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Fireside Theatre (also known as Jane Wyman Presents) is an American anthology drama series that ran on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Productions were low-budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned by critics, it remained in the top ten most popular shows for most of its run. It predated the other major pioneer of filmed TV in America, I Love Lucy, by two years. Jacques Tourneur has directed in 1956 three episodes, A Hero Return, Kirsti, and The Mirror.

Fireside Theatre
Also known as	Jane Wyman Presents The Jane Wyman Show
Genre	Anthology drama
Written by	Rod Serling Blake Edwards Ray Bradbury Gene Roddenberry Cornell Woolrich Aaron Spelling
Directed by	Fred Coe Blake Edwards Gordon Duff Robert Florey John Ford Sidney Lanfield Ozzie Nelson Robert Stevenson Jacques Tourneur
Presented by	Frank Wisbar (1952–53) Gene Raymond (1953–55) Jane Wyman (1955–58)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	7
No. of episodes	268 (list of episodes)
Production
Producers	Jack Bernhard John Houseman John Reinhardt Frank Wisbar
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	48 mins
Production companies	General Television Enterprises Hal Roach Studios Lewman Productions/Revue Studios (1955–58)
Release
Original network	NBC
Picture format	Black-and-white
Audio format	Monaural
Original release	April 5, 1949 (1949-04-05) – May 22, 1958 (1958-05-22)[citation needed]

Overview

Fireside Theatre was created by Frank Wisbar, who also wrote and directed many episodes.[1] From 1952 to 1958, the program was presented by a host. This role was first filled by Wisbar (1952–1953), then by Gene Raymond (1953–1955), and finally by the person most associated with the series in the public mind, Jane Wyman (1955–1958). When episodes of this program were rerun on ABC during the summer of 1963, it was under the title Jane Wyman Presents; during the period first-run episodes were hosted by Wyman it was sometimes known as The Jane Wyman Show.

One of Fireside Theatre's most notable offerings was a 1951 condensed version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, featuring Ralph Richardson as Ebenezer Scrooge for the only time on American television.^{[citation needed]} He later recreated the role on a spoken word Caedmon Records LP album, with Paul Scofield as narrator. It has since been released on CD.[2]

The Doubleday Book Club also ran a playscripts club called The Fireside Theatre.^{[citation needed]}

Episodes

Season	Episodes		Originally aired
			First aired	Last aired
1	12		April 5, 1949 (1949-04-05)	June 28, 1949 (1949-06-28)
2	41		September 6, 1949 (1949-09-06)	June 27, 1950 (1950-06-27)
3	46		August 29, 1950 (1950-08-29)	August 21, 1951 (1951-08-21)
4	44		August 28, 1951 (1951-08-28)	June 24, 1952 (1952-06-24)
5	39		September 30, 1952 (1952-09-30)	June 30, 1953 (1953-06-30)
6	44		September 1, 1953 (1953-09-01)	June 29, 1954 (1954-06-29)
7	43		September 7, 1954 (1954-09-07)	June 28, 1955 (1955-06-28)

Cast

As an anthology series, Fireside Theatre had no regular cast, just a series of guest stars:

Reception

Critical response

Billboard magazine praised an episode titled "The Lottery", saying that the cast "all turned in taut, exciting performances to make Lottery a real winner".[3] Unlike most episodes of the series, this episode aired live.

In 1954, Billboard voted it fourth-best filmed network drama series, ahead of the more fondly remembered General Electric Theater; however, Billboard's list excluded "mystery" shows (which was a separate list topped by Dragnet).[4]

Ratings

This section does not cite any sources. (December 2020)

Fireside Theatre became a hit for NBC, always in the Top 30 shows at the end of each TV season, until the 1956–1957 season, when its ratings slumped. After this, it never again regained its top spot.

Seasonal rankings (based on average total viewers per episode) of Fireside Theatre on NBC. (Note: In the United States, each network television season starts in September and ends in late May, which coincides with the completion of May sweeps.)

Season	TV season	Ranking	Viewers (in millions)
2nd	1950–1951	#2	5.365
3rd	1951–1952	#7	6.594
4th	1952–1953	#10	8.282
5th	1953–1954	#9	9.464
6th	1954–1955	#20	9.547
7th	1955–1956	#24	10.121

References

• Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earle, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows

Further reading

• Lafferty, William. "'No Attempt at Artiness, Profundity, or Significance': 'Fireside Theater' and the Rise of Filmed Television Programming." Cinema Journal (1987): 23–46 online.

External links

• Fireside Theatre at CVTA with episode list
• Fireside Theatre at IMDb
• Fireside Theatre at the Museum of Broadcast Communications

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