Four Star Revue
Some of the other stars to pass through during the second season were Bob Hope, Spike Jones and Helen Grayco, and Paul Winchell.
[citation needed] Before Four Star Revue and his most memorable role on Make Room for Daddy, which premiered in 1953, Thomas had already established himself as an entertainer.
Thomas had started his career as a performer on local Detroit, Michigan, station WMBC program The Happy Hour Club in 1932.
[6] Jimmy Durante, known to many as The Schnoz and the Great Schnozzola, established himself as a comedian and talented musician long before Revue and before the beginning of television itself.
His routine of breaking into a song to deliver a joke, with band or orchestra chord punctuation after each line, became a Durante trademark.
[7] He was also known for his recording of the Ben Ryan-composed[8] Inka Dinka Doo in 1933 which, after its debut in the 1934 movie Palooka, was Durante's "theme song" for the rest of his life.
In 1950, it wasn't yet possible to broadcast coast-to-coast, so Four Star Revue, like most live shows, originated from New York (with viewers in other time zones watching a delayed kinescope).
The others at first declined to follow suit because of the theater's huge, 3700-seat capacity, fearing that the audience wouldn't have a good view of the stage and might not laugh at the appropriate moments.
[9] Television set manufacturer Motorola opened the season as sole sponsor of the show, but cut back after 13 episodes.
In January, they began sharing sponsorship with Pet Evaporated Milk and Norge refrigerators, each paying a third of the cost.
Four Star Revue cost $50,000 a week to produce, compared to only $17,500 for its CBS competition, Arthur Godfrey and His Friends.
Owing to the decision to increase the number of guest hosts, when the show's second season premiered on September 8, 1951, it was renamed All Star Revue.
Third, NBC had found with The Colgate Comedy Hour that scheduling conflicts, illnesses, and the simple fact that some of its stars simply weren't well suited to the revue format meant that it was important to have a backup plan.
To hedge its bets, the network brought in additional hosts, who could be called upon to fill in for or replace the regulars if needed.
Holding on to its original four stars, Revue, in its second season, added the likes of Olsen and Johnson and Martha Raye in four episodes each, Spike Jones and Helen Grayco in two, and Victor Borge, Bob Hope, the Ritz Brothers, and Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney, each doing one apiece.
The move had some success; with only Ken Murray and Paul Whiteman as competition, Revue finished the season with a 36.3 rating (tied with Dragnet for 20th place).
NBC managed to hold on to Pet Milk and persuaded Kellogg's and Snow Crop orange juice to sign on.
[12] While starting the season at the Center Theatre in New York City, construction of the transcontinental cable line allowed the show to move to the west coast in November.
Originating from New York's Center Theatre, there were no regular hosts, though Dave Garroway and Jan Murray repeated, as did a few of the guests.
Sponsors were Pet Evaporated Milk, Kellogg's Cereals (Shredded Wheat and All-Bran), and the United States Army Reserve.
To fill the open slots, NBC decided on hiring a number of showbiz veterans, including Maurice Chevalier and Harold Lloyd, before eventually settling on actors George Jessel and Tallulah Bankhead as regular hosts.
Other hosts that season were Dennis Day, Rosalind Russell, the Ritz Brothers, Walter O'Keefe, Perry Como, and Ben Blue.
But Kellogg's and Pet Milk remained, and eventually, the network managed to lure Del Monte to sign on as well.
