Summer Playhouse is a 30-minute anthology television series that aired on CBS during the summers of 1964 and 1965. It consisted of unsold television pilots.
Background and production
The practice of television executives of ordering dozens of pilots for proposed television series each year – far more than their networks could possibly broadcast as series – created a sizable body of unsold pilots that had never aired. Packaging these unsold pilots in anthology series and airing them during the summer provided television networks with a way of both providing fresh programming during the summer rerun season and recouping at least some of the expense of producing them. Summer Playhouse was one of these series.
Don Fedderson produced Summer Playhouse, and Steve Allen, Jimmy Durante, and Fred MacMurray were among its notable stars.
Broadcast history Replacing The New Phil Silvers Show, Summer Playhouse ran for 12 episodes over 12 consecutive weeks in the summer of 1964, airing on CBS from 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday evenings. It premiered on July 4, and its last episode that year aired on September 19. It returned in 1965 as a summer replacement for The Andy Griffith Show, premiering on June 28 and running on Monday evenings from 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time for 11 consecutive weeks. Its final episode was broadcast on September 6, 1965.
Episodes Season 1 (1964) SOURCES Schenectady Gazette, July 4, 1964, p. 8.Schenectady Gazette, July 11, 1964, p. 18.Schenectady Gazette, July 18, 1964, p. 18."Your Weekly TV Guide," Williamson Daily News, July 22, 1961, p. 3.Schenectady Gazette, July 25, 1964, p. 8. Schenectady Gazette, August 1, 1964, p. 18.Schenectady Gazette, September 11, 1962, p. 22.Schenectady Gazette, August 8, 1964, p. 16.Niagara Falls Gazette, August 15, 1964, p. 10.Schenectady Gazette, August 22, 1964, p. 10.Schenectady Gazette, August 29, 1964, p. 10.Niagara Falls Gazette, August 23, 1965, p. 10.
Season 2 (1965) SOURCES Schenectady Gazette, June 28, 1965, p. 22.Schenectady Gazette, July 5, 1965, p. 18.Schenectady Gazette, July 12, 1965, p. 11.Niagara Falls Gazette, July 12, 1965, p. 4.Schenectady Gazette, July 19, 1965, p. 11.Niagara Falls Gazette, July 19, 1965, p. 7.Schenectady Gazette, September 13, 1960, p. 7.Schenectady Gazette, July 26, 1965, p. 16.Schenectady Gazette, August 9, 1965, p. 8.Niagara Falls Gazette, August 16, 1965, p. 8."TV Key Previews," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 20, 1964, p. 29.Page 38 of Sep 6 1965 Issue of East Liverpool Review in East Liverpool, Ohio newspaperarchive.com
References
External links
Summer Playhouse at CVTA with partial list of episodes Summer Playhouse episode "Sally and Sam," with a postscript by Hal Kanter, on YouTube