Abbott and Costello portrayed unemployed entertainers sharing a small apartment in a rooming house in Los Angeles.

While the rooming house format was retained, Brooke, Kirk and Besser did not appear, and scripts were structured like two-reel comedies and less dependent on old burlesque routines.

The show was initially put into production in May 1951, soon after Abbott and Costello had joined the roster of rotating hosts of The Colgate Comedy Hour.

Episodes in the second season were primarily scripted by veteran writers of two-reel comedy, Clyde Bruckman (15 shows) and Jack Townley (10).

First season shows opened with a title sequence over a montage of scenes from Abbott and Costello's early Universal films.

The series did not employ a laugh track in the strictest sense; completed episodes were screened for an audience in a theater and their reactions were recorded and added to the soundtrack.

In New York City, it began airing on December 5, 1952, on WCBS-TV,[5] leading earlier reference works to erroneously presume that the show was carried nationally on the CBS network starting on that date.

Similarly, second-season episodes (1953–54) were telecast in New York on NBC's flagship station, WNBT (later WNBC-TV), but not carried on that network, either.

The only time the show was broadcast on a network was when CBS repeated first-season episodes as part of its Saturday morning schedule in the 1954–55 season.