House Party (radio and TV show)

Last updated
House Party
Alinkletter.jpg
Sam Berman's 1947 caricature of Art Linkletter
Also known asArt Linkletter's House Party
The Linkletter Show
Genre Variety/Talk show
Presented by Art Linkletter
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Running time15 minutes/30 minutes
Production companiesJohn Guedel Productions (1945–1969)
Screen Gems (1952–1969)
Original release
Network CBS (1945–1969)
ReleaseJanuary 15, 1945 (1945-01-15) –
September 5, 1969 (1969-09-05)

House Party is an American radio daytime variety/talk show that aired on CBS Radio and on ABC Radio from January 15, 1945 to October 13, 1967. [1] The show had an equally long run on CBS Television as Art Linkletter's House Party and, in its final season, The Linkletter Show, [2] airing from September 1, 1952 to September 5, 1969. [2]

Contents

The series was launched when producer John Guedel learned that an ad agency wanted to do a new daytime audience participation show, and he pitched a series that would star Art Linkletter. Asked to provide an outline, Guedel and Linkletter came up with a format that would give Linkletter great freedom and allow for spontaneity. [3]

Broadcast history

Radio

Sponsored by General Electric, the 25-minute House Party premiered on CBS Radio on January 15, 1945, and ran weekdays at 4 p.m., three days a week, through January 10, 1947. Following a break, it then ran weekdays at 3:30 p.m. from December 1, 1947 to December 31, 1948. It continued to be sponsored by General Electric even as it switched to ABC Radio, where it ran for 30 minutes in the same timeslot from January 3 to July 1, 1949. ABC then aired it as a 25-minute sustaining program, weekdays at noon from September 19 to December 30, 1949. [1]

The show returned to CBS Radio only days later, making its longest continued run from January 2, 1950 to October 13, 1967 as a 30-minute show running weekdays at various times. Sponsors included Pillsbury from 1950 to 1952, and Lever Brothers from 1952 to 1956. [1] During its first season, the soundtrack from the TV show was run immediately on radio following the telecast. [2]

Television

Linkletter and Guedel first spun off the format to television with the prime-time ABC show Life with Linkletter, which ran October 6, 1950 to April 25, 1952. [4] Under the title Art Linkletter's House Party, the show premiered on CBS Television on September 1, 1952, [5] and had become television's longest-running daytime variety show by the time it completed its run on September 5, 1969. The show ran first at 2:45 pm ET for only fifteen minutes, but by February 1953 it aired from 2:30 pm to 3:00 pm ET, remaining in that time slot for 15 years. From 1968 to 1969, the show aired as a morning show titled The Linkletter Show. Linkletter had a similar but unrelated prime-time TV series, The Art Linkletter Show, on NBC television from February 18 to September 16, 1963. [2]

The CBS program originated from KNXT. Sponsors were Pillsbury, Green Giant canned vegetables, Kellogg cereals, and Lever Brothers. John Guedel was the producer, Marty Hill was the director, and Jack Slattery was the announcer. [5]

Following CBS' cancellation of the daytime TV show, NBC Television revived the old ABC series Life With Linkletter, this time co-hosted by Linkletter and his son Jack Linkletter. [4] This aired on weekday afternoons from December 29, 1969, to September 25, 1970. [4]

A new, syndicated version of the show, called House Party with Steve Doocy , ran during 1990. [6]

Synopsis

Hosted by Linkletter, House Party featured everything from household hints to hunts for missing heirs. A humorous monologue by Linkletter could be followed by an audience participation quiz to win prizes, musical groups, informal celebrity interviews and guest speakers from assorted walks of life. One popular long running feature of the program was "Guess What's In The House", a game in which studio audience members would be given clues to the contents of a small model of a split level home placed on a center stage podium. A similar concept was later adapted for the "What's Inside The Box" segment on the game show Let's Make a Deal . Ideas for the show were devised by producer John Guedel and his father, Walter, but Linkletter never used scripts or rehearsed.

