Television
The radio show also suffered from the advent of television. A televised version of the show, produced and syndicated by NBC (after the pilot episode appeared twice on the network in late 1954), also starring Waterman, premiered in 1955 but lasted only 39 episodes. During that year, both the 15-minute radio show and the television show were being produced simultaneously. The radio series was taped on days when the TV production was inactive. Because of the grueling schedule, quality suffered. Only a few examples of the quarter-hour shows have survived. By the time the radio show entered its final season, The Great Gildersleeve's remaining radio audience heard only reruns of previous episodes.
The television series is considered now to be something of an insult to the Great Gildersleeve legacy. Gildersleeve was sketched as less lovable, more pompous and a more overt womanizer, an insult amplified when Waterman himself said the key to the television version's failure was its director not having known a thing about the radio classic. Harold Peary shared his thoughts on the show, by stating that the problem was, that "Waterman was a very tall man" and "Gildersleeve was not a tall man, he was a little man, who thought he was a tall man, that was the character", nonetheless, he felt, that "Willard did a very good job on the radio show", but was "miscast on the television version". Peary later appeared in the 1959 TV version of Fibber McGee and Molly as Mayor LaTrivia. Fibber McGee and Molly also failed to migrate to television in the 1950s without radio stars Jim and Marion Jordan in the TV cast. Actress Barbara Stuart landed her first television acting role on The Great Gildersleeve in the role of Gildersleeve's secretary, Bessie.
Child actor Michael Winkelman, later of The Real McCoys, made his first television appearance on The Great Gildersleeve in the role of 9-year-old Bruce Fuller.
Read more about this topic: The Great Gildersleeve
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion—or a new form of Christianity—based on faith in financial miracles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.”
—New Yorker (April 23, 1990)
“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
“Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy.... In other countries, the business of laughing is left to the viewers. Here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)