''Sneak Preview'' 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 related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...

television series that aired on

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 ...

in the summer of 1956. The 30-minute episodes consisted of unsold

television pilot A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie) in United Kingdom and United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television netwo ...

Background

By the mid-1950s, the practice of television executives of ordering dozens of pilots for proposed television series each year – far more than their networks could possibly broadcast as series – had created a sizable body of unsold pilots that had never aired. By 1954, the American

television industry Television (TV) is a telecommunications, telecommunication media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of signal transmission, ...

had begun to consider the idea of packaging these unsold pilots in

anthology series An anthology series is a written series, radio, television, film, or video game series that presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a different ca ...

and airing them during the summer, providing television networks with a way of both providing fresh programming during the summer rerun season and recouping at least some of the expense of producing them.

was one of the pioneers of the concept, premiering ''Sneak Preview'' on the evening of July 3, 1956, at exactly the same time as another anthology series of unsold pilots, '' G.E. Summer Originals'' on

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

, thus becoming one of the first two series of unsold pilots to air in the United States.

Nelson Case Nelson Case (February 3, 1910 – March 24, 1976) was an American radio and television announcer. Case was the son of Walter and Ethel Case. His father was a newspaperman, and his mother was a driving force in the Long Beach Community Players. H ...

hosted the series.

Broadcast history

''Sneak Preview'' ran for seven episodes over the course of seven weeks in the summer of 1956, airing on NBC from 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday evenings. It premiered on July 3, and its last episode aired on August 14.

Episodes

SOURCES:

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 0461635
''Sneak Preview'' at CVTA
1950s American anthology television series 1956 American television series debuts 1956 American television series endings NBC television dramas Black-and-white American television shows Television pilots not picked up as a series American English-language television shows