The show's best-remembered segment was "Kids Say the Darndest Things", in which Linkletter interviewed schoolchildren between the ages of five and ten. During the segment's 27-year run, Linkletter interviewed an estimated 23,000 children. [3] The popularity of the segment led to a TV series with the same title hosted by Bill Cosby on CBS from January 1998 to June 2000, and a revival since 2019.

Books

1957 edition illustrated by Charles Schulz Kids-say-darndest-things.jpg
1957 edition illustrated by Charles Schulz

The show's popularity led to the books Kids Say the Darndest Things (Prentice-Hall, 1957) with House Party mentioned in the front cover blurb. It was followed by Kids Still Say the Darndest Things! (Bernard Geis, 1961), both illustrated by Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. The 1957 book was reissued in 2005 by Ten Speed Press ( ISBN   1-5876-1249-6, ISBN   978-1-58761-249-7)

Related Research Articles

<i>Candid Camera</i> American hidden camera reality television series (1948–2014)

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.

"Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for the original animated series and live-action programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the "Big Three" television networks. The genre's popularity had a broad peak from the mid-1960s through the mid-2000s; over time it declined, in the face of changing cultural norms, increased competition from formats available at all times, and heavier regulations. In the last two decades of the genre's existence, Saturday-morning and Sunday-morning cartoons were primarily created and aired to meet regulations on children's television programming in the United States, or E/I. Minor television networks, in addition to the non-commercial PBS in some markets, continue to air animated programming on Saturday and Sunday while partially meeting those mandates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The WB</span> American television network (1995–2006)

The WB Television Network was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner and the Tribune Broadcasting subsidiary of the Tribune Company, with the former acting as controlling partner. The network aired programs targeting teenagers and young adults between the ages of 13 and 34, while its children's division, Kids' WB, targeted children between the ages of 6 and 12.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Linkletter</span> Canadian-born American TV personality (1912–2010)

Arthur Gordon Linkletter was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of House Party, which ran on CBS radio and television for 25 years, and People Are Funny, which aired on NBC radio and television for 19 years. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1942.

<i>Guiding Light</i> American radio and television soap opera (1937–2009)

Guiding Light is an American radio and television soap opera. Guiding Light aired on CBS for 57 years between June 30, 1952, and September 18, 2009, overlapping a 19-year broadcast on radio between January 25, 1937, and June 29, 1956. With 72 years of radio and television runs, Guiding Light is the longest-running soap opera, ahead of General Hospital, and is the fifth-longest-running program in all of broadcast history; only the American country music radio program Grand Ole Opry, the BBC religious program The Daily Service (1928), the CBS religious program Music and the Spoken Word (1929), and the Norwegian children's radio program Lørdagsbarnetimen (1924–2010) have been on the air longer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kids' WB</span> American childrens programming block

Kids' WB was an American children's programming service and brand of The WB that aired on the network from September 9, 1995, to September 16, 2006. The block moved to The CW, where it aired from September 23, 2006, to May 17, 2008. After the block was discontinued, its Saturday morning programming slot was sold to 4Kids Entertainment and replaced by its successor block, The CW4Kids.

KDKA-TV is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the market's CBS outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Jeannette-licensed independent station WPKD-TV. The two stations share studios at the Gateway Center in downtown Pittsburgh; KDKA-TV's transmitter is located in the city's Perry North neighborhood. KDKA-TV, along with sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia, are the only CBS-affiliated television stations east of the Mississippi River with "K" call signs.

KPIX-TV is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's CBS network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent station KPYX, also licensed to San Francisco. The two stations share studios at Broadway and Battery Street, just north of San Francisco's Financial District; KPIX's transmitter is located atop Sutro Tower. In addition to KPYX, KPIX shares its building with formerly co-owned radio stations KCBS, KFRC-FM, KITS, KLLC, KRBQ and KZDG, although they use a different address number for Battery Street.

