What's New

4/2/2011 - Updated Stump the Stars
Added information provided by Dr. Charles Beardsley.

3/28/2011 - Updated The Nat King Cole Show
Added links to episodes on iTunes.

2/17/2011 - Updated The Nat King Cole Show
Added information to the episodes of 1/14/1957, 1/21/1957, 1/28/1957, and 2/18/1957.

9/19/2009 - Updated The Colgate Comedy Hour
Revised description of host Robert Paige.

8/22/2009 - Added Can Your Identify These Actors?
Trying to identify extras who appeared on Perry Mason.

3/17/2008 - Updated The Nat King Cole Show
Corrected information about the bass player in the 11/12/1957 episode. Thanks to Gary Helton, station manager of WHFC-FM of Bel Air, MD (and personal friend of Charlie Harris) for the correct identification.

11/19/2007 - Added The Museum of Broadcast Communications
Added links to the Museum of Broadcast Communications on Top TV Links and the Where to Buy and Links pages.

11/11/2007 - Updated The Frank Sinatra Show (1950-1952)
Added studio and announcer information provided by David Schwartz, TV Historian for Game Show Network and co-author of the Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows.

8/12/2007 - Added Links Page

8/12/2007 - Updated Where to Buy Classic TV Shows
Added a few new vendors and revised existing vendors' information.

8/12/2007 - Revised The Colgate Comedy Hour
Added to and revised a few of the episode descriptions, and added links to related episodes of Four Star Revue/All Star Revue and The Martha Raye Show.

8/12/2007 - Added Four Star Revue/All Star Revue and The Martha Raye Show
There's been a lot of confusion about these two shows and the relationship between them. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh says that All Star Revue ended in April 1953 and that Martha Raye then did a series of specials before starring in a weekly series during the 1955-56 season. The truth is that All Star Revue continued as a once-every-four-weeks show starring Raye in the fall of 1953 and that it was renamed The Martha Raye Show in January 1954. It continued to run once every four or three weeks until late May 1956.

The idea that Raye's shows were specials rather than a regular series is valid if you define a series as being at least once every three weeks. But it obscures the fact that they had a consistent format, with consistent personnel, and a regular schedule in the same time slot every time. On the other hand, Brooks and Marsh's statement that "in 1955, [Raye] got her own weekly series" is just plain false. Raye never had a weekly series. The authors also say, "The earlier specials had been relatively unstructured variety shows...The 1955-1956 series attempted to tell a complete story each week, in musical variety format." But Raye, with her head writer Nat Hiken, had been doing so-called "book musicals" since she debuted on All Star Revue in 1951.

Hopefully, my episode guides for these shows will help clear up the confusion.

Four Star/All Star Revue is also sort of a "missing link" between the other shows already posted on Classic TV Info. It's now possible to trace Jimmy Durante's career as a TV host, from Revue to The Colgate Comedy Hour to Texaco Star Theater. And you can see how Ed Wynn went from his own show to Four Star Revue (often repeating some of the same sketches in the latter show that he had done in the previous one).

7/16/2007 - Added Classic TV Info aStore
Now you can shop for classic TV DVDs, books, and CDs at our very own online aStore, in partnership with Amazon.com. Click on the link and check it out!

6/7/2007 - Added The Twilight Zone (1988-89)
For the first time on the web, correct airdates for all 30 episodes of the 1988-89 season.

4/7/2007 - Updated The Nat King Cole Show
Added information about several of the fifteen-minute shows, based on episode copies provided by Jerry Grefenstette.


10/15/2006 - Added Sinatra on TV

All the TV shows hosted or headlined by Frank Sinatra, covering the period of 1950 to 1995.

1/21/2006 - Updated Nat King Cole Discography
Added songs for the new CD edition of The Christmas Song in the Nat King Cole Discography and created links to buy CDs on amazon.com.

1/15/2006 - Added Where to Buy Classic TV Shows and links to DVDs
Created a list of dealers on the web who sell classic TV shows from the 1950s and 1960s, some of them quite rare. Also, for many shows and/or episodes, you'll now find links to amazon.com where you can purchase them. (And if you use that link and then buy the DVD, I'll receive a small percentage to help defray the cost of this website.)

12/11/2005 - Updated Nat King Cole Discography
Added personnel and missing songs for Nat King Cole Trio album (1965) in the Nat King Cole Discography.

11/21/2005 - Updated Nat King Cole Discography and The Colgate Comedy Hour
Corrected and added information about the 10th Anniversary and After Midnight albums in the Nat King Cole Discography. Added the songs performed in the 10/19/1952 and 1/11/1953 episodes of The Colgate Comedy Hour.

9/25/2005 - Updated Honeymooners Pages With New Info
Incorporated information from the book To The Moon! by John Katsigeorgis (Metro Books, 2002) and from Chris Rose.

8/21/2005 - Reassigned search function from Google to MSN
I used to think Google was the best of the search engines, but I've had nothing but trouble in getting them to include my site and all of its pages. I've read and followed all the instructions for improving my chances of getting included, but it's been a struggle. Then, the other day, all my pages disappeared for no apparent reason. Apart from wanting people to find my site, it's important for Google to index all of my pages because of the site search function that they encourage webmasters to use (and which I added on 8/8/2005). But, obviously, a search function is worthless if none of the content is indexed. So, for this reason, as of today, I'm moving my site search over to MSN.

8/14/2005 - Added Nat King Cole Discography
I had so much fun creating the Nat King Cole Show episode guide, that I decided to do an LP discography for him as well. It may not have much to do with TV, but I enjoyed compiling it, and hopefully you'll find some use for it as well.

8/8/2005 - Added Google search function

8/8/2005 - Added site map