Fort Lauderdale FL—For more than half a century, Americans have turned to television for entertainment and information. To those watching in its early days, TV offered the additional excitement of the new medium. Whether laughing at the first situation comedies, tingling at crime dramas or identifying with ordinary people who had their day in the spotlight on game shows, audiences were charmed by the novelty of television.
The 20 Early TV Memories in the stamp set include: The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet; Alfred Hitchcock Presents; The Dinah Shore Show; Dragnet; The Ed Sullivan Show; The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show; Hopalong Cassidy; The Honeymooners; Howdy Doody; I Love Lucy; Kukla, Fran and Ollie; Lassie; The Lone Ranger; Perry Mason; The Phil Silvers Show; The Red Skelton Show; Texaco Star Theater; The Tonight Show; The Twilight Zone; and You Bet Your Life.
Dragnet
This police procedural aimed at achieving documentary authenticity, emphasizing the drudgery of day-to-day police work and using police jargon throughout. Series producer Jack Webb, who also starred as Sgt. Joe Friday (shown in the stamp art), told a writer for Time, “We try to make it as real as a guy pouring a cup of coffee.” Scenes of policemen just waiting around and engaging in small talk were common. Each episode concluded with details about the criminal character’s fate.
From its premiere in 1952, Dragnet was a hit. The opening four notes of its theme and the prologue to each episode—“The story you are about to see is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent”—imprinted themselves indelibly on popular culture. The series lasted until 1959 in its first incarnation, and was revived from 1967 to 1970. And as Sgt. Friday might say, those are “just the facts.”
I Love Lucy
As bandleader Ricky Ricardo and his wife, Lucy, real-life spouses Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball had a major hit with this comedic battle of the sexes. William Frawley and Vivian Vance played their landlords and best friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz. Invariably, Lucy’s desire to escape from her life as a housewife resulted in wacky adventures like the one depicted in the stamp art, with Ethel (left) and Lucy trying to keep up with candy moving rapidly on a conveyor belt.
I Love Lucy premiered in 1951 and became an immediate hit, spending four of its six seasons as the highest-rated show on television. It was filmed before a live audience with an innovative three-camera system that subsequently became an industry standard. Perhaps the most beloved of all sitcoms, it remains popular worldwide in syndication.
The Honeymooners
The Honeymooners grew out of a six-minute sketch first broadcast in 1951 on Cavalcade of Stars. Jackie Gleason starred as bus driver Ralph Kramden, who lived in a cramped Brooklyn apartment with his wife, Alice. Ralph was a schemer whose dreams of hitting the jackpot were constantly frustrated. Alice was more pragmatic, standing firm in the face of her husband’s rage. Art Carney, who appeared as a policeman in the initial sketch, was cast as Ed Norton, Ralph’s neighbor, friend, and co-conspirator, who usually managed to leave him holding the bag. The stamp art shows Gleason (left) and Carney in the guise of their archetypal characters.
As a half-hour series, The Honeymooners ran for only one season, 1955-1956. It presented viewers with a comic view of working-class life. Hemmed in by circumstance, Ralph would threaten to send his wife to the moon, only to be reconciled by the end of the episode, when he would tell her, “Baby, you’re the greatest.”
Howdy Doody
The Howdy Doody Show is a happy memory for many baby boomers. It premiered as Puppet Playhouse in December 1947, but its name was quickly changed. The show was set in the imaginary town of Doodyville and blended live-action characters such as host “Buffalo Bob” Smith and Clarabell, a mischievous clown, with puppets including the title character. It was performed before a live audience of children known as the peanut gallery. Howdy, shown in the stamp art, was a boy with red hair and 48 freckles—one for each state in the Union at that time.
Each episode began with a question—“Say, kids, what time is it?”— answered by the children in the peanut gallery in unison: “It’s Howdy Doody time!” The show ran until September 1960, entertaining children and selling television sets to their parents. At the close of the final show, Clarabell surprised everyone by speaking for the first time, saying, “Goodbye, kids.” A revival was attempted in 1976, but lasted only a few months.
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
George Burns and his wife Gracie Allen were a popular comedy team in vaudeville and on radio before they brought their blend of absurdity and domesticity to television. In The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, they played versions of themselves, a show-business couple dealing with various comic complications. Allen acted the part of the dumb, zany blonde who disrupted the rational order represented by her husband, the “straight man.”
The show made its debut in 1950 and lasted for eight seasons before Gracie Allen’s retirement. It was perhaps most notable for the way it played with the contrast between “make-believe” and “reality,” with Burns moving in and out of the action to comment directly to the audience.
Lassie
More than 50 years ago, at a time when many Americans had left the countryside for cities and suburbs, Lassie made her television debut, offering viewers a nostalgic look at rural life. The show brought one of the world’s most famous dogs into millions of homes, and hearts, around the world. Lassie became the embodiment of courage, fidelity, and determination, and found a receptive audience during the postwar years.
The series debuted in 1954 and had a long run on Sunday evenings, for most of that time as the story of a boy and his dog. Toward the end of her long run in 1971, however, Lassie belonged to park rangers, performing rescues in wilderness areas and calling attention to environmental issues.
