''Admiral Broadway Revue''pp. 13-14
. is an American

live television Live television is a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. In a secondary meaning, it may refer to streaming television where all viewers watch the same stream simultaneously, rather than watching vide ...

variety show Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp� ...

that ran from January 28 to June 3, 1949. The show was notable for being "television's first full scale Broadway type musical revue."

Distribution

The program was broadcast live on Fridays from 8 to 9 p.m. ET simultaneously on both the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

and DuMont networks. Live broadcasts were carried by 24 stations in 16 cities. Another 14 stations broadcast

kinescope Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940s ...

recordings of the live episodes. The dual-network distribution resulted from Admiral executives' desire to have the program on NBC and to have it seen in Chicago. During the show's time slot, DuMont had sole use of the coaxial cable linking New York City to Chicago. Therefore, the company used both networks.

Overview

Episodes of ''Admiral Broadway Revue'' included music, comedy, well-known guest stars and "lavish production numbers". Each episode's dances, sketches, and songs related to a common theme such as cross-country, night life, and Radio City. The show was telecast from the since-demolished International Theatre (also known as the Park Theatre) at 5 Columbus Circle in New York City. The hour-long series was directed by Max Liebman, hosted by Sid Caesar, and also starred

Imogene Coca Imogene Coca (born Emogeane Coca; November 18, 1908 – June 2, 2001) was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on ''Your Show of Shows''. Starting out in vaudeville as a child acrobat, she studied ballet and pursu ...

. Liebman, Caesar, and Coca went on to work on NBC's '' Your Show of Shows'', which debuted February 25, 1950. The series was sponsored by TV-set manufacturer

Admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in many navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force. Admiral is ranked above vice admiral and below admiral of ...

, a competitor of NBC's parent company

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

and of DuMont, both of which manufactured TV sets. The cancellation of the series resulted from demand for Admiral's TV sets exceeding the company's manufacturing capacity. Admiral's executives chose to shift the money spent on the program into an increase in manufacturing capabilities. Its final episode aired June 3, 1949.

Personnel

''Admiral Broadway Revue'' provided the first pairing of Caesar and Coca.

Marge Marge is a feminine given name, a shortened form of Marjorie, Margot or Margaret. Notable Marges include: People * Marge (cartoonist) (1904–1993), pen name of Marjorie Henderson Buell, American cartoonist * Marge Anderson (1932–2013), Ojibwe ...

and Gower Champion performed dance numbers on the shows. Others appearing on the show included comic

Spoonerism A spoonerism is an occurrence of speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words of a phrase. These are named after the Oxford don and priest William Archibald Spooner, who report ...

monologist Roy Atwell, Mary McCarty, Bobby Van, and Loren Welch. Charles Sanford conducted the orchestra, and Don Walker orchestrated the music. Writers for the program included Lucille Kallen and Mel Tolkin.

Episode and script status

Episodes of ''Admiral Broadway Revue'' were made available on videocassettes by Video Dimensions. The Paley Center for Media holds 18

episodes of the series, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive has one episode. In 2000, workers who opened an apparently overlooked closet in

New York City Center New York City Center (previously known as the Mecca Temple, City Center of Music and Drama, and the New York City Center 55th Street Theater) is a performing arts center at 131 West 55th Street (Manhattan), 55th Street between Sixth Avenue, Six ...

found boxes of papers that belonged to Liebman, including "many scripts" from ''Admiral Broadway Revue''. A contemporary newspaper report indicated that the papers would go to the Library of Congress, where researchers could use them.

References

External links

*
''Admiral Broadway Revue'' episode with Caesar, Coca, and Marge and Gower Champion
at Moving Image Archive.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Admiral Broadway Revue 1949 American television series debuts 1949 American television series endings 1940s American variety television series Black-and-white American television shows DuMont Television Network original programming American English-language television shows NBC original programming Television shows filmed in New York City