''The NBC Comedy Hour'' was a comedy show that ran 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 ...

in the first half of 1956, intended to be a replacement for ''

The Colgate Comedy Hour ''The Colgate Comedy Hour'' was an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show featured many notable comedians and entertainers of the era as guest stars. Many of the scripts of the series ...

''.

Leo Durocher Leo Ernest Durocher (French spelling Léo Ernest Durocher) (; July 27, 1905 – October 7, 1991), nicknamed "Leo the Lip" and "Lippy", was an American professional baseball player, manager and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as an infie ...

hosted the show in January, and

Gale Storm Josephine Owaissa Cottle (April 5, 1922 – June 27, 2009), known professionally as Gale Storm, was an American actress and singer. After a film career from 1940 to 1952, she starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, '' My Litt ...

from February until April 8; from April 22 on, hosts were called in per episode. Comic

Jonathan Winters Jonathan Harshman Winters III (November 11, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American comedian, actor, author, television host, and artist. Beginning in 1960, Winters recorded many classic comedy albums for the Verve Records label. He also h ...

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 Morton Lyon Sahl (May 11, 1927 – October 26, 2021) was a Canadian-born American comedian, actor, and social satirist, considered the first modern comedian. Sahl pioneered a style of social satire that pokes fun at political and current event t ...

'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 Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' stated "A more poorly conceived, routined and paced outing would be difficult to imagine." It was cancelled in June, having already been pre-empted 4 times in 5 months. It was succeeded by ''

The Steve Allen Show ''The Steve Allen Show'' was an American variety show hosted by Steve Allen from June 1956 to June 1960 on NBC, from September 1961 to December 1961 on ABC,

'', 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

External links

* 1956 American television series debuts 1956 American television series endings 1950s American comedy television series 1950s American variety television series NBC original programming {{US-comedy-tv-prog-stub