Sunday, March 2, 2014

DINAH SHORE GIVES CHEVROLET A LIFT ACROSS THE U.S.A - THE CHEVY SHOW STARRING DINAH SHORE - NBC-TV - CIRCA 1/13/57




At NBC-TV in the late 1950's and early 1960's, nothing could have been finer than Sunday night with Dinah ...The vibrant,vivacious Dinah Shore.

If Lucille Ball was CBS's First Lady of Comedy, Dinah Shore was NBC's Queen of Musical Variety.

The Chevrolet Motorcar Division of  General Motors put the honey-voiced hostess in the driver's seat ,when it placed THE CHEVY SHOW on the NBC Prime time Schedule in 1956.

It proved to be a video showcase for Ms. Shore's manifold talents and a video showroom for Chevy's, Eisenhower-era, chrome carriages that came from Detroit, complete with Body by Fisher.

She was not the first woman to carry a weekly comedy/music series on network television.

Kate Smith and Martha Raye were there first.


Chevrolet provided her custom built theme song...SEE THE U.S.A IN YOUR CHEVROLET...but it was her inspired choice to seal every show with a  big, smooch of a kiss that became a trademark for her myriad viewers and a target for a multitude of satirists.

Director Bob Banner used THE CHEVY SHOW to experiment with some high octane video effects that were ahead of their time. The show was one of the network's first, weekly series to be produced in  RCA COMPATIBLE COLOR and ,subsequently, in LIVING COLOR ON NBC. Banner employed , early, COLOR CHROMA-KEY techniques and , often, he involved the crew and the studio technology in an attempt to enliven and enrich the staging of musical numbers and comedy sketches.

Here , from the SPIFFYKITCHEN YOU TUBE SITE, is the first block of the January 13, 1957 episode of  THE DINAH SHORE CHEVY SHOW on NBC-TV. Check out the opening number and what may be the the most unusual use of a fork-lift as a prop in early television!!!

The show was produced LIVE FROM NEW YORK and yes, the announcer is the incomparable Don Pardo.

Enjoy!!!!:)




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