The Comedy Spot


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The Comedy Spot is an American anthology television series that aired on CBS in the summers of 1960, 1961 (when it was known as Comedy Spotlight), and 1962. The 30-minute episodes consisted of a combination of unsold television pilots and repeats of episodes aired previously on other anthology series.

The Comedy Spot
Also known asComedy Spotlight
GenreAnthology series
Presented byArt Gilmore (in 1960)
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons3
No. of episodes31
Production
Running time30 minutes
Original release
NetworkCBS
ReleaseJune 28, 1960 –
September 18, 1962

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.[1] By 1954, the American television industry had begun to consider the idea of packaging these unsold pilots in anthology series 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.[1] ABC and NBC pioneered the concept in the summer of 1956, simultaneously premiering G.E. Summer Originals (on ABC) and Sneak Preview (on NBC), but CBS did not air its first two such series, The Comedy Spot and New Comedy Showcase, until the summer of 1960.[1]

Production and content

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Art Gilmore hosted The Comedy Spot in 1960.[1][2] Its name and content changed from year to year. In the summer of 1960, it consisted of a combination of unsold pilots and reruns of episodes of General Electric Theater and NBC's Colgate Theater.[1] It was retitled Comedy Spotlight for the summer of 1961, and that year was composed entirely of reruns of General Electric Theater episodes.[1] For its final run in the summer of 1962, it returned to the name The Comedy Spot and consisted entirely of unsold pilots, one of them a repeat of an episode aired in 1960 on New Comedy Showcase.[1]

On July 19, 1960, The Comedy Spot aired the unsold pilot "Head of the Family," which told the story of Robbie Petrie, a writer for a comedy television show who has trouble explaining to his son Ritchie what he does at work. With a revamped cast but largely the same characters, a reworked version of "Head of the Family" became the successful situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show, which aired from 1961 to 1966,[2][3][4] and the plot of "Head of the Family" served as the basis of The Dick Van Dyke Show′s February 1962 episode "Father of the Week."[citation needed]

CBS filmed "A Pony for Chris," a pilot for a proposed series titled Medicine Man, starring Ernie Kovacs and Buster Keaton, in which Kovacs played Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s who was selling "Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice," also known as "man's best friend in a bottle."[5] The day after filming some of the scenes for the pilot, Kovacs died in an automobile accident on January 13, 1962. CBS made plans to broadcast the pilot for Medicine Man as an episode of The Comedy Spot in 1962, but dropped the idea after encountering problems with Kovacs's estate.[6][7][8]

The Comedy Spot ran for 11 episodes over the course of 13 weeks in the summer of 1960, airing on CBS from 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday evenings.[1] It premiered on June 28,[1] and its last episode aired on September 20. It returned in the summer of 1961 with the title Comedy Spotlight and moved to the 9:00–9:30 p.m. time slot on Tuesdays, premiering on July 25, running for nine consecutive weeks, and concluding its season on September 19. Reverting to the name The Comedy Spot but remaining in the 9:00–9:30 p.m. time slot on Tuesdays, it had its last run in the summer of 1962, premiering on July 3 and airing on 11 of the next 12 weeks. Its final episode aired on September 18, 1962.[2][9]

Season 1 (The Comedy Spot, 1960)

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SOURCES[1][3][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]

Season 2 (Comedy Spotlight, 1961)

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SOURCES [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]

Season 3 (The Comedy Spot, 1962)

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SOURCES[1][4][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]

[41][42]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "UNSOLD PILOTS ON TELEVISION, 1956–1966". tvobscurities.com. Television Obscurities. 15 August 2019. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Brooks & Marsh 2007, p. 276.
  3. ^ a b Cullum, Paul. "The Dick Van Dyke Show". The Museum of Broadcast Communications. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
  4. ^ a b Terrace 1976, p. 165.
  5. ^ Spiro, J.D. (February 8, 1962). "Ernie Kovacs' Last Interview". The Milwaukee Journal.
  6. ^ Du Brow, Rick (July 18, 1962). "'Octavius' Cute to Point of Nausea". Sarasota Journal. Retrieved September 12, 2010.
  7. ^ "Ernie Kovacs: Medicine Man (Pilot)". Paley Center for Media. 1962. Retrieved July 12, 2010.
  8. ^ "Medicine Man (Pilot)". Paley Center for Media. 1962. Retrieved July 11, 2010.
  9. ^ Terrace 1976, pp. 164–166.
  10. ^ Terrace 1976, pp. 164–165.
  11. ^ Schenectady Gazette, June 28, 1960, p. 12.
  12. ^ Schenectady Gazette, July 5, 1960, p. 6.
  13. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 2, 1960, p. 6.
  14. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 9, 1960, p. 6.
  15. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 23, 1960, p. 5.
  16. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 30, 1960, p. 11.
  17. ^ Schenectady Gazette, September 6, 1960, p. 8.
  18. ^ Terrace, Vincent (2008). Encyclopedia of Television Shows 1925 through 2007 Volume I. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, Inc. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-7864-3305-6.
  19. ^ Schenectady Gazette, September 13, 1960, p. 7.
  20. ^ Schenectady Gazette, September 20, 1960, p. 21.
  21. ^ Schenectady Gazette, July 26, 1965, p. 16.
  22. ^ Terrace 1976, pp. 165–166.
  23. ^ Schenectady Gazette, July 25, 1961, p. 11.
  24. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 1, 1961, p. 10.
  25. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 8, 1961, p. 13.
  26. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 15, 1961, p. 21.
  27. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 22, 1961, p. 19.
  28. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 29, 1961, p. 7.
  29. ^ Schenectady Gazette, September 12, 1961, p. 10.
  30. ^ Schenectady Gazette, September 19, 1961, p. 20.
  31. ^ Schenectady Gazette, July 3, 1962, p. 13.
  32. ^ Schenectady Gazette, July 10, 1962, p. 13.
  33. ^ Schenectady Gazette, July 17, 1962, p. 9.
  34. ^ Evening Independent, July 17, 1962, p. 3-B.
  35. ^ Schenectady Gazette, July 24, 1962, p. 11.
  36. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 7, 1962, p. 15.
  37. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 14, 1962, p. 19.
  38. ^ Toledo Blade, August 14, 1962, unpaginated.
  39. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 21, 1962, p. 9.
  40. ^ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 21, 1962, p. 39.
  41. ^ Schenectady Gazette, August 28, 1962, p. 9.
  42. ^ Schenectady Gazette, September 11, 1962, p. 22.