Hour Glass is the first regularly scheduled variety show shown on American network television. It ran on NBC from May 9, 1946 until March 1947.
Campus Hoopla is an American game show that ran on the NBC Television network from December 27, 1946 until its cancellation in 1947. The show was centered around a group of teenagers in a soda shop.
The Swift Show is an American variety/game show that aired on Thursdays at 8:30pm EST on NBC premiering April 1, 1948 and running to 1949.
Texaco Star Theater is an American comedy-variety show, broadcast on radio from 1938 to 1949 and telecast from 1948 to 1956. It was one of the first successful examples of American television broadcasting, remembered as the show that gave Milton Berle the nickname "Mr. Television".
The classic 1940–44 version of the program, hosted by radio's Fred Allen, was followed by a radio series on ABC in the spring of 1948. When Texaco first took it to television on NBC on June 8, 1948, the show had a huge cultural impact.
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the CBS Sunday Night Movie, which ran only one season and was eventually replaced by other shows.
In 2002, The Ed Sullivan Show was ranked #15 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
Welcome Aboard is an American variety show that was televised live on Sundays at 7:30pm EST on NBC. The series was initially titled Admiral Presents the Five Star Revue—Welcome Aboard, when it was sponsored by Admiral but was retitled when sponsorship was dropped in December 1948.
The premiere episode featured Martin and Lewis, and Phil Silvers. The second episode on October 10 also featured Martin and Lewis, and a kinescope of this latter show is preserved in the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Three additional episodes are held by the Library of Congress
Celebrity Time was an American game and audience participation television series which aired originally aired on CBS and ABC from November 1948 to September 1952. The original host was Douglas Edwards.
The Chesterfield Supper Club, an NBC musical variety radio program, was also telecast by NBC from 1948 to 1950.
Arthur Godfrey and His Friends is an American television variety show hosted by Arthur Godfrey. The hour-long series aired on CBS Television from January 1949 to June 1957, then again as a half-hour show from September 1958 to April 1959.
Many of Godfrey's musical acts were culled from Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, which was airing on CBS at the same time. Among the more popular of his singers were Frank Parker, Marion Marlowe, Janette Davis, Julius La Rosa, Haleloke, The McGuire Sisters, Carmel Quinn, Pat Boone, Miyoshi Umeki and The Chordettes. The show was live, and Godfrey often did away with the script and improvised. He refused to participate in commercials for products he did not believe in.
Abe Burrows' Almanac is an American television series that aired on CBS in 1950. The live program, hosted by Abe Burrows, featured music, song and comedy performances by guests. The show was broadcast on Wednesday evenings at 9:00 PM. Milton DeLugg conducted the orchestra.
While Burrows had a successful nightclub act and made regular appearances as a performer on CBS radio programs, this short-lived series is notable for being his only featured role in a television program.
Your Show of Shows was a live 90-minute variety show that was broadcast weekly in the United States on NBC, from February 25, 1950, until June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.
Other featured performers were Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Bill Hayes, Judy Johnson, The Hamilton Trio and the soprano Marguerite Piazza. José Ferrer made several guest appearances on the series. The series was telecast from the now-demolished International Theatre at 5 Columbus Circle and the Century Theater, now demolished, in New York.
During 2002, Your Show of Shows was ranked #30 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
The Arthur Murray Party is an American television variety show which ran from July 1950 until September 1960. The show was hosted by famous dancers Arthur and Kathryn Murray, and was basically one long advertisement for their chain of dance studios. Each week the couple performed a mystery dance, and the viewer who correctly identified the dance would receive two free lessons at a local studio.
The Arthur Murray Party is notable for being one of the few TV series—the others were Down You Go; The Ernie Kovacs Show; Pantomime Quiz; Tom Corbett, Space Cadet; and The Original Amateur Hour—broadcast on all four major commercial networks in the 1950s during the Golden Age of Television. It may, in fact, be the only series which had a run on all four networks at least twice.
The Colgate Comedy Hour is an American comedy-musical variety series that aired live on the NBC network from 1950 to 1955. The show starred many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Fred Allen, Donald O'Connor, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Bob Hope, Jimmy Durante, Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Ben Blue, Robert Paige, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Broadway dancer Wayne Lamb and Spike Jones and His City Slickers.
The Paul Winchell Show, or The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show, was a variety program which aired on NBC prime time from 1950 to 1954, starring ventriloquist Paul Winchell and his dummy, Jerry Mahoney.
Four Star Revue was an American variety show that aired on NBC from October 4, 1950 to December 26, 1953.
The Frank Sinatra Show was an American musical variety series hosted by Frank Sinatra from 1950 to 1952. The series aired on CBS. As with many variety shows of the time, the show was broadcast live and was recorded via kinescope. Some episodes were 30 minutes long while others were 60 minutes.
Laugh along with funnyman Jack Benny as he brings his underplayed humor to TV along with regular performers from his radio show days.
Seven at Eleven is an American comedy/variety show that aired live on NBC Monday and Wednesday night from 11:00 pm to midnight Eastern time from May 28, 1951 to June 27, 1951 on the nights when Broadway Open House wasn't on.
The Red Skelton Show is an American variety show that was a television staple for two decades, from 1951 to 1971. It was second to Gunsmoke and third to The Ed Sullivan Show in the ratings during that time. Skelton, who had previously been a radio star, had appeared in several motion pictures as well. Although his television series is largely associated with CBS, where it appeared for more than fifteen years, it actually began and ended on NBC. During its run, the program received three Emmy Awards, for Skelton as best comedian and the program as best comedy show during its initial season, and an award for comedy writing in 1961.
The Dinah Shore Show is an American variety show which was broadcast by NBC from November 1951 to January 1956, sponsored by General Motors' Chevrolet division. For most of the program's run, it aired from 7:30 to 7:45 Eastern Time on Tuesday and Thursday nights, rounding out the time slot which featured the network's regular evening newscast, which, like all such programs of the era, was then only 15 minutes in length.