The Gabby Hayes Show was the name given to two early children's television series. Both series were broadcast on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
, and both were sponsored by the
Quaker Oats Company
The Quaker Oats Company, known as Quaker, is an American food conglomerate based in Chicago. It has been owned by PepsiCo since 2001.
History Precursor miller companies
In the 1850s, Ferdinand Schumacher and Robert Stuart founded oat mills. Sc ...
.
[Gabby Hayes to Star in Weekday Series, ''The Cincinnati Enquirer'' (Cincinnati, OH) December 9, 1950, page 38](_blank)
/ref>[Boyd Magers, ''Western Clippings''](_blank)
/ref>
Gabby Hayes
Gabby is a given name, usually a short form of Gabriel or Gabrielle or Gabriella.
Gabby or Gabbie may refer to:
People with the name
* Gabby Chaves (born 1993), Colombian-American racing driver
* Guy Gabaldon (also "Gabby"; 1926–2006 ...
was the host of a series that featured history stories. He also introduced another program that showed scenes from old western films.["The Gabby Hayes Show" — Americana With a Sugar Coating, ''Ross Reports on Television Programing'', November 26 - December 2, 1950, pages 8 - 9]
In 1953 ''The Gabby Hayes Show'' was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of outstanding children's program, but lost to ''Time for Beany
''Time For Beany'' is an American children's television series, with puppets for characters, which was broadcast locally in Los Angeles starting on February 28, 1949 and nationally (by kinescope) by the improvised Paramount Television Network fro ...
''.
Sunday history series
The series, originally titled ''The Quaker Oats Show'', debuted on October 15, 1950.[Wilborn Hampton, ''Horton Foote: America’s Storyteller'', page 106 - 107, Free Press, 2009](_blank)
/ref> The series' title was changed in 1951. The live half-hour show was about historical events, and host Gabby Hayes would be seen in a general store in "Quaker Canyon." He would tell humorous stories for the benefit of Clifford Sales and Lee Graham, two "pleasingly natural children."
The history-based stories were written by Horton Foote
Albert Horton Foote Jr. (March 14, 1916March 4, 2009) was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received Academy Awards for his screenplays for the 1962 film ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', which was adapted from the 1960 novel of the same name ...
and Jerome Coopersmith
Jerome Coopersmith (born August 11, 1925) is an American dramatist known for television, theater, and his work as a professor of screenplay writing. Working in the television industry since 1947, Coopersmith has authored more than 100 televisio ...
and were filmed in NBC's Studio 3A at Rockefeller Center. Each episode had a budget of $5,500, and costs were kept low by using stock sets. In 1950 the series was seen in 39 cities.
Some of the earliest episodes were on the Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gro ...
, the Battle of the Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Ant ...
, Buffalo Bill
William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846January 10, 1917), known as "Buffalo Bill", was an American soldier, Bison hunting, bison hunter, and showman. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa, Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but ...
as a youngster, John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...
, and Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...
. In January 1952 Ross Martin Ross or ROSS may refer to:
People
* Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan
* Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning
* Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland
Places
* RoSS, the Republic of Sout ...
played Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman and gambler in the American West, including Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone. Earp took part in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which law ...
, and the following week Betty Garde
Katharine Elizabeth Garde (September 19, 1905 – December 25, 1989) was an American stage, radio, film and television actress.
Early years
Born in Philadelphia, Garde was starring in productions of South Philadelphia's Broadway Players by ...
played Belle Starr
Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr (February 5, 1848 – February 3, 1889), better known as Belle Starr, was an American outlaw who gained national notoriety after her violent death.
She associated with the James–Younger Gang and other outlaws ...
. A January 27, 1952 newspaper column stated that the Sunday Gabby Hayes series had been cancelled.
Weekday western film series
On December 11, 1951[Vincent Terrace, ''Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010'', 2nd edition, page 375, McFarland, 2014] a fifteen-minute weekday series entitled ''The Gabby Hayes Show'' began on NBC, starting at 5:15 p.m. This series originally aired on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but was later shown five days a week, from Mondays through Fridays.
In the series Hayes told tales about his eccentric relatives, and then scenes from an old B western film was shown. Since it was a fifteen-minute show each film had to be spread out over several days. Hayes would tell another tall tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it n ...
at the end of the episode.
This weekday series ran until January 1, 1954.
A young Fred Rogers
Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003), commonly known as Mister Rogers, was an American television host, author, producer, and Presbyterian minister. He was the creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television se ...
worked as a floor manager on this show prior to returning to Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
to work for the first public television
Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...
station WQED.
Re-edited western film series
After NBC's weekday series ended multiple episodes were edited into 25-minute versions which presented scenes from an entire western film. There were 52 of the longer episodes created.
ABC television showed the half-hour version of the series on Saturdays from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m. starting on May 12, 1956, and ending July 14, 1956. The series was then syndicated, and aired on individual stations until at least 1959.
Media Availability
On April 25, 2006, Alpha Video released Region 0 (world-wide) DVDs of the half-hour western film version of ''The Gabby Hayes Show''.DVD information
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References
External links
history version episode
western film version episode
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gabby Hayes Show, The
1950 American television series debuts
1956 American television series endings
NBC original programming
1950s American children's television series
1950s Western (genre) television series
Black-and-white American television shows