Television
An attempt was made to adapt A Day in the Life Of Dennis Day as an NBC filmed series (Sam Berman's caricature of Dennis was used in the opening and closing titles), produced by Jerry Fairbanks for Dennis' sponsor, Colgate-Palmolive, featuring the original radio cast, but got no farther than an unaired 1949 pilot episode. In late 1950, a sample kinescope was produced by Colgate and their ad agency showcasing Dennis as host of a projected "live" comedy/variety series (The Dennis Day Show) for CBS, but that, too, went unsold. He continued to appear as a regular cast member when The Jack Benny Program became a TV series, staying with the show until it ended in 1965.
Eventually, his own TV series, The Dennis Day Show (aka The RCA Victor Show), was first telecast on NBC on February 8, 1952, and then in the 1953-1954 season. Between 1952 and 1978, he made numerous TV appearances as a singer and actor (such as NBC's The Gisele MacKenzie Show and ABC's The Bing Crosby Show and Alfred Hitchcock Presents) and voice for animation, such as the Walt Disney feature Johnny Appleseed, handling multiple characters.
During the final season of The Jack Benny Program (1964–65), Day was nearly 49 years old, although Jack was still delivering such lines as "That crazy kid drives me nuts ..."
His last televised work with Benny was in 1970, when they both appeared in a public service announcement together to promote savings and loans. This was shortly after, the whole cast and crew of The Jack Benny Show had gotten together for Jack Benny's Twentieth Anniversary Special.
In 1972, he co-starred with June Allyson and Judy Canova in the First National Tour of the Broadway musical No, No, Nanette.
In 1978, Day voiced Fred in The Stingiest Man in Town, which was Rankin-Bass' animated version of Charles Dickens's novel A Christmas Carol.
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Famous quotes containing the word television:
“We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“So why do people keep on watching? The answer, by now, should be perfectly obvious: we love television because television brings us a world in which television does not exist. In fact, deep in their hearts, this is what the spuds crave most: a rich, new, participatory life.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“They [parents] can help the children work out schedules for homework, play, and television that minimize the conflicts involved in what to do first. They can offer moral support and encouragement to persist, to try again, to struggle for understanding and mastery. And they can share a child’s pleasure in mastery and accomplishment. But they must not do the job for the children.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)