Top Tv Shows Of 1960

1. Tv Shows In The 1950s And 1960s

Anyone who was watching television in the 1960s probably remembers it as the Golden (or at least the Silver) Age of Game Shows. Quite a few classic shows - What's My Line? To Tell the Truth, I've Got a Secret, Password, Concentration, Jeopardy!, The Match Game - either premiered at this time or continued their long runs. Game shows were on TV both during the day and at prime time. It seemed that someone was always playing for something. But for every memorable hit, there were other game shows which didn't do nearly as well, but still made an impression, at least on me. What follows are ten little-known television game shows of the 60's, each of which I watched at least once, along with some personal recollections.

Thirty four episodes of this syndicated show were produced in 1960 and 1961; it aired on US TV in 1961. This was an Australian western with American Chris Cobb attempting to establish the. See full summary ». These two shows harkened in the birth of popular, mainstream doctor-as-hero shows. Up to the early 1960s, TV ratings were dominated by westerns, like Wagon. Game shows were on TV both during the day and at prime time. It seemed that someone was always playing for something. But for every memorable hit, there were other game shows which didn't do nearly as well, but still made an impression, at least on me.

This game show was a little spooky. It ran on NBC from 1962 to 1964 and I remember it as being one of the first game shows I watched in color. We didn't have a color TV at that time, so I watched it at the neighbors' house. There was a team of celebrity panelists - Dennis James was one - who were shown pictures of five other celebrities. The spooky part was that one of the five celebrities was seated in a soundproof booth up and behind them, shown only in shadow.

Based on how they answered fill-in-the-blank questions, the celebrities on the floor had to guess which celebrity it was. The only other thing I remember about this show was that Donna Douglas of The Beverly Hillbillies was one of the five photographs in one episode (I don't remember whether she was sitting in the booth or not), and that the show was hosted by Bill Leyden, who looked a little like my pediatrician. Obviously the show didn't make much of an impression on me. The title says it all. Contestant-couples on this game show competed for a house. That's right. With a roof, four walls, a kitchen, bathrooms, everything.

Not only that, but they got to choose the style they wanted. Or, if they preferred, they could get a mobile home.

Of course they had to answer a bunch of quiz questions in order to win. And - here was the catch - they could only play for one room at a time.

But if they won several rooms in a row (seven in the daytime version and four at night) the house would be theirs. But even if they didn't win all the rooms, they could still walk away with a bunch of great-looking furniture and some nifty carpeting by Broyhill.

The show ran on ABC from 1968 to 1970. In the last episode host Mike Darrow came on and said that a few couples actually did win a house. I actually saw one couple do it. The show aired right before Christmas and Darrow told them, 'Merry Christmas! You just won your dream house.' We all should be so lucky.

The object of this NBC show, hosted by Art James, was to take words or phrases written on cards and put them together to form a longer well-known phrase. The fractured part stemmed from the fact that the winning phrases weren't immediately obvious. They relied heavily on puns which often turned out to be real groaners.

One phrase, I recall, was built something like this: BUTTER DIE GOERING YACHT HANK Say that over and over again to your partner fast enough and one of you would realize the phrase they were looking for was 'Put a tiger in your tank,' which was a slogan for Esso at the time. The bonus round was played similarly, although there you had to put words together to get the names of celebrities which were equally cringeworthy. Apparently a lot of other people thought so, too. The show only ran from September to December 1965 and aired from Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center (30 Rock), later famous as the home of Saturday Night Live.

Some people might think that The Jackie Gleason Show was the only program originating from Florida in the pre-Disney 60's, but this one did, too. It even came with a catchy Calypso-style theme song. Treasure Isle was actually part of the Colonnades Beach Hotel ('on sunny Palm Beach Shores'). Teams were comprised of two-person couples, and in one round they had to assemble a large jigsaw puzzle with a rebus on it, like what you would see in Concentration, and solve it.

It seems to me they had to go in boats out onto the lagoon to gather these pieces up from buoys, but I could be wrong about this. The winning team got to go over to Treasure Isle, on the other side of the lagoon and dig up little treasure chests containing prizes. I don't remember what the prizes were, but I remember some of the chests were literally buried in the sand.

(Hey, it was Florida.) The show was hosted by John Bartholomew Tucker and aired on ABC from late 1967 to 1968. Remember that famous Barbara Walters interview question, 'If you were a tree, what sort of tree would you be?' Imagine that as a TV game show, and you've got this.

You're Putting Me On had three two-person celebrity teams, headed by permanent cast members Bill Cullen, Larry Blyden and Peggy Cass. In each round a list of four famous names was announced, and one celebrity on each team was given one of the names.

The celebrity then had to 'put on' that person by answering questions the way they thought the other famous person would. Bill Cullen, for example, once got Gypsy Rose Lee and answered the question 'If you were in the circus, what act would you be?' By saying he would be 'The bareback rider.'

