The Cincinnati Museum Center will celebrate “1950s Day” Saturday by screening rare footage of the city’s biggest TV stars in the Scripps-Howard Newsreel Theater.
Ruth Lyons, “Uncle Al” Lewis, Dotty Mack, Bob Shreve, Willie Thall, and Midwestern Hayride stars Kenny Price, Dean Richards and the Lucky Pennies will be part of a five-hour classic TV marathon presented by Arabeth Balasko, the museum center’s curator of photography, prints, and media.
The screening begins at 10:30 a.m. with reruns from Balasko’s “Archives Day” program last October — a WLW Beginnings promotional film; Lyons’ 50-50 Club; WLWT’s Melody Showcase variety show; and the entire half-hour of WKRC-TV’s The Storm local drama written by Rod Serling.
Here is the rundown for Saturday. Each show will be screened only once Saturday (but they may eventually be added to the Museum Center’s YouTube page) Balasko says.
“And there could be a few possible surprises!” she says. (Read more about her philosophy in choosing old Cincinnati TV shows to screen in my April story, “More 1950s TV Shows coming to Museum Center.”)
WLW BEGINNINGS: A Crosley Broadcasting promotional film touting the history and achievements of WLW-AM, founded in 1922, and WLWT-TV, Cincinnati’s first television station in 1948. This will “set the stage nicely for TV history in Cincinnati,” she says.
50-50 CLUB: Clips from WLWT-TV’s signature live noon variety/talk show from March 1, 1951, with host Lyons, sidekick Willie Thall, and pianist Burt Farber.
MELODY SHOWCASE: Clips from a western saloon cowboy sketch from WLWT-TV’s Sunday night musical variety series with Bill Nimmo from March 18, 1951.
MIDWESTERN HAYRIDE: Performances from a couple 1950s episodes of WLWT-TV’s Saturday night country music showcase, including Kenny Price and the Hometowners, Dean Richards and the Lucky Pennies, Zeke & Slim, and the Hayride Dancers. Hayride premiered April 19, 1948, two months after WLWT-TV started broadcasting, and went national on June 16, 1951, as NBC’s summer replacement series for Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows.
THE STORM: While WLWT-TV and WCPO-TV invested in music shows, WKRC-TV produced a local and live half-hour drama series called The Storm in 1951-52. Rod Serling, who would create The Twilight Zone in 1959, wrote most of The Storm episodes including a Korean War drama called “No Gods To Serve,” which will be screened in its entirety.
DOTTY MACK SHOW: Mack’s popular WCPO-TV pantomime show, which also was fed to ABC in the early 1950s, is featured in a Cincinnati On The Air retrospective produced in 1990 by the Cincinnati Historical Society in conjunction with Cincinnati Community Video, Warner's Cable's public access TV operation. Former WLWT-TV announcer Bill Myers hosts clips from the Mack show pantomimes with her sidekicks, Bob Braun and Colin Male.
THE GENERAL STORE: Another Cincinnati On The Air retrospective with host Myers and Charlie Vaughan, a Cincinnati TV pioneer and former WCET-TV president, features clips of The General Store comedy starring Bob Shreve and Thall in the very early 1950s on WLWT-TV. “The Burglar Alarm” sketch also includes a filmed Raleigh cigarette commercial with national TV personality Art Linkletter.
UNCLE AL SHOW: This collection of excerpts from a 1958 show on WCPO-TV includes the Uncle Al Show open; Captain Windy flying; live Kahn's wieners and Hostess cupcakes commercials; Captain Windy drawing a cat and mouse; Roger Robot (Shreve); the kids participating in “Uncle Al's Big Band of Children” march; and everyone doing the “Hokey Pokey.” The Uncle Al Show aired Saturdays on ABC for a year starting in October 1958.
MOSLER – TARGET U.S.A.: A 1951 film made during the Cold War “assumes an attack by an unnamed enemy on the U.S. is inevitable. The film is about civil defense at the industrial plant level. It outlines broad steps industry (factories, hospitals, power plants, etc.) can take to be prepared for enemy attack. These include air raid shelters, communications centers and air raid drills,” Balasko says.
CINCINNATI SCENES 1950s: A film journey through the 1950s includes Crosley Field for the 1953 All-Star Game; Eden Park conservatory; the Cincinnati Zoo; the Public Landing area showing bridges, boats, and baptisms in the Ohio River; and the Eden Park entrance to the old Cincinnati Historical Society location.
