TV by the Decade :: December 19•25

Hallmark

Another week with only a single new series premiering. And, unusually, this one was on Christmas Eve … but there was a very good reason. This week’s new series is also, unusually, still on the air today after 70 years albeit in a very different format than where it first started, moving through four different networks and now resides on a cable channel that shares the same name. Read on to learn more about this week’s TV debut.

1951

December 24 – Hallmark Hall of Fame

Notable Guests: Beatrice Straight, Sal Mineo, Cloris Leachman, June Lockhart, E.G. Marshall, Jayne Meadows, Ross Martin, James Dean, Cliff Robertson, Jonathan Harris, Marian Seldes, ANgela Lansbury, Mare Winningham, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Kingsley, Kristin Chenoweth, Bernadette Peters, Bette David, Bill Pullman, Carla Gugino, Christopher Walken, Danny Kaye, Don Knotts, Elizabeth Montgomery, James Arness, James Stewart, Jerry O’Connell, Jessica Tandy, Joan Allen, Kyle Chandler, Linda Hunt, Mark Hamill, Martin Sheen, Mia Farrow, Scott Wolf, Morgan Freeman, Rob Lowe, Robert Redford, Roger Moore, Sam Elliott, Sam Shepard, Tuesday Weld, William Shatner
Synopsis: Anthology series
Network: NBC (1951–78), CBS (1979–81, 1982–89, 1995–2011), PBS (1981), ABC (1989–95, 2011–14), Hallmark Channel (2014–present)
Broadcast History: Sixty-nine seasons, 290 episodes to date.
Trivia: Originally called Hallmark Television Playhouse, which was hosted by Sarah Churchill. Originally a 30-minute weekly program. Programs have been broadcast in color since 1954, and was one of the first videotaped programs to be broadcast in color. The series began with live broadcasts, then switched to videotape, and then to film. The series has won 81 Emmy Awards and 9 Golden Globes. One of the last remaining programs on television where the title includes the name of the sponsor. Hall of Fame films usually have higher budgets and longer production time than average TV movies. The series debuted with the first original opera written for television, Amahl and the Night Visitors. Broadway plays such as Harvey, Dial M for Murder, and Kiss Me Kate were presented, with some actors reprising their stage roles. A second adaptation of Hamlet was filmed on location in Scotland and released theatrically in Europe. In 1955, the series switched to a format of specials seen four to eight times a year. In 1970 the frequency dropped to two or three times a year. Most adaptations of Shakespeare were drastically edited to fit television time slots, but PBS was able to present nearly complete versions during the series’ run on the network. Most of the films from 1951 to the 1970s are not owned by Hallmark Hall of Fame, but the Hallmark Channel has been attempting to gain the rights since 1999.