radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...
talk show
A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk S ...
that aired on
CBS Radio
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broa ...
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
, 1998), p. 333. The show had an equally long run on
CBS Television
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
as ''Art Linkletter's House Party'' and, in its final season, ''The Linkletter Show'',McNeil, Alex. ''Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present'', Fourth Edition (
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.John Guedel learned that an ad agency wanted to do a new daytime audience participation show, and he pitched a series that would star
Art Linkletter
Arthur Gordon Linkletter (born Gordon Arthur Kelly or Arthur Gordon Kelly; sources differ; July 17, 1912 – May 26, 2010) was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of '' House Party'', which ran on CBS radio ...
. Asked to provide an outline, Guedel and Linkletter came up with a format that would give Linkletter great freedom and allow for spontaneity.Dunning, p. 334
Broadcast history
Radio
Sponsored by
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
, the 25-minute ''House Party'' premiered on
CBS Radio
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broa ...
on January 15, 1945, and ran weekdays at 4 p.m., three days a week, through January 10, 1947. Following a break, it then ran weekdays at 3:30 p.m. from December 1, 1947 to December 31, 1948. It continued to be sponsored by General Electric even as it switched to ABC Radio, where it ran for 30 minutes in the same timeslot from January 3 to July 1, 1949. ABC then aired it as a 25-minute
sustaining program
A sustaining program is a radio or television program that, despite airing on a commercial broadcast station, does not have commercial sponsorship or advertising. This term, mostly used in the United States, was common in the early days of radio, b ...
, weekdays at noon from September 19 to December 30, 1949.
The show returned to CBS Radio only days later, making its longest continued run from January 2, 1950 to October 13, 1967 as a 30-minute show running weekdays at various times. Sponsors included Pillsbury from 1950 to 1952, and
Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers was a British manufacturing company founded in 1885 by two brothers: William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), and James Darcy Lever (1854–1916). They invested in and successfully promoted a new soap-making p ...
from 1952 to 1956. During its first season, the soundtrack from the TV show was run immediately on radio following the telecast.
Television
Linkletter and Guedel first spun off the format to television with the prime-time ABC show ''Life with Linkletter'', which ran October 6, 1950 to April 25, 1952.McNeil, pp. 480-481 Under the title ''Art Linkletter's House Party'', the show premiered on
CBS Television
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
on September 1, 1952, and had become television's longest-running daytime variety show by the time it completed its run on September 5, 1969. The show ran first at 2:45 pm ET for only fifteen minutes, but by February 1953 it aired from 2:30 pm to 3:00 pm ET, remaining in that time slot for 15 years. From 1968 to 1969, the show aired as a morning show titled ''The Linkletter Show''. Linkletter had a similar but unrelated prime-time TV series, ''The Art Linkletter Show'', on NBC television from February 18 to September 16, 1963.
The CBS program originated from
KNXT KNXT may refer to:
* KNXT-LD, a television station (channel 53) licensed to Bakersfield, California
* KNXT, the call sign of KCBS-TV
KCBS-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West ...
Green Giant
Green Giant and Le Sueur (spelled Le Sieur in Canada) are brands of frozen and canned vegetables owned by B&G Foods. The company's mascot is the Jolly Green Giant.
Company and brand history
The Minnesota Valley Canning Company was founded in ...
Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers was a British manufacturing company founded in 1885 by two brothers: William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), and James Darcy Lever (1854–1916). They invested in and successfully promoted a new soap-making p ...
. John Guedel was the producer, Marty Hill was the director, and Jack Slattery was the announcer.
Following CBS' cancellation of the daytime TV show,
NBC Television
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 ...
revived the old ABC series ''Life With Linkletter'', this time co-hosted by Linkletter and his son Jack Linkletter. This aired on weekday afternoons from December 29, 1969, to September 25, 1970.
A new,
syndicated
Syndication may refer to:
* Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system
* Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips
* Web syndication, ...
version of the show, called ''House Party with Steve Doocy'', ran during 1990.McNeil, pp. 393-394
Synopsis
Hosted by Linkletter, ''House Party'' featured everything from household hints to hunts for missing heirs. A humorous monologue by Linkletter could be followed by an audience participation quiz to win prizes, musical groups, informal celebrity interviews and guest speakers from assorted walks of life. One popular long running feature of the program was ''"Guess What's In The House"'', a game in which studio audience members would be given clues to the contents of a small model of a split level home placed on a center stage podium. A similar concept was later adapted for the ''"What's Inside The Box"'' segment on the game show ''
Let's Make a Deal
''Let's Make a Deal'' (also known as ''LMAD'') is an American television musical comedy variety-game show that originated in the United States in 1963 and has since been produced in many countries throughout the world. The program was created an ...
''. Ideas for the show were devised by producer John Guedel and his father, Walter, but Linkletter never used scripts or rehearsed.
The show's best-remembered segment was "Kids Say the Darndest Things", in which Linkletter interviewed schoolchildren between the ages of five and ten. During the segment's 27-year run, Linkletter interviewed an estimated 23,000 children. The popularity of the segment led to a TV series with the same title hosted by
Bill Cosby
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( ; born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and media personality. He made significant contributions to American and African-American culture, and is well known in the United States for his eccentri ...
on CBS from January 1998 to June 2000, and a revival since 2019.
Books
The show's popularity led to the books ''Kids Say the Darndest Things'' (
Prentice-Hall
Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...
, 1957) with ''House Party'' mentioned in the front cover blurb. It was followed by ''Kids Still Say the Darndest Things!'' (Bernard Geis, 1961), both illustrated by ''
Peanuts
''Peanuts'' is a print syndication, syndicated daily strip, daily and Sunday strip, Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. The strip's original run extended from 1950 to 2000, continuing in reruns afterward. ' ...
'' cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. The 1957 book was reissued in 2005 by Ten Speed Press (, )