''Kraft Television Theatre'' is an American

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically cate ...

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 ''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas ...

'' and ''

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''. The program was broadcast live from Studio 8-H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, currently the home of ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves ...

''. Beginning October 1953, ABC added a separate series (also titled ''Kraft Television Theatre''), created to promote

Kraft The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015. A merger with Heinz, arran ...

's new

Cheez Whiz Cheez Whiz is a brand of processed cheese sauce or spread produced by Kraft Foods. It was developed by a team led by food scientist Edwin Traisman (1915–2007). It was first sold in 1952, and with some changes in formulation continues to be i ...

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 The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

-winning and

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

-nominated actress Hope Lange. Actors on the series included

James Dean James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931September 30, 1955) was an American actor. He is remembered as a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, '' Rebel Without a Caus ...

Janet De Gore Janet De Gore (November 19, 1930 – June 11, 2022) was an American television and theatre actress. Born in Larchmont, New York, De Gore began her career in 1950 starring as Janice in the Broadway play ''The Member of the Wedding''. De Gore a ...

Colleen Dewhurst Colleen Rose Dewhurst (3 June 1924 – 22 August 1991) was a Canadian-American actress mostly known for theatre roles. She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early drama ...

Anne Francis Anne Francis (also known as Anne Lloyd Francis; September 16, 1930 – January 2, 2011) was an American actress known for her ground-breaking roles in the science-fiction film ''Forbidden Planet'' (1956) and the television action-drama seri ...

Lee Grant Lee Grant (born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal; October 31, during the mid-1920s) is an American actress, documentarian, and director. She made her film debut in 1951 as a young shoplifter in William Wyler's '' Detective Story'', co-starring Kirk Doug ...

Helen Hayes Helen Hayes MacArthur ( Brown; October 10, 1900 – March 17, 1993) was an American actress whose career spanned 80 years. She eventually received the nickname "First Lady of American Theatre" and was the second person and first woman to have w ...

Jack Lemmon John Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor. Considered equally proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, Lemmon was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in dramedy pictures, leadi ...

Grace Kelly Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956. Kelly ...

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). Du ...

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, Sam Levene,

Patrick McVey Patrick McVey (March 17, 1910 – July 6, 1973) was an American actor who starred in three television series between 1950 and 1961: ''Big Town'', '' Boots and Saddles'', and '' Manhunt''. Early life McVey was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hi ...

, Michael Higgins,

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Paul Newman Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, race car driver, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three ...

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Judson Pratt Judson Pratt (December 6, 1916 – February 9, 2002) was an American film, television and theatre actor. He was known for playing Billy Kinkaid in the American western television series ''Union Pacific''. Early life Pratt was born in Hingh ...

, silent film icon

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, Joan Tompkins (her first television role), Grace Carney and

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. Announcers for the show were

Ed Herlihy Edward Joseph Herlihy (August 14, 1909 – January 30, 1999)Cox, Jim (2008). ''This Day in Network Radio: A Daily Calendar of Births, Debuts, Cancellations and Other Events in Broadcasting History''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . was an Ameri ...

(1947–1955) and Charles Stark (1955). In 1958, young performers

Martin Huston Martin Huston (February 8, 1941 – August 8, 2001) was an American television and theatre actor. Life and career Huston was born in Lexington, Kentucky. He and his family moved to New York, where Huston attended Columbia University. He began ...

and

Zina Bethune Zina Bianca Bethune (February 17, 1945 – February 12, 2012) was an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. Early years Bethune was born on Staten Island, the daughter of Ivy ( Vigder), a Russian-born (Sevastopol, present-day Ukraine) act ...

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 Sidney Arthur Lumet ( ; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. He was nominated five times for the Academy Award: four for Best Director for ''12 Angry Men'' (1957), '' Dog Day Afternoon'' (1975), ''Network'' (1976 ...

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, Fielder Cook, and John Boulting, and the many contributing writers included

Rod Serling Rodman Edward Serling (December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975) was an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator/on-screen host, best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his anthology television series ...

, William Templeton and

JP Miller JP may refer to: Arts and media * ''JP'' (album), 2001, by American singer Jesse Powell * ''Jp'' (magazine), an American Jeep magazine * ''Jönköpings-Posten'', a Swedish newspaper * Judas Priest, an English heavy metal band * ''Jurassic Park ...

. Serling won an

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'', 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 Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

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

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

. 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