It was shown on approximately a monthly basis during its run (1954-1958), and was designed to contrast with the heavy dramatic content of the program with which it shared its timeslot, Climax!

Famous entertainers of the era who appeared multiple times on Shower of Stars included Jack Benny, Bob Crosby, Betty Grable, Van Johnson, Shirley MacLaine, Fredric March, Frankie Laine, Ethel Merman, Basil Rathbone, Red Skelton, Mario Lanza, Ed Wynn and Liberace.

March and Rathbone starred as Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley, respectively, in a 1954 musical adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, with songs by Bernard Herrmann and Maxwell Anderson.

[2] (Rathbone would again play Scrooge in a 1958 non-musical British half-hour television version of the story, with Fredric March as narrator.)

The extant episodes of Shower of Stars have survived only in black-and-white kinescopes of the original color broadcasts, which have been lost.