House Party (radio and TV show)
| House Party | |
|---|---|
 Sam Berman's 1947 caricature of Art Linkletter | |
| Also known as | Art Linkletter's House Party The Linkletter Show |
| Genre | Variety/Talk show |
| Presented by | Art Linkletter |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 15 minutes/30 minutes |
| Production companies | John Guedel Productions (1945–1969) Screen Gems (1952–1969) |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS (1945–1969) |
| Release | January 15, 1945 – September 5, 1969 |
House Party is an American
The series was launched when producer John Guedel learned that an ad agency wanted to do a new daytime audience participation show, and he pitched a series that would star Art Linkletter. Asked to provide an outline, Guedel and Linkletter came up with a format that would give Linkletter great freedom and allow for spontaneity.[3]
Broadcast history
Radio
Sponsored by
The show returned to CBS Radio only days later, making its longest continued run from January 2, 1950 to October 13, 1967 as a 30-minute show running weekdays at various times. Sponsors included
Television
Linkletter and Guedel first spun off the format to television with the prime-time
The CBS program originated from KNXT. Sponsors were Pillsbury, Green Giant canned vegetables, Kellogg cereals, and Lever Brothers. John Guedel was the producer, Marty Hill was the director, and Jack Slattery was the announcer.[5]
Following CBS' cancellation of the daytime TV show,
A new, syndicated version of the show, called House Party with Steve Doocy, ran during 1990.[6]
Synopsis
Hosted by Linkletter, House Party featured everything from household hints to hunts for missing heirs. A humorous monologue by Linkletter could be followed by an audience participation quiz to win prizes, musical groups, informal celebrity interviews and guest speakers from assorted walks of life. One popular long running feature of the program was "Guess What's In The House", a game in which studio audience members would be given clues to the contents of a small model of a split level home placed on a center stage podium. A similar concept was later adapted for the "What's Inside The Box" segment on the game show Let's Make a Deal. Ideas for the show were devised by producer John Guedel and his father, Walter, but Linkletter never used scripts or rehearsed.
The show's best-remembered segment was "Kids Say the Darndest Things", in which Linkletter interviewed schoolchildren between the ages of five and ten. During the segment's 27-year run, Linkletter interviewed an estimated 23,000 children.[3] The popularity of the segment led to a TV series with the same title hosted by Bill Cosby on CBS from January 1998 to June 2000, and a revival since 2019.
Books
The show's popularity led to the books Kids Say the Darndest Things (
References
- ^ ISBN 0-19-507678-8
- ^ a b c d McNeil, Alex. Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present, Fourth Edition (Penguin Books, 1