"Vacation Playhouse" (1963) TV series 1963-1967

Creator:

Richard Michaels
(more)

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | unknown

Release Date:

22 July 1963 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Comedy | Crime | Mystery

Plot:

Summer replacement show featuring pilot programs that had not been sold.

Plot Keywords:

Anthology

Cast

Soupy Sales	...	Fireman Smokey / ... (2 episodes, 1966)
Wallace Ford	...	Lester Tinney / ... (2 episodes, 1963-1964)
Marvin Kaplan	...	Marv / ... (2 episodes, 1963-1964)
Cherylene Lee	...	Kim Chi / ... (2 episodes, 1963-1964)
Reta Shaw	...	Aunt Josie / ... (2 episodes, 1963-1964)
Dwayne Hickman	...	Joe Hannon / ... (2 episodes, 1964-1967)
Ned Glass	...	Professor / ... (2 episodes, 1965-1966)
Ann Jillian	...	Bev Ferguson / ... (2 episodes, 1965-1966)
Pat Crowley	...	Elizabeth Williams / ... (2 episodes, 1966-1967)
Cliff Norton	...	Phil / ... (2 episodes, 1966)
Dave Willock	...	Carl Ryan / ... (2 episodes, 1966)
Jerry Van Dyke	...	George / ... (2 episodes, 1967)

Series Directed by
Don Taylor		(3 episodes, 1964-1967)
Jack Donohue		(2 episodes, 1963-1966)
Richard Crenna		(1 episode, 1965)

Series Writing credits
Bill Manhoff		(2 episodes, 1963-1967)
Michael Fessier		(2 episodes, 1964-1965)
Hal Kanter		(1 episode, 1965)
Richard Michaels		(1 episode, 1965)

Series Produced by
Hal Kanter	....	producer (3 episodes, 1965)
Arthur Julian	....	producer (2 episodes, 1963-1966)
Warren Lewis	....	executive producer (2 episodes, 1964)
Jack Donohue	....	producer (2 episodes, 1966)
William Dozier	....	executive producer (2 episodes, 1967)
Stanley Shpetner	....	producer (2 episodes, 1967)
Edward H. Feldman	....	producer (unknown episodes)
Jim McGinn	....	producer (unknown episodes)

Series Original Music by
Jerry Fielding		(2 episodes, 1964-1966)

Series Cinematography by
Henry Cronjager Jr.		(1 episode, 1963)
Philip H. Lathrop		(1 episode, 1963)
Robert Pittack		(1 episode, 1963)
Keith C. Smith		(1 episode, 1963)
Glen MacWilliams		(1 episode, 1964)

Series Art Direction by
Rolland M. Brooks		(1 episode, 1963)

Series Set Decoration by
Ross Dowd		(1 episode, 1963)

Series Makeup Department
Edwin Butterworth	....	makeup artist (1 episode, 1963)
Gene Hibbs	....	makeup artist (1 episode, 1963)
Peggy Shannon	....	hair stylist (1 episode, 1963)

Series Production Management
Argyle Nelson	....	production supervisor (1 episode, 1963)
James Paisley	....	production manager (1 episode, 1963)

Series Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ted Schilz	....	assistant director (1 episode, 1963)

Series Art Department
Kenneth L. Westcott	....	property master (1 episode, 1963)

Series Sound Department
Jack A. Finlay	....	sound editor (1 episode, 1963)

Series Stunts
Jesse Wayne	....	stunt coordinator / stunt double (1 episode, 1967)

Series Costume and Wardrobe Department
Bob Christenson	....	costumer (1 episode, 1963)

Series Editorial Department
Bill Heath	....	editorial supervisor (1 episode, 1963)
Robert L. Swanson	....	film editor (1 episode, 1963)

Production Companies

• Bing Crosby Productions
• Desilu Studios
• Four Star Productions
• Universal TV

Distributors

• Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) (1963) (USA) (TV)

Runtime:

30 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Desilu Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company:

Bing Crosby Productions

Movie Connections:

Featured in TV Turkeys: The World's Worst Television Shows (1987) (V)

Not Great, But Better Than Double and Triple Reruns!

In these days TV series episodes are sometimes rerun within months, sometimes weeks, of their original broadcast and sometimes two or three times in the first year, but there was a time back in the 1960s when the three networks tried to avoid showing reruns at all! Then series produced as many as 39 new episodes a year (compared to maybe 20 to 22 today) so you didn't need to rerun episodes at all until the summer months and often the networks would try to avoid this by running a replacement program instead until the fall. Sometimes this was a cheap original variety show, sometimes they would run a British TV show they had bought (this is how both "The Avengers" and "the Prisoner" first appeared on US TV).

This show was a clever idea of salvaging something from what would ordinarily have been a dead loss. Every year, a number of ideas for new TV shows would get to what was called the "pilot" stage, that is, they would film a sample episode so the powers that be could make a final decision on whether to order a full season of shows. If the pilot was successful, the show would go on the air in the fall, if not that would be the end of it. Some TV exec got the bright idea of putting the failed pilots on as a summer replacement series. Since they were failures, they were of course not of the highest quality, but they undoubtedly felt (and rightly) that it was better to show them than forcing the viewers to watch something again they had already seen. And sometimes it was actually interesting to see familiar stars playing entirely different roles from what you were used to. I particularly remember a pilot Dwayne Hickman made after "Dobie Gillis" went off the air in which he played an elementary school teacher.