TV Shows/Series of a decade: 1870s | 1880s | 1890s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s
Lights Out was an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. Variety gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but Lights Out did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.
Geographically Speaking was an American travel series that debuted on June 9, 1946 on NBC, and aired Sundays at 8:15 pm EST immediately following the game show Face to Face. The weekly 15-minute program was one of the first TV shows to have a regular sponsor, Bristol-Myers. The show consisted of hostess Mrs. Carveth Wells narrating her 16mm home movies of her trips with her husband to unusual and exotic places. When she ran out of home movies, the series ended in October 1947. Mrs. Wells later appeared as a contestant on Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life, on TV and radio, in February 1958.
Winner Take All, an American radio-television game show, ran from 1946-1952 on CBS and NBC. It was the first game show produced by the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman partnership. The series was originally hosted by Ward Wilson, but is best known for being the first game hosted by Bill Cullen. Although the game format was very simple, Winner Take All served as the genesis for many future game-show formats. It was the first game to use lockout devices, and the first to use returning champions.
Hour Glass is the first regularly scheduled variety show shown on American network television. It ran on NBC from May 9, 1946 until March 1947.
The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports is an American network radio program and later television program that included broadcasts of a variety of sports, although it is primarily remembered by many for its focus on boxing.
Campus Hoopla is an American game show that ran on the NBC Television network from December 27, 1946 until its cancellation in 1947. The show was centered around a group of teenagers in a soda shop.
Let's Rhumba was an American dance instruction program that aired on NBC from November 1946 to January 1947. Each 15 minute episode was hosted by D'Avalos. No episodes are known to survive as NBC had no archival policy at the time.
Paging You was a BBC comedy series which debuted on 3 November 1946 and was subsequently cancelled in 1948.
Face to Face is an early American television game show running 15 minutes. It began broadcasting on the NBC Television network on June 9, 1946 and ran until January 26, 1947 on Sundays at 8:00 pm EST, immediately before Geographically Speaking.
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