[5] The series is the direct descendant of two old-time radio dramatic anthologies sponsored previously by Hallmark: Radio Reader's Digest, adapting stories from the popular magazine (though the magazine never sponsored the show); and, its successor, Hallmark Playhouse, which premiered on CBS in 1948.

[8] It was the first time a major corporation developed a television project specifically as a means of promoting its products to the viewing public.

Early productions included some of the classical works of Shakespeare: Hamlet, Richard II, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest.

Biographical subjects were very eclectic, ranging from Florence Nightingale to Father Flanagan to Joan of Arc.

Popular Broadway plays such as Harvey, Dial M for Murder, and Kiss Me, Kate were made available to a mass audience, most of them with casts that had not appeared in the film versions released to theatres.

Actors such as Richard Burton, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Maurice Evans, Katharine Cornell, Julie Harris, Laurence Olivier and Peter Ustinov all made what were then extremely rare television appearances in these plays.

Evans and actress Judith Anderson repeated their famous stage performances of 'Macbeth' on the Hallmark Hall of Fame on two separate occasions, each time with a different supporting cast.

In 1955, Hallmark Hall of Fame switched its format to a special series seen only four to eight times a year around greeting card holidays and in 90-minute or 120-minute length.

The source material were plays and novels from major authors and were produced with stage actors and actresses.

[8] Hamlet, Macbeth and the other Shakespeare plays presented on Hallmark Hall of Fame were cut (sometimes drastically) to fit the time limits of a standard film or of the Hallmark Hall of Fame itself, which during the 1950s, '60s and '70s never ran longer than two hours and frequently even less.

As a result of Foote, Cone, and Belding Advertising executive and producer Duane C. Bogie's influence, Hallmark Hall of Fame began to offer original material, such as Aunt Mary (1979) and Thursday's Child (1983), although its lineup still primarily consisted of expensive-looking Masterpiece Theatre-style adaptations of American and European literary classics, such as John Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent (1983), Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae (1984), and Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1980), Oliver Twist (1982), and A Christmas Carol (1984).

[citation needed] Richard Welsh Company was retained in 1982 to work on developing HoF projects.

[13] On November 27, 2011, Hallmark Hall of Fame returned to ABC with Have a Little Faith, which debuted to very low ratings for the night.

[18] On the cable channel, four original movies at most would air as a part of the Hall of Fame with multiple encores.