Melody Street

Melody Street
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	DuMont
Original run	September 23, 1953 – February 4, 1954

Melody Street was an early American television series, hosted by Elliot Lawrence, which aired on the now defunct DuMont Television Network. The program aired from September 23, 1953 to February 4, 1954. Each episode was 30 minutes long. One guest star was guitarist Tony Mottola.

Criticism

Melody Street was hampered by a small budget, even by 1950s standards. Later-day critics, such as Castleman and Podrazik (1982), have cited Melody Street, among other DuMont series, as one of the reasons fewer and fewer viewers tuned in to the ailing DuMont Network. They stated Melody Street was, like several other DuMont programs during the 1953-1954 season, "doomed from the start by third-rate scripts and cheap production" and pointed out that the program "required the performers to lip sync other people's records."^[1] The series did not last long, and the network itself began crumbling shortly thereafter.

Episode status

Two complete episodes of the show survive at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, along with an excerpt from another episode.

References

1. ^ Castleman, Harry; Walter J. Podrazik (1982). Watching TV: Four Decades of American Television. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 87. ISBN 0-07-010269-4. 

Bibliography

• David Weinstein, The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004) ISBN 1-59213-245-6
• Alex McNeil, Total Television, Fourth edition (New York: Penguin Books, 1980) ISBN 0-14-024916-8
• Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, Third edition (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964) ISBN 0-345-31864-1

See also

• List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network
• List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts

External links

• Melody Street at IMDB
• DuMont historical website