The NBC Comedy Hour
Jonathan Winters, a host of
The NBC Comedy Hour (1956)
GenreTelevision comedy
Directed byHerbert Kenwith[1]
Presented byLeo Durocher; Gale Storm; various
StarringJonathan Winters, Gale Storm, Pat Sheehan,[2] Stubby Kaye, Shecky Greene, Stan Freberg, and Hy Averback
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes18
Production
Running time60 minutes
Production companyNBC[1]
Original release
NetworkNBC
ReleaseJanuary 8 (1956-01-08) 
June 10, 1956 (1956-06-10)
Related

The NBC Comedy Hour was a comedy show that ran on NBC in the first half of 1956, intended to be a replacement for The Colgate Comedy Hour.

Leo Durocher hosted the show in January, and Gale Storm from February until April 8; from April 22 on, hosts were called in per episode. Comic Jonathan Winters was a more frequent face than any of the hosts; he appeared in 17 of the 18 episodes. Stan Freberg was also a guest 6 times. Topical comedian Mort Sahl's network debut was on the Comedy Hour. A group of acting chimpanzees named The Marquis Chimps performed parodies of movies in 3 episodes.

The show was a critical and ratings failure: Variety stated "A more poorly conceived, routined and paced outing would be difficult to imagine."[3] It was cancelled in June, having already been pre-empted 4 times in 5 months.[3] It was succeeded by The Steve Allen Show, whose reputation became a marked contrast to that of The NBC Comedy Hour. The Paley Center for Media has several episodes of the series in their archives.

References

  1. 1 2 The NBC Comedy Hour at IMDb . Retrieved 2010-01-29.
  2. Clemens, Samuel (2020). Pat: A Biography of Hollywood's Blonde Starlet. Sequoia Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-0578682822.
  3. 1 2 "The NBC Comedy Hour". Classic TV Info. Jim Davidson. 2007-07-26. Retrieved 2010-01-29.


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