Paul Dixon Show
| The Paul Dixon Show | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Variety/Comedy/Talk/Music |
| Created by | John Murphy Paul Dixon |
| Directed by | Gordon Waltz |
| Presented by |
Paul Dixon Bonnie Lou (co-host) Colleen Sharp (co-host) |
| Theme music composer | Bruce Brownfield |
| Country of origin | USA |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | John Murphy |
| Location(s) | WLWT Studios, Crosley Square, Cincinnati, Ohio |
| Running time | 30 minutes (later expanded to 90) |
| Release | |
| Original release | September 29, 1952 (DuMont) - 1955 (WLWT) – April 8, 1955 (DuMont) - January 1975 (WLWT) |
The Paul Dixon Show was an American television variety program originating in Cincinnati on WLWT Television beginning in 1955 and ending in January 1975, one month after Dixon's death in December 1974. The show began as a 30-minute series expanding to 90 minutes in the 1960s, but the other stations along the Avco Network in nearby Dayton, Columbus and Indianapolis only ran 60 minutes of the show. Pre-recorded episodes were sold to other markets throughout the Midwest.
The show was originally co-hosted by Bonnie Lou and Marian Spelman, who was later replaced with Colleen Sharp. The house band, originally called The Bel-Aires, was led by pianist Bruce Brownfield.
Dixon originally hosted a show on rival station WCPO-TV with Dottie Mack and Wanda Lewis called Paul Dixon's Song Shop. The show consisted of Dixon, Mack, and Lewis pantomiming to popular songs of the day, and also featured in-house commercials. Fresh from a career in radio news, Dixon quickly endeared himself to countless viewers for years to come. Song Shop was picked up for a season by ABC in 1951 and by the DuMont Television Network in 1954. For the DuMont show he moved to New York City, but as DuMont began to collapse in 1955, a homesick Dixon returned to Cincinnati a year later and, in a fateful move, hired on at WLWT.
While Dixon was at WCPO, Al Lewis (rapidly gaining fame in his own right as Uncle Al) was in charge of set design and artwork on Dixon's show. After Dixon moved to WLWT, The Paul Dixon Show and The Uncle Al Show would run opposite of each other on weekday mornings.
By 1955, Dixon was hired on at WLWT to host a daytime show originally geared to housewives, but ultimately appealed to people in all walks of life. Over time Dixon himself would refer to the show as "this dumb show". Every morning the show would start with Paul, using a pair of binoculars (one of what would become many of Dixon’s trademarks), to examine what came to be called “Kneesville”, which consisted of ladies sitting in the front row, all wearing either short skirts or “hot pants”. He would then award the best looking knees by either putting a garter on the lady's leg, or attaching a "knee tickler" to the hem of her skirt.
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