CBS
The week of July 4th in the US rarely sees any new programming debut, mainly because it’s a time for families to gather for the holiday, spend time at the beach, and just generally ignore television … which is right in the middle of what was typically rerun season. Some networks did run new shows during the summer to avoid reruns of their regular shows, and some of those summer replacements even went on to become regular series themselves. That was not this case this week with two summer shows that had single season runs, but a game show debuted that had a long life across three different networks. Read on and see if you remember any of this week’s new series premieres.
1951
- No new series debuted in 1951.
1961
July 6 – Great Ghost Tales
- Host: Frank Gallop
- Guest Cast: Lou Antonio, R.G. Armstrong, Barbara Barrie, James Broderick, Roger C. Carmel, Robert Duvall, Vincent Gardenia, Lee Grant, Arthur Hill, Salome Jens, Joanne Linville, Walter Matthau, Kevin McCarthy, Lois Nettleton, Gene Saks, Richard Thomas
- Synopsis: An anthology of scary stories.
- Network: NBC
- Broadcast History: One season, 12 episodes, last broadcast on September 21, 1961
- Trivia: A summer replacement series for The Ford Show. The last regularly scheduled television series broadcast live in the US. Many stories were adapted from authors like Conrad Aiken and Edgar Allan Poe.
July 10 – Glenn Miller Time
- Cast: Glenn Miller and His Orchestra, Ray McKinley, Johnny Desmond, Patricia Clark, Johnny Olson
- Guest Cast: The Castle Sisters, Midge & Bill Haggart, Betty Madigan, Jiggs Whigham, Audrey Castle, Bill Pape, Joanie Castle, Harry Devito, Josie Castle, Dave Eckert
- Synopsis: Musical variety half-hour series.
- Network: CBS
- Broadcast History: One season, 10 episodes, last broadcast on September 11, 1961
- Trivia: Summer replacement series for Hennessey. The series was sponsored by Kent cigarettes and Jell-O.
1971
- No new series debuted in 1971.
1981
- No new series debuted in 1981.
1991
July 8 – Shop ’til You Drop
- Host: Pat Finn (1991–94, 1996–98, 2000–02), JD Roberto (2003–05)
- Synopsis: Two teams each consisting of two people (almost always male-female, married, engaged, dating, siblings, or best friends) competed against each other to win prizes and a trip against the backdrop of a two-story shopping mall set.
- Network: Lifetime / The Family Channel / PAX TV
- Broadcast History: Ten seasons, 980 episodes, last broadcast on May 27, 2005
- Trivia: The third version of the series changed the shopping mall to a 14-department warehouse store like Costco. The Beat the Clock style stunts of the previous versions were replaced with questions and pricing games. A one-hour Christmas special aired on December 19, 1993 featuring celebrities playing for charity.
2001
- No new series debuted in 2001.
2011
- No new series debuted in 2011.
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