<i>Kids Say the Darndest Things</i> American comedy television series

Kids Say the Darndest Things is an American comedy series originally hosted by Art Linkletter from 1959-1967, and then later reprised by Bill Cosby on CBS as hour-long specials on May 16 & November 14, 1997, followed by a weekly series from January 9, 1998, to June 23, 2000. A revival hosted by Tiffany Haddish aired on ABC from October 6, 2019, to January 19, 2020. ABC cancelled the revival after one season. However, the revival moved to CBS, its original network, from May 5 to June 23, 2021, with Haddish returning as host.

A weekday cartoon is the colloquial term for the animated series programming that was typically scheduled on weekday mornings and afternoons in the United States on many major television networks and in broadcast syndication since the 1960s.

Winner Take All is an American radio-television game show that ran from 1946 to 1952 on CBS and NBC. It was the first game show produced by the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman partnership. The series was originally hosted by Ward Wilson, but is best known for being the first game hosted by Bill Cullen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daytime television in the United States</span> Outline of American television programming broadcast between mid-morning and late afternoon

Daytime television is the general term for television programs produced for broadcast during the daytime hours on weekdays; programs broadcast in the daypart historically have been programmed to appeal to a female audience.

<i>People Are Funny</i> US radio and television game show (1942–1960)

People Are Funny is an American radio and television game show, created by John Guedel that ran from 1942 to 1960 in which contestants were asked to carry out stunts in order to prove that "People Are Funny." Many stunts lasted weeks, months, or even years; but those who were successful received prizes. People Are Funny rarely had celebrities, focusing instead on everyday people. As a result, few recordings of the show were saved.

The 1967–68 daytime network television schedule for the three major English-language commercial broadcast networks in the United States covers the weekday and weekend daytime hours from September 1967 to August 1968.

The 1996–97 daytime network television schedule for the six major English-language commercial broadcast networks in the United States covers the weekday and weekend daytime hours from September 1996 to August 1997. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series canceled after the 1995–96 season.

The 2008–09 daytime network television schedule for the four major English-language commercial broadcast networks in the United States covers the weekday and weekend afternoon hours from September 2008 to August 2009. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning and cancelled shows from the 2007–08 season.

<i>Kids Are People Too</i> American TV series or program

Kids Are People Too is an American television series that ran on Sunday mornings from 1978 to 1982 on ABC. The series was a variety/news magazine show oriented towards kids with the intention of recognizing them as people. During its four-year run, the series was nominated for five Emmy Awards and won the 1978 Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Entertainment Series. The series included celebrity interviews, cartoons, music, and other information that appealed to children.

The 2010–11 daytime network television schedule for four of the five major English-language commercial broadcast networks in the United States covers the weekday daytime hours from September 2010 to August 2011. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, and any series canceled after the 2009–2010 season.

John Guedel, was a radio and television producer who co-created and produced Art Linkletter's and Groucho Marx's most important and successful broadcast properties, including You Bet Your Life,House Party and People Are Funny. He also created The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and is sometimes credited with the first singing radio commercial in 1937. He was a producer for The Charlotte Greenwood Show on radio.

For Better Or Worse is an American soap opera that aired on CBS from June 29, 1959, to June 24, 1960. The show was atypical for its genre in that episodes were grouped into distinct storylines or "cases", each following a different fictional couple, with the cast changing along with the storyline. The only permanent cast members were the narrator Dr. James A. Peterson and the series host Jim Bannon.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Dunning, John. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 333. ISBN   0-19-507678-8
  2. 1 2 3 4 McNeil, Alex. Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present, Fourth Edition (Penguin Books, 1996), p. 58
  3. 1 2 Dunning, p. 334
  4. 1 2 3 McNeil, pp. 480-481
  5. 1 2 "This Week -- Network Debuts, Highlights, Changes". Ross Reports on Television including The Television Index. August 31, 1952. p. 1. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
  6. ↑ McNeil, pp. 393-394
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.