Hopalong Cassidy
Writer Clarence E. Mulford created Hopalong Cassidy as a rough-talking cowboy in a series of fictional works. Beginning in 1935, Cassidy became the clean-cut hero of a series of popular movies, where he was played by William Boyd, a leading man from the days of silent film.
Hopalong Cassidy debuted as a regularly scheduled television series in 1949. The movies were shown along with footage shot expressly for the new medium. For TV, Hoppy was given a sidekick, Red Connors (played by Edgar Buchanan); in the stamp art, Hoppy appears with his white horse, Topper. Television made the character a sensation: Hopalong appeared on the covers of national magazines and on such items as lunchboxes, roller skates, and watches.
You Bet Your Life
You Bet Your Life was a game show built around the personality of its host, comedian Groucho Marx, whose inspired clowning in vaudeville and in movies had made him a legend. The actual quiz was less the focal point than the opportunity it gave Marx to unleash his wit as he interviewed contestants. The “losers” were asked a simple question — for example, “What color is an orange?” — and given a consolation prize. If contestants said that week’s “secret word” (a common word selected in advance and revealed to the audience at the beginning of the show), they would win a small amount of cash — delivered by a toy duck lowered from the ceiling.
You Bet Your Life started on the radio, where it was a hit, and moved to television in 1950. It was one of the top ten programs for most of the decade, and went by another name, The Groucho Show, in its final, 11th season.
The Dinah Shore Show
Dinah Shore was one of the first well-known singers on television and the host of several shows over the years. She was already popular when her show had its TV debut in 1951, and she soon became even more widely known for her warm personality, evident sincerity, and natural, relaxed style.
Shore is remembered for singing her sponsor’s theme song (“See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet”) and for sending the television audience off with a farewell kiss at the end of her show (as seen in the stamp art). Her show’s high production values—the backdrops and special effects provided for Shore’s numbers were top-notch—added to its quality.
Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Kukla, Fran and Ollie started on local Chicago television in 1947, when radio personality Fran Allison joined puppeteer Burr Tillstrom every weekday afternoon to interact with Tillstrom’s puppet characters. After NBC acquired the station, Kukla, Fran and Ollie became a hit nationwide, proving popular with adults as well as children and moving to an evening time slot. Allison interacted with Tillstrom’s creations as if they were real, making the show’s imaginary world seem especially vivid. Its humor resided not in slapstick, as in typical puppet theater, but in satire and extemporaneous wit. The show was almost entirely improvised.
Allison is pictured in the stamp art with Kukla, a gentle clown, and Ollie, a mischievous dragon with one very prominent tooth. The show ran for several seasons, with a later revival.
The Phil Silvers Show
This subversive comedy made a hero of a con man with a secret heart of gold, U.S. Army Master Sergeant Ernest T. Bilko, who flourished even in the confines of the American military. Phil Silvers excelled in the role of the scheming Bilko, who easily maintained unofficial control of Fort Baxter, a fictional base in Kansas. His foil, Colonel Hall (Paul Ford), was nominally in charge, but depended, in the end, on Bilko to keep things running smoothly.
This masterfully done service comedy debuted in 1955 and became an immediate hit. A couple of years later, it premiered in Britain, where it remains popular in reruns. Filmed in New York, it was cancelled after four seasons. It is remembered for the high quality of its writing and acting. Phil Silvers is shown as Bilko in the stamp art.
The Lone Ranger
Since the debut of the radio show on Detroit station WXYZ in 1933, The Lone Ranger has captured the hearts and imaginations of generations of loyal fans. The unforgettable theme music would swell as the hero sat astride his white stallion and uttered the jaunty command, “Hi-yo, Silver, away!” With his faithful companion Tonto, his silver bullets, and his unwavering code of honor, this American icon has become a symbol of truth and justice.
The successful radio series inspired numerous comic books, two movie serials, books, an animated TV series, and a live-action TV series (1949-1957) starring Clayton Moore in the title role. The year 2008 marked the 75th anniversary of The Lone Ranger.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock, the film director known as the “Master of Suspense,” presented tales of mystery and the macabre for this anthology series, addressing the television audience with his trademark gallows humor and droll demeanor. The balding, rotund Hitchcock (shown in the stamp art) introduced each episode and then appeared again at the end to reassure viewers that evildoers had been punished.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is also remembered for its theme music—based on Charles Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette”—and for its title sequence, in which a simple caricature of Hitchcock in profile appeared on a plain screen before his silhouetted figure walked into it. The show ran from 1955 to 1965, ultimately expanding from its original half-hour time slot to a full hour.
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
Bandleader Ozzie Nelson, his wife, Harriet, and their sons, David and Ricky, symbolized the wholesome American family. They played versions of themselves on a set designed to replicate their real-life home. Ozzie (pictured with Harriet in the stamp art) wrote and directed most of the episodes and appeared as a genial, ever-present head of the household. Calm Harriet seemed to run things effortlessly and was always beautifully dressed. The show offered gentle comedy arising from everyday problems and misunderstandings as their talented sons grew up and married.
