''Kraft Television Theatre'' is an American anthology

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

television series running from 1947 to 1958. It began May 7, 1947 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 ...

, airing at 7:30pm on Wednesday evenings until December of that year. It first promoted MacLaren's Imperial Cheese, which was advertised nowhere else. In January 1948, it moved to 9pm on Wednesdays, continuing in that timeslot until 1958. Initially produced by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, the live hour-long series offered television plays with new stories and new characters each week, in addition to adaptations of such classics as '' A Christmas Carol'' and '' Alice in Wonderland''. The program was broadcast live from Studio 8-H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, currently the home of ''

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''. Beginning October 1953, ABC added a separate series (also titled ''Kraft Television Theatre''), created to promote Kraft's new Cheez Whiz product. This series ran for sixteen months, telecast on Thursday evenings at 9:30pm, until January 1955. After Kraft cancelled the second show, the second show changed its sponsor to become '' Pond's Theatre'' on ABC-TV from March 1955, while the original ''Kraft Theatre'' continued on NBC-TV.

Background

A prestige show for NBC, it launched the careers of more than a few actors, directors and playwrights, including future Emmy-winning and

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-nominated actress Hope Lange. Actors on the series included James Dean, Janet De Gore, Colleen Dewhurst, Anne Francis,

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, Helen Hayes, Jack Lemmon,

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Jack Klugman Jack Klugman (April 27, 1922 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor of stage, film, and television. He began his career in 1950 and started television and film work with roles in '' 12 Angry Men'' (1957) and '' Cry Terror!'' (1958). ...

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, Sam Levene, Patrick McVey, Michael Higgins, John Newland, Paul Newman,

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, silent film icon

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, Rod Steiger,

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(her first television role), Grace Carney and

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. Announcers for the show were Ed Herlihy (1947–1955) and Charles Stark (1955). In 1958, young performers

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and Zina Bethune appeared in "This Property Is Condemned", based on a

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play, the last show of ''Kraft Television Theatre''. Directors for the series included Sidney Lumet, Robert Altman,

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, and

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, and the many contributing writers included Rod Serling, William Templeton and

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. Serling won an Emmy for scripting ''

Patterns A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated li ...

'' (January 12, 1955), the best remembered episode of the series. The drama had such an impact that it made television history by staging a second live encore performance three weeks later and was developed as a feature film, also titled ''

''. In April 1958, Kraft sold the rights to

David Susskind David Howard Susskind (December 19, 1920 – February 22, 1987) was an American producer of TV, movies, and stage plays and also a TV talk show host. His talk shows were innovative in the genre and addressed timely, controversial topics beyond th ...

's Talent Associates, which revamped the series as ''Kraft Mystery Theatre''. Under that title, it continued until September 1958. However, this eventually evolved into the 1963 filmed series ''

Kraft Suspense Theatre The ''Kraft Suspense Theatre'' is an American television anthology series that was produced and broadcast from 1963 to 1965 on NBC. Sponsored by Kraft Foods, it was seen three weeks out of every four and was pre-empted for Perry Como's '' Kraft ...

'', which concentrated exclusively on original dramas written for television, not on adaptations. Between 1947 and 1958, the ''Kraft Television Theatre'' presented more than 650 comedies and dramas. The series finished #14 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1950–1951 season, #23 for 1951-1952 and #21 for 1953–1954.

Episode status

Excerpts from several 1947 episodes and part of a reel of 1947 television clips are held by the

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. In addition, the Library of Congress holds a large number of complete episodes, including five from 1948. The

American Heritage Center The American Heritage Center is the University of Wyoming's repository of manuscripts, rare books, and the university archives. Its collections focus on Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United ...

has a number of scripts from various episodes for the years 1947, 1948, and 1949 in the Edmund C. Rice papers. These scripts, though authored by various people, were edited by Rice.

Episodes

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 39123
''Kraft Mystery Theatre'' at CVTA with episode list
1947 American television series debuts 1958 American television series endings 1940s American anthology television series 1950s American anthology television series 1940s American drama television series 1950s American drama television series Black-and-white American television shows English-language television shows NBC original programming Kraft Foods Television series by Talent Associates