Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre

Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
Genre	Anthology
Presented by	Bob Hope
Theme music composer	Johnny Williams
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	107
Production
Executive producer(s)	Roy Huggins
Producer(s)	Richard Berg Jack Laird Richard Lewis Frank P. Rosenberg
Running time	60 mins.
Production company(s)	Hovue Productions, in association with Universal Television
Distributor	MCA Television
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	October 4, 1963 – May 17, 1967

Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre is an anthology television series, sponsored by Chrysler Corporation, which ran on NBC from 1963 through 1967. The show was hosted by Bob Hope, but it had a variety of formats, including musical, dramatic, and comedy.

Overview

The program included such events as a showing of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, starring Jason Robards (from the novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn); The Seven Little Foys, starring Mickey Rooney, Eddie Foy Jr. and the Osmond Brothers; and Think Pretty, a musical starring Fred Astaire and Barrie Chase.

Generally, each episode ran for an hour, although for some 'special presentations', NBC expanded the broadcast time to 90 minutes.

Hope was paid $25,000 per week for those episodes which he merely introduced, and $500,000 for those in which he starred in.

Bob Hope's performances consisted of his typical joke- and celebrity-filled blackout sketches. These were usually called Chrysler Presents a Bob Hope Special. Every season, Hope traveled to Vietnam for Christmas, to entertain the troops.

Celebrities who appeared in dramatic episodes included Phyllis Avery, Ida Lupino, Sam Peckinpah, Peter Falk, Hugh O'Brian, Shelley Winters, Cliff Robertson, John Cassavetes, Jack Lord, William Shatner, Angie Dickinson, Suzanne Pleshette, Robert Stack, Dina Merrill, Darren McGavin, Broderick Crawford and Stuart Whitman.

Several episodes were rerun from 1968 through 1972 under several different titles: NBC Adventure Theatre (1971-1972), NBC Action Playhouse (1971-1972), NBC Comedy Playhouse (1968-1970) and NBC Comedy Theater (1971-1972). The Hope introductions were replaced by other hosts, such as Peter Marshall (who hosted "Action"), Art Fleming ("Adventure" in 1971), Ed McMahon ("Adventure" in 1972), Monty Hall ("Comedy Playhouse" in 1968) and Jack Kelly ("Comedy Playhouse" in 1970, and "Comedy Theater"). In syndication, the series was presented as Universal Star Time and Theatre of the Stars, minus Hope's opening and closing segments.

For her performance in the episode "Two is the Number" (1964), Shelley Winters won an Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a miniseries or movie.

External links

• Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre at the Internet Movie Database
• Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre at TV.com