In their unidentified suburban locale, the Nelsons reflected a national shift to suburbia. Their show moved from radio to TV in 1952 and lasted until 1966.
The Tonight Show
Since its debut in 1954, The Tonight Show has become an American institution, with four main hosts to date. Each of these men brought his own signature style to the job, but the program’s basic format has been more or less intact from the beginning: comedy, music, and talk hosted by one magnetic personality. The four hosts include the pioneering sophisticate Steve Allen (pictured in the stamp art); unpredictable conversationalist Jack Paar; eventual king of late- night TV Johnny Carson; and the amiable and gifted monologist Jay Leno.
Advertising sponsors discovered a gold mine in this late-night show and its mixture of gossip and light entertainment. In addition to the expected insomniacs and night owls, regular prime-time viewers stayed up to watch, too, making The Tonight Show one of the most popular and profitable television programs of all time.
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone, a thought-provoking anthology series focused on the imaginary and the bizarre, began in a half-hour time slot in 1959 and ran for several seasons, ultimately expanding to a full hour. Its creator, a prolific young playwright named Rod Serling (pictured in the stamp art), served as the show’s narrator and wrote many episodes.
This intelligent series cautioned viewers not to be too sure of anything. The best scripts for The Twilight Zone dealt with the shadowy area of the almost-but-not-quite; the unbelievable told in terms that could be believed. Time travel was a frequent subject, and so was contact with aliens from outer space. The contest between humanity and technology was another characteristic theme.
Perry Mason
Defense attorney Perry Mason first appeared as a character in detective fiction by author Erle Stanley Gardner. Raymond Burr played Mason on the television series that ran from 1957 to 1966. The show adhered to a winning formula in which Mason and his team cleared their innocent client of murder charges and identified the real killer, who was usually present when exposed as the culprit.
The stamp art features Mason (Burr, at right) in confrontation with his customary courtroom opponent, the formidable District Attorney Hamilton Burger (William Talman). A short-lived revival featuring new cast members made its debut in 1973; Burr returned to the starring role in a subsequent series of made-for-TV movies.
The Ed Sullivan Show
During its many years on the air, the Sunday night variety show hosted by Ed Sullivan offered a generation of television viewers practically every kind of art and entertainment the culture had to offer. Before he became the host of Toast of the Town in 1948, Sullivan was a journalist and emcee of vaudeville revues. On TV, he kept the vaudeville tradition alive; his popular show was renamed The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955.
Sullivan brought a broad range of acts to his viewers, from mimes, classical musicians, and ballet dancers to comedians and performers such as Duke Ellington, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles. By the time his weekly extravaganza concluded its run in 1971, Sullivan (pictured in the stamp art) had provided Americans with “really big shows”—or, as pronounced by Sullivan, “shews”— for 23 years.
Texaco Star Theater
Like many performers from television’s early days, Milton Berle got his start on radio. After Texaco Star Theater had its premiere in June 1948, he became the new medium’s first superstar, earning the nickname “Mr. Television.” Another of Berle’s nicknames, Uncle Miltie, reflected the way his weekly presence made him seem like a member of the family.
Berle was known for his clowning, often in outlandish costume, and was credited with driving up television sales. After Texaco withdrew its sponsorship in 1953, the name of the series was changed, and the singing quartet (“Oh, we’re the men of Texaco…”) who opened each week’s show became a fond memory.
The Red Skelton Show
The Red Skelton Show was one of the first variety shows to move successfully from radio to television. It debuted in 1951 and lasted until 1971, making it one of the new medium’s longest-running shows. Skelton was a versatile comedian who played a variety of characters such as
country boy Clem Kadiddlehopper, boxer Cauliflower McPugg, Sheriff Deadeye, and Junior the “mean widdle kid,” whose phrase “I dood it!” became popular with viewers. One of his most popular characters, Freddie the Freeloader, is shown in the stamp art.
Skelton’s show typically began with a monologue, followed by a musical interlude and blackout sketches. He showcased his abilities as a mime in an unusual feature called “The Silent Spot.”
How to Order the First-Day-of-Issue Postmark
Customers have 60 days to obtain the First-Day-of-Issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at their local Post Office, at The Postal Store website at www.usps.com/shop, or by calling 800-STAMP-24. They should affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes (to themselves or others), and place them in a larger envelope addressed to:
Early TV Memories Stamp
Postmaster
North Hollywood Post Office
7035 Laurel Canyon Blvd.
North Hollywood CA 91605-9998
After applying the First-Day-of-Issue postmark, the Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark. All orders must be postmarked by October 12, 2009.
How to Order First-Day Covers
Stamp Fulfillment Services also offers first-day covers for new stamp issues and Postal Service stationery items postmarked with the official First-Day-of-Issue cancellation. Each item has an individual catalog number and is offered in the quarterly USA Philatelic catalog. Customers may request a free catalog by calling 1 800 STAMP-24 or writing to:
Information Fulfillment
Dept. 6270
U.S. Postal Service
P.O. Box 219014
Kansas City, MO 64121-9014
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