Hans Christian Andersen (film) - First Telecast

First Telecast

The film was first telecast by ABC-TV in 1966. In an odd reversal of the situation for the early CBS telecasts of The Wizard of Oz, this time a host was needed because the film was too long for a two-hour time slot, rather than too short. It runs exactly two hours without commercials, and ABC did not wish to cut it, so they presented it as a family special with Victor Borge as host, and padded the telecast out to two-and-a-half hours. Borge was selected especially because, like the real Hans Christian Andersen, he was also Danish.