With top talent, the 90-minute episodes, covering a wide variety of genres, aired under the title every fourth Monday at 8 pm ET for three seasons, beginning October 18, 1954.

"Producers' Showcase has undoubtedly been a tremendous prestige presentation by the network with elaborate and worthy cultural productions," The New York Times published in 1957, the series' final year.

[citation needed] Director Otto Preminger was invited to produce and direct Tonight at 8.30, a trio of one-act plays by Noël Coward, for the series premiere.

Peter Pan, a recreation of the 1954 Broadway musical with all its original cast members, including Mary Martin as Peter Pan and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook, was so highly acclaimed by critics and well received by viewers, drawing the largest ratings for a single television program up to that time, that the program was restaged live with nearly the same cast in January 1956.

A 1960 NBC revival of the production, first broadcast as a Christmas season special, was videotaped in color and later released on home video.

Conceived by network head Pat Weaver and hosted by Dave Garroway, the show was introduced on Showcase on June 27, 1955.

The premiere episode, featuring entertainment from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, was the first international North American telecast in the history of the medium.

[5] Sixty-five million viewers watched the first presentation of Peter Pan,[6] garnering a 68.3 audience share that made it the highest-rated episode in the series.