''Kraft Television Theatre'' is an American
anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors.
In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically cate ...
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
television series running from 1947 to 1958. It began May 7, 1947 on
NBC, airing at 7:30pm on Wednesday evenings until December of that year. It first promoted MacLaren's Imperial Cheese, which was advertised nowhere else. In January 1948, it moved to 9pm on Wednesdays, continuing in that timeslot until 1958. Initially produced by the
J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, the live hour-long series offered television plays with new stories and new characters each week,
in addition to adaptations of such classics as ''
A Christmas Carol
''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas ...
'' and ''
Alice in Wonderland''. The program was broadcast live from Studio 8-H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, currently the home of ''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves ...
''.
Beginning October 1953,
ABC added a separate series (also titled ''Kraft Television Theatre''), created to promote
Kraft's new
Cheez Whiz
Cheez Whiz is a brand of processed cheese sauce or spread produced by Kraft Foods. It was developed by a team led by food scientist Edwin Traisman (1915–2007). It was first sold in 1952, and with some changes in formulation continues to be i ...
product. This series ran for sixteen months, telecast on Thursday evenings at 9:30pm, until January 1955. After Kraft cancelled the second show, the second show changed its sponsor to become ''
Pond's Theatre'' on ABC-TV from March 1955, while the original ''Kraft Theatre'' continued on NBC-TV.
Background
A prestige show for NBC, it launched the careers of more than a few actors, directors and playwrights, including future
Emmy-winning and
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-nominated actress
Hope Lange.
Actors on the series included
James Dean,
Janet De Gore
Janet De Gore (November 19, 1930 – June 11, 2022) was an American television and theatre actress.
Born in Larchmont, New York, De Gore began her career in 1950 starring as Janice in the Broadway play ''The Member of the Wedding''.
De Gore a ...
,
Colleen Dewhurst
Colleen Rose Dewhurst (3 June 1924 – 22 August 1991) was a Canadian-American actress mostly known for theatre roles. She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early drama ...
,
Anne Francis
Anne Francis (also known as Anne Lloyd Francis; September 16, 1930 – January 2, 2011) was an American actress known for her ground-breaking roles in the science-fiction film ''Forbidden Planet'' (1956) and the television action-drama seri ...
,
Lee Grant
Lee Grant (born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal; October 31, during the mid-1920s) is an American actress, documentarian, and director. She made her film debut in 1951 as a young shoplifter in William Wyler's '' Detective Story'', co-starring Kirk Doug ...
,
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes MacArthur ( Brown; October 10, 1900 – March 17, 1993) was an American actress whose career spanned 80 years. She eventually received the nickname "First Lady of American Theatre" and was the second person and first woman to have w ...
,
Jack Lemmon,
Grace Kelly,
Jack Klugman
Jack Klugman (April 27, 1922 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor of stage, film, and television.
He began his career in 1950 and started television and film work with roles in ''12 Angry Men'' (1957) and ''Cry Terror!'' (1958). Du ...
,
Cloris Leachman, Sam Levene,
Patrick McVey,
Michael Higgins,
John Newland,
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, race car driver, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three ...
,
Leslie Nielsen,
Anthony Perkins,
Judson Pratt, silent film icon
Esther Ralston,
Lee Remick
Lee Ann Remick (December 14, 1935 – July 2, 1991) was an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film '' Days of Wine and Roses'' (1962), and for the 1966 Tony Award for Best Actress ...
,
George C. Scott,
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen Steiger (; April 14, 1925July 9, 2002, aged 77) was an American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. Cited as "one of Hollywood's most charismatic and dynamic stars," he is closely assoc ...
,
Joan Tompkins (her first television role),
Grace Carney and
Joanne Woodward. Announcers for the show were
Ed Herlihy
Edward Joseph Herlihy (August 14, 1909 – January 30, 1999)Cox, Jim (2008). ''This Day in Network Radio: A Daily Calendar of Births, Debuts, Cancellations and Other Events in Broadcasting History''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . was an Ameri ...
(1947–1955) and Charles Stark (1955). In 1958, young performers
Martin Huston and
Zina Bethune
Zina Bianca Bethune (February 17, 1945 – February 12, 2012) was an American actress, dancer, and choreographer.
Early years
Bethune was born on Staten Island, the daughter of Ivy ( Vigder), a Russian-born (Sevastopol, present-day Ukraine) act ...
appeared in "This Property Is Condemned", based on a
Tennessee Williams play, the last show of ''Kraft Television Theatre''.
Directors for the series included
Sidney Lumet,
Robert Altman,
George Roy Hill,
Fielder Cook, and
John Boulting, and the many contributing writers included
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward Serling (December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975) was an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator/on-screen host, best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his anthology television series ...
,
William Templeton and
JP Miller. Serling won an
Emmy for scripting ''
Patterns'' (January 12, 1955), the best remembered episode of the series. The drama had such an impact that it made television history by staging a second live encore performance three weeks later and was developed as a feature film, also titled ''
Patterns''.
In April 1958, Kraft sold the rights to
David Susskind
David Howard Susskind (December 19, 1920 – February 22, 1987) was an American producer of TV, movies, and stage plays and also a TV talk show host. His talk shows were innovative in the genre and addressed timely, controversial topics beyond th ...
's Talent Associates, which revamped the series as ''Kraft Mystery Theatre''. Under that title, it continued until September 1958. However, this eventually evolved into the 1963 filmed series ''
Kraft Suspense Theatre'', which concentrated exclusively on original dramas written for television, not on adaptations.
Between 1947 and 1958, the ''Kraft Television Theatre'' presented more than 650 comedies and dramas.
The series finished #14 in the
Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...
for the 1950–1951 season, #23 for 1951-1952 and #21 for 1953–1954.
Episode status
Excerpts from several 1947 episodes and part of a reel of 1947 television clips are held by the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...
. In addition, the Library of Congress holds a large number of complete episodes, including five from 1948. The
American Heritage Center has a number of scripts from various episodes for the years 1947, 1948, and 1949 in the Edmund C. Rice papers. These scripts, though authored by various people, were edited by Rice.
Episodes
References
External links
*{{IMDb title, 39123
''Kraft Mystery Theatre'' at CVTA with episode list
1947 American television series debuts
1958 American television series endings
1940s American anthology television series
1950s American anthology television series
1940s American drama television series
1950s American drama television series
Black-and-white American television shows
English-language television shows
NBC original programming
Kraft Foods
Television series by Talent Associates