Television Specials

A listing of programs broadcast from 1939 through 1993. Enries listed alphabetically contain casts, credits (music, producer, writer, and director), formats, dates, networks, and running times.

This is a complete revision of the author's 1993 McFarland book Television Specials that not only updates entries contained within that edition, but adds numerous programs not previously covered, including beauty pageants, parades, awards programs, Broadway and opera adaptations, musicals produced especially for television, holiday specials (e.g., Christmas and New Year’s Eve), the early 1936–1947 experimental specials, honors specials. In short, this is a reference work to 5,336 programs—the most complete source for television specials ever published.

While Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball are most closely associated with the classic situation comedy, I Love Lucy, the production company they founded in the 1950s, Desilu, made several other television series – some memorable like The Lucy Show, The Untouchables, Mission:Impossible, and Star Trek, and many almost forgotten such as Willy and Grand Jury. This book focuses on another aspect of Desilu – the all but forgotten TV pilots and unproduced specials contemplated by Desi and Lucy. Chronicled in this work are projects like Desilu’s version of Dallas – not a soap opera but a Western, an anthology series hosted by the artist Salvador Dali, Gene Roddenberry’s cop dramas, Code 100 and Police Story, parodies of The Untouchables and The Flintstones, Desi’s unproduced sitcom comeback titled Chairman of the Board, and a 1961 unproduced TV special that would have starred Lucy along with Vivian Vance and William Frawley and perhaps Desi Arnaz in a cameo role. These and many other such projects are chronicled for the first time in The Forgotten Desi and Lucy TV Projects: The Desilu Series and Specials that Might Have Been. Richard Irvin is the author of several books about television history including Four Star Television Productions: A History of the Business, Series, and Pilots of the Iconic Television Production Company, The Early Shows: A Reference Guide to Network and Syndicated Prime-Time Television Series from 1944 to 1949, and Spinning Laughter: Profiles of 111 Proposed Comedy Spin-offs and Sequels that Never Became a Series – all from Bear Manor Media.

The early years of television relied in part on successful narratives of another medium, as studios adapted radio programs like Boston Blackie and Defense Attorney to the small screen. Many shows were adapted more than once, like the radio program Blondie, which inspired six television adaptations and 28 theatrical films. These are but a few of the 1,164 programs covered in this volume. Each program entry contains a detailed story line, years of broadcast, performer and character casts and principal production credits where possible. Two appendices ("Almost a Transition" and "Television to Radio") and a performer's index conclude the book. This first-of-its-kind encyclopedia covers many little-known programs that have rarely been discussed in print (e.g., Real George, based on Me and Janie; Volume One, based on Quiet, Please; and Galaxy, based on X Minus One). Covered programs include The Great Gildersleeve, Howdy Doody, My Friend Irma, My Little Margie, Space Patrol and Vic and Sade.

The Encyclopedia of Television, second edtion is the first major reference work to provide description, history, analysis, and information on more than 1100 subjects related to television in its international context. For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit the Encyclo pedia of Television, 2nd edition website.

Covering the years 1945–2018, this alphabetical listing provides details about 2,923 unaired television series pilots, including those that never went into production, and those that became series but with a different cast, such as The Green Hornet, The Middle and Superman. Rarities include proposed shows starring Bela Lugosi, Doris Day, Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Orson Welles, Claudette Colbert and Mae West, along with such casting curiosities as Mona Freeman, not Gale Storm, as Margie in My Little Margie, and John Larkin as Perry Mason long before Raymond Burr played the role.