The Original Amateur Hour

Major Edward Bowes, the originator of the program and its master of ceremonies, left the show in 1945 and died the following year.

(From the late 1950s forward, the wheel was gone: it was symbolized by flute arpeggios as Ted Mack invoked the traditional phrase.)

Various acts, sometimes singers or other musicians, quite often vaudeville fare such as jugglers, tap dancers, baton twirlers, and the like, would perform, with the audience being asked to vote for their favorites by postcard or telephone.

As the show gained markets outside New York, Mack would give the address ("Box 191 Radio City Station") where viewers could send their postcards; he did this after every act.

Despite the program's title, it was generally only a half-hour show, the only exception to this rule being from March 1956 to June 1957 on ABC, when it was expanded to an hour.

Other future celebrities discovered on the show include Ann-Margret (in 1958), Jose Feliciano (in 1962), Irene Cara (in 1967) and Tanya Tucker (in 1969).

Future comedian Robert Klein appeared as part of a doo-wop singing group, "The Teen Tones."

Bowes was one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's closest friends and was personally responsible for having the swimming pool constructed at the White House when FDR was in office.

He has donated the radio recordings and television films and tapes to the Library of Congress, and has compiled a DVD collection of highlights from the series.

The series is one of only six shows—the others were The Arthur Murray Party; Down You Go; The Ernie Kovacs Show; Pantomime Quiz; and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet—to appear on all four TV networks during the Golden Age of Television.

The network announced the show's cancellation on November 2, as Geritol dropped its sponsorship of the series, one of the last vestiges of the Golden Age where single-series sponsors were more common.

[4] In 1992 Albert Fisher revived the program (as The New Original Amateur Hour) on cable television network The Family Channel (now Freeform) hosted by weatherman Willard Scott.