Warner Brothers Presents
| Warner Bros. Presents | |
|---|---|
Arleen Whelan and Lydia Reid in "Shadow on the Sand", 1955
|
|
| Genre |
Wheel series Anthology Documentary |
| Presented by | Gig Young |
| Theme music composer | Opening fanfare by Ray Heindorf main theme, "Dominque's Theme" from The Fountainhead, by Max Steiner |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 36 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | William T. Orr |
| Producer(s) | Roy Huggins |
| Camera setup | Single-camera |
| Running time | 45–48 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Warner Bros. Television |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Picture format | Black-and-white |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | September 20, 1955 – May 22, 1956 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by |
Conflict Cheyenne |
Warner Bros. Presents is the umbrella title for three series telecast as part of the 1955-56 season on ABC: Cheyenne, a new Western series that originated on Presents, and two based on classic Warner Bros. films, Casablanca and Kings Row.
While neither a critical or popular success, this wheel series is an historically important program. Perhaps most significantly, it is the first television program of any kind made by Warner Brothers. It was also the original home of Cheyenne, the first hour-long television Western series and the first wholly original television series produced by a major Hollywood studio. It also allowed ABC, then a junior player in American television, to secure its first advertising contracts with commercial giants General Electric and tobacco company Liggett & Myers.
At first, Warner Bros., like most other Hollywood studios, had seen television as a threat that it wished would disappear. Jack L. Warner, stung by the failure of Milton Berle's expensive film Always Leave Them Laughing tried to dismiss it as a mere passing fad, but by 1955 it was apparent that this was hardly the case. ABC, who did not have the contracts with stars and their hit former radio shows on the CBS and NBC networks approached Warner Bros. about acquiring the rights to broadcast some of its relatively recent theatrical films, which were then not available for television broadcast. Instead, Warner saw a different potential for his company, inspired by ABC's Disneyland. He believed that perhaps television could be used to cross-market upcoming Warner films. Thus he created a television department and promoted his son-in-law, William T. Orr, to the new position of Head of Television Production. The initial goal was to provide new short fiction which they could wrap around segments hosted by actor Gig Young giving information about upcoming Warners'film projects. Orr's first effort in that capacity was this program.
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Wikipedia