Arthur Godfrey and Don Ameche are hosts for a nostalgic review of the great stars and favorite programs of radio and television history.
This television special celebrates fifty years of radio and television broadcasting. Arthur Godfrey hosts this nostalgic look back at the stars and programs that catapulted radio and television to success. Highlights include: Ed Wynn's first radio show "The Perfect Fool," a 1922 variety show; how radio became network oriented in 1927 and began to change American lifestyles; the first coast-to-coast broadcast of a football game from the Rose Bowl; the Fireside Chats with Franklin D. Roosevelt; the comedy duo of Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, better known as "Amos 'n' Andy"; the Kraft Music Hall, hosted by Bing Crosby, which showcased the great singers of the 1930s and 40s such as Arthur Tracy, Morton Downy, Helen Morgan, and Kate Smith; Frank Sinatra, who was brought into the public eye through radio; Bing Crosby, who sings "Pennies From Heaven"; John Scott Trotter's reminiscences about the big bands such as those of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Spike Jones; how television began to make strides with the telecast of the New York Worlds Fair in 1939 until World War II put an abrupt stop to the advancement; how the very popular Milton Berle was responsible for the television revolution after the war was over; a survey of other pioneering programs including "Kukla, Fran, and Ollie," "Your Show of Shows," "I Remember Mama," and "Howdy Doody"; a day at the studio with big-time television producer Sheldon Leonard whose credits range from the slow-starting "Dick Van Dyke Show" to "The Gomer Pyle Show"; Godfrey, who sings "I'm in Love with You Honey"; a look at the great comedy teams and solo comedians such as Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, Fibber McGee and Molly, Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen, and W.C. Fields; the first lady of television, Lucille Ball, who is followed through a day of rehearsal for her show; how radio soap operas paved the way for the radio drama programs such as "Inner Sanctum," "Suspense," and "The Whistler"; how the live drama show became the first step in a new direction for television; Rod Serling's examination of the rise and somewhat quick fall of this form of programming; the We Five singing "Beyond the Sea"; and the great radio commentators such as Edward R. Murrow and Walter Winchell.
