Help Thy Neighbor / Queen for a Day / This is Your Life / End of the Rainbow

May 30, 2015 - 7:30 pm

Help Thy Neighbor

KCOP, Los Angeles, 10/9/52

Hal Styles, “television’s friendly counselor, the first do-gooder of the airwaves,” hosts this locally-broadcast show in which people relate their problems and then ask home viewers to phone in with pledges of help. Here, a widow with teenage sons who is having trouble making ends meet offers to sell one of her eyes, and an aspiring Native American singer, convinced that racial prejudice is hindering his career, asks for assistance.

Commodore Productions. Producer: Walter White Jr. Director: Rudy Behlmer. Host: Hal Styles. DigiBeta, b/w, 30 min.

Queen for a Day

KHJ, Los Angeles, 7/4/55

Once each year, Queen for a Day became King for a Day as five men vied for the crown and a host of prizes. Actor Adolphe Menjou fills in for vacationing regular host Jack Bailey and is congratulated by one contestant for his public anti-Communist stance. Broadcast live from the Don Lee Studios in Los Angeles and simulcast on both radio and television.

A Mutual Radio Network production. Host: Adolphe Menjou. DigiBeta, b/w, 30 min.

This is Your Life: "Arries Ann Ward"

NBC, 2/27/57

One of America’s most popular and fondly remembered programs, This is Your Life (1952-61), with effervescent host Ralph Edwards, offered tributes to hundreds of notable people both famous and little-known, every week from 1952 until 1961. In this fascinating episode the show’s subject is a 95-year-old woman, born into slavery in 1862.

Ralph Edwards Productions. Producer: Axel Gruenberg. Director: Richard Gottlieb. Host: Ralph Edwards. DigiBeta, b/w, 30 min.

End of the Rainbow: "Pilot"

NBC, 12/4/57

Bob Barker takes viewers from the Truth or Consequences set to Art Baker standing on a street corner in Minneapolis, where local grocer Ronald Eskew and his family are given a “planned miracle.” As a reward for their long-standing and unselfish community service efforts, their small store and their entire lives are given complete makeovers. This program was the pilot for a short-lived series (just six episodes) that ran on NBC in early 1958.

Ralph Edwards Productions. Host: Art Baker. DigiBeta, b/w, 30 min.

Part of:

Archive Television Treasures—50th Anniversary

Search form