| The NBC Comedy Hour | |
|---|---|
 Jonathan Winters, a host of The NBC Comedy Hour (1956) | |
| Genre | Television comedy |
| Directed by | Herbert Kenwith[1] |
| Presented by | Leo Durocher; Gale Storm; various |
| Starring | Jonathan Winters, Gale Storm, Pat Sheehan,[2] Stubby Kaye, Shecky Greene, Stan Freberg, and Hy Averback |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1[citation needed] |
| No. of episodes | 18[citation needed] |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company | NBC[1] |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC |
| Release | January 8[citation needed] – June 10, 1956[citation needed] |
| Related | |
The NBC Comedy Hour was a comedy show that ran on NBC in the first half of 1956, intended to be a replacement for The Colgate Comedy Hour.[citation needed]
Leo Durocher hosted the show in January, and Gale Storm from February until April 8; from April 22 on, hosts were called in per episode. Comic Jonathan Winters was a more frequent face than any of the hosts; he appeared in 17 of the 18 episodes. Stan Freberg was also a guest 6 times. Topical comedian Mort Sahl's network debut was on the Comedy Hour. A group of acting chimpanzees named The Marquis Chimps performed parodies of movies in 3 episodes.[citation needed]
The show was a critical and ratings failure:[citation needed] Variety stated "A more poorly conceived, routined and paced outing would be difficult to imagine."[3] It was cancelled in June, having already been pre-empted 4 times in 5 months.[citation needed][3] It was succeeded by The Steve Allen Show, whose reputation became a marked contrast to that of The NBC Comedy Hour.[citation needed] The Paley Center for Media has several episodes of the series in their archives.
