Ryan, TV wasn't much in the US until post WWII. My dad bought us a set in '49. I remember a number of variety shows (Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar, Jack Benny) and "Tom Corbet, Space Cadet" as a daily(??) serial that I watched. There were only 2 or 3 channels in Chicago - now the national networks CBS, NBC, and ABC - and they didn't run a full day of programming. Everything was local except for a few hours in the evening.
The oldest serious drama that I remember was the Halmark Hall of Fame, where the Halmark greeting card company sponsored 1+ hour live productions of serious theater. Quite a feat! The oldest weekly drama that I can think of was "Dragnet". It was a popular police drama about 2 Los Angeles detectives solving crimes, brought in total from radio to TV. I think the radio scripts were very good and the writers made a quick transition to TV. I even believe the star of the show, Jack Webb, made the transition from radio to TV. Later, the westen "Gunsmoke" was another popular radio drama that was re-cast on TV with great success. I believe it became the longest running series in US TV history. "I love Lucy" is in there somewhere, but is more of an early situation comedy series. Hope this helps, Bob S. Ryan Lee ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) writes: > Anyway, down to business- I know it's not nearly the right place to > ask, but scouring the net and I can't seem to find the > answer to what I initially thought would be an easy peasy question. > Would anyone happen to know the year when America started producing > popular drama on TV (and maybe a title)? Guessing pre-1950s.. > I'm not very optimistic, but thought it's worth a shot..
