfield is located is never specified, but it is generally accepted to be located in the Midwestern United States.
Joseph Patrick Carrol Naish was an American actor. He appeared in over 200 films during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
My Friend Irma is a media franchise that was spawned by a top-rated, long-running radio situation comedy created by writer-director-producer Cy Howard. The radio show was so popular in the late 1940s that its success escalated the films, television, a comic strip and a comic book that comprise the franchise. Marie Wilson portrayed the title character Irma Peterson on radio, in two films and the television series. The radio series was broadcast on CBS from April 11, 1947, to August 23, 1954.
The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, was a comedy radio program which ran on NBC from 1948 to 1954 starring Alice Faye and Phil Harris. Harris had previously become known to radio audiences as the band-leader-turned-cast-member of the same name on The Jack Benny Program while Faye had been a frequent guest on programs such as Rudy Vallée's variety shows. After becoming the breakout stars of the music and comedy variety program The Fitch Bandwagon, the show was retooled into a full situation comedy, with Harris and Faye playing fictionalized versions of themselves as a working show business couple raising two daughters in a madcap home.
Vito Giusto Scozzari, also known as Vito Scotti, was an American character actor who played both dramatic and comedy roles on Broadway, in films, and later on television, primarily from the late 1930s to the mid-1990s. He was known as a man of a thousand faces for his ability to assume so many divergent roles in more than 200 screen appearances in a career spanning 50 years and for his resourceful portrayals of various ethnic types. Of Italian heritage, he played everything from a Mexican bandit, to a Russian doctor, to a Japanese sailor, to an Indian travel agent.
Guestward, Ho! is an American sitcom which aired on the ABC network in the 1960-1961 television season. It was based on the 1956 comic memoir of the same title by New Mexico dude ranch operator Barbara "Babs" Hooton, written in cooperation with Auntie Mame author Patrick Dennis. The series altered the characters' family name from "Hooton" to "Hooten."
The term "Dialect comedy" was coined by David Marc in his essay, Origins of the genre. Dialect comedies are a genre of radio sitcoms that were popular between the 1920s and the 1950s. They relied on the exaggerated and highly stylized portrayal of stereotypes, usually based on ethnic humor. The genre has its roots on the vaudeville stage and in the minstrel shows that became popular in the 19th century. The ethnicities of the actual actors portraying the dialects did not have to match the characters; while much Jewish dialect comedy was created and portrayed by actual Jews, other dialect comedies, such as those involving blackface, were often not.
The Pepsodent Show is an American radio comedy program broadcast during the Golden Age of Radio. The program starred comedian Bob Hope and his sidekick Jerry Colonna along with Blanche Stewart and Elvia Allman as high-society crazies Brenda and Cobina as well as a continuously rotating supporting cast and musicians which included, for a time, Judy Garland, Frances Langford and Desi Arnaz and his orchestra.
The Jack Carson Show is an American old-time radio comedy-variety program. It was broadcast on different seasons on CBS and NBC, beginning on June 2, 1943, and ending on December 20, 1956. The program was also known as The Sealtest Village Store, and the New Jack Carson Show. It was carried on the CBC Dominion network in Canada, as well. Additionally, The Jack Carson Show is the title of a television program that was broadcast on NBC from October 22, 1954, until March 11, 1955.
Joe and Mabel is an American comedy series about a cab driver and his girlfriend that began as a 1940s radio program and was later broadcast as a television series during portions of 1955 and 1956.