Cute concept, which could probably be resurrected as a party game. Rather than putting the public on, though, the show mostly put them off.

It only lasted from June until December 1969. Anyone who liked the hidden object puzzles in Highlights for Children (which I did) would do well at this game. Presented on a huge game board was an intricate drawing within which contestants were to find a hidden object, such as a car. After answering a question correctly, contestants got a chance to take a pointer like the one an elementary school teacher would use and trace the outline of the object. Every time they didn't trace the object's outline exactly right, part of the drawing was removed to give them a better chance in the next round. The show was hosted by Don Morrow and aired from 1961 to 1962.

No, it's not what you think. Trust me, there was no kissing involved. This NBC show, created by Merv Griffin and hosted once again by Don Morrow, also aired from Studio 8H in New York. Somewhat voyeuristically, the show touted itself as an opportunity to read other people's mail. To complete the imagery, the three contestants were perched behind stamp windows while Don hosted from behind a mailbox. Playing the snoop, however, wasn't quite what the show was about. Instead, a letter supposedly written by a famous person appeared on a large board.

As a voice read the letter aloud, the contestants, based on clues buried deeper and deeper within the text, had to try to determine who had written the letter before the voice read the bottom line. The earlier a contestant guessed correctly, the more points he got. The postmark at the top - showing a date and a place - provided the first clue. As the letter went on, other facts about the person would be revealed - perhaps a veiled allusion to their occupation or to some important event in their life.

The best part of the show, however, was that often the entire letter had been set up in such a way as to provide clue in the last line that would give the whole thing away. One particularly elegant example I remember was postmarked from Russia in the late 1800's and the writer went on and on talking about trying to give skiing lessons to a cow. The cow turned out to be quite reluctant to perform that activity and by the end of the letter the author had just about had enough. In his last line he wailed: 'How do you make a shy cow ski?' The author of this fictional letter, of course, was Tschaikovsky, the great Russian composer. For sheer ingenuity, Let's Play Post Office was one of the cleverest games out there. I was sorry to see it go.

It became a dead letter in 1966 after a nine-month run. This was a very short-lived game show, airing on Saturday nights on CBS during the summer of 1966. The object of the game was to identify famous people based solely on photographs which were cut up into seven horizontal strips. As each strip was revealed, it would show one-seventh of the person's face, but the strips had been randomized, so that if you asked to see the top strip instead of getting the top of the head, you might get the nose or the mouth, or whatever and had to make your identification based on that. If your identification was correct, they would then show the strips assembled in the proper order.

One of the faces, I think, was that of comedian Marty Allen, easily identified by his wild hair. Long before Pictionary or Win, Lose, or Draw, television gave us this show, which was basically Pictionary in reverse. One team picked out an object, which was then shown to a player on the other team.

That player then had to tell his teammate how to draw the object without saying what the object was. If the player could figure out what he was drawing, the team scored points.

The show aired on CBS on Tuesday nights in the summer of 1963 and was hosted by Jerry Van Dyke. It originated from CBS's Studio 52 in Manhattan - later to become the fabled disco Studio 54. This was perhaps one of the least-remembered game shows of all.

Originating from Evanston, Illinois, of all places, and airing on Sunday afternoons, the object of the game was simple. Celebrity players were shown sets of four pictures in a 2x2 grid and had to determine which two of the four pictures belonged together. The only matching pair that I remember was Ed Sullivan and a shoe - a 'really big shoe.'

I believe one of the contestants for that episode was fabled gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. Take Two's run was not very long.

It only lasted from May until August in 1963. For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: Show Details Necessary HubPages Device ID This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. Login This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. Google Recaptcha This is used to prevent bots and spam. Akismet This is used to detect comment spam. HubPages Google Analytics This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized.

HubPages Traffic Pixel This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.

Amazon Web Services This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. Cloudflare This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos.

Google Hosted Libraries Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. Features Google Custom Search This is feature allows you to search the site. Google Maps Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. Google Charts This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. Google AdSense Host API This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature.

Google YouTube Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. Vimeo Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. Paypal This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal.

No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. Facebook Login You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. Maven This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. Marketing Google AdSense This is an ad network.

Google DoubleClick Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. Index Exchange This is an ad network. Sovrn This is an ad network. Facebook Ads This is an ad network.

Tv Shows In The 1950s And 1960s

Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace This is an ad network. AppNexus This is an ad network. Openx This is an ad network.

Rubicon Project This is an ad network. TripleLift This is an ad network. Say Media We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites.

Remarketing Pixels We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. Conversion Tracking Pixels We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. Statistics Author Google Analytics This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. Comscore ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers.

Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. Amazon Tracking Pixel Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products.