''Johnny Olson's Rumpus Room'' was a 1949-1952 American
variety show
Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a com ...
hosted by
Johnny Olson
John Leonard Olson (May 22, 1910 – October 12, 1985) was an American radio personality and television announcer. Olson is perhaps best known for his work as an announcer for game shows, particularly the work he did for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman P ...
.
Broadcast history
The show aired at 10 am ET from January 17, 1949, to July 4, 1952, on the
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network (also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, simply DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of bein ...
.
The show was one of the first
daytime television
Daytime is a block of television programming taking place during the late-morning and afternoon on weekdays. Daytime programming is typically scheduled to air between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., following the early morning day ...
shows broadcast from
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
to DuMont's small network of
East Coast cities. Olson also hosted the DuMont talent show ''
Doorway to Fame
''Doorway to Fame'' is an American talent show broadcast on the now defunct DuMont Television Network. The series ran from May 2, 1947, to July 11, 1949.
Overview
The series used early television scene-blending technology to project the performer ...
'' (May 1947 – July 1949), and DuMont's Saturday-morning children's show ''
Kids and Company'' (September 1951 – June 1952).
According to the book ''What Women Watched: Daytime Television in the 1950s'' (University of Texas Press, 2005) by Marsha Cassidy, the DuMont daytime schedule beginning in January 1949 was:
*10-10:30 am ''Johnny Olson's Rumpus Room''
*10:30-11 am ''Welcome, Neighbors''
*11 am-12 noon ''The Stan Shaw Show''
*12 noon-12:15 pm ''
Amanda''
*12:15-12:30 pm ''Man in the Street''
*12:30-12:45 pm ''
Camera Headlines''
*12:45-1 pm ''Fashions in Song''
*1-1:30 pm ''
Okay, Mother''
*2:30-3 pm ''
Inside Photoplay
''The Wendy Barrie Show'' (also known as ''Inside Photoplay'', ''Photoplay Time'', ''Through Wendy's Window'', and ''Who's Who With Wendy Barrie'') is an American talk show hosted by Wendy Barrie, which aired from November 10, 1948, to September 2 ...
'' (''The Wendy Barrie Show'')
*3-3:15 pm ''
The Needle Shop''
*3:15-3:30 pm ''Vincent Lopez Speaking'' (''
The Vincent Lopez Show'')
Olson's career
In the 1940s, Olson hosted a popular
radio show
A radio program, radio programme, or radio show is a segment of content intended for broadcast on radio. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series. A single program in a series is called an episode.
Radio netwo ...
also titled ''Johnny Olson's Rumpus Room'' at
WTMJ in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...
.
Sometime after 1943, Johnny moved the show (WTMJ continued to air ''Rumpus Room'' with a new host) to
WMAQ in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, coordinates =
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as an evening variety show running 10:30 pm to 12 midnight (
CT). Olson went on to become a famous announcer on American
game show
A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...
s, including as the announcer on ''
The Price Is Right
''The Price Is Right'' is a television game show franchise created by Bob Stewart, originally produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman; currently it is produced and owned by Fremantle. The franchise centers on television game shows, but also i ...
'' 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 ...
and
first-run syndication
Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and radio programs to multiple television stations and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in the United States where ...
from 1972 until his death (the nighttime version of ''The Price Is Right'' reunited Olson with another prominent DuMont personality,
Dennis James
Dennis James (born Demie James Sposa, August 24, 1917 – June 3, 1997) was an American television personality, philanthropist, and commercial spokesman. Until 1976, he had appeared on TV more times and for a longer period than any other televi ...
, for its first five years on air).
See also
*
List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network
This is a list of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network, which operated in the United States from 1942 to 1956. All regularly scheduled programs which were aired on the DuMont network are listed below, regardless of whether they orig ...
*
List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts
The DuMont Television Network was launched in 1946 and ceased broadcasting in 1956. Allen DuMont, who created the network, preserved most of what it produced in kinescope format. By 1958, however, much of the library had been destroyed to recov ...
*
1949–50 United States network television schedule (weekday)
References
Further reading
*David Weinstein, ''The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television'' (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press
Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach ...
, 2004)
*Alex McNeil, ''Total Television'', Fourth edition (New York:
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.[Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remain ...]
, 1964)
External links
* {{IMDb title, 0324859
DuMont historical website
1949 American television series debuts
1952 American television series endings
1940s American variety television series
1950s American variety television series
Black-and-white American television shows
DuMont Television Network original programming
English-language television shows