[3] The cast included John Sharpe as Tom Sawyer, Jimmy Boyd as Huckleberry Finn, Bennye Gatteys as Becky Thatcher, Rose Bampton as Aunt Polly, Matt Mattox as Injun Joe and Clarence Cooper as Jim the Narrator.

[6] Luther was commissioned to follow up the show with a musical adaptation of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, also starring Boyd, which was broadcast on The U.S. Steel Hour November 22, 1957.

As Becky goes inside, she casually tosses a flower to Tom, who sits, lovestruck, beneath her window, until a housemaid dumps a basin of water on him.

Free to do as he pleases at last, Tom swims, plays, takes up smoking a corncob pipe like Huck and enjoys the leisurely life for three days.

An inaccurate preview in TV Guide listed "You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks," a humorous solo for Aunt Polly, and "My Love Has Gone Away," a ballad for Becky, in the program of songs to be performed, but neither of them are included in the original broadcast.

Promotional stills issued by CBS also depict a scene in which Becky catches Tom and Huck smoking their pipes and chastises them, an incident not included in the original teleplay.

[9] Variety raved, calling it "a captivating musical stanza" and noting that "(m)uch of the story was told in choreographic pantomime routines that were imaginatively staged against suggestive backgrounds designed by Thomas Hart Benton."

Sharpe "played Tom with a convincing boyishness and was excellent in a couple of vocal duets with Bennye Gattnes, as Becky, on 'What Do You Kiss For' and 'Please Make Up.'"

"[11] Henry Mitchell of The Commercial Appeal hailed the show for treating Mark Twain's text "with unusual respect, approaching it neither as a sacred cow nor as a mere peg for some new tunes.

"[12] A stage adaptation of the show, with the script rewritten and expanded by Richard H. Berger, Peter Gurney and Edward Reveaux, had its world premiere at Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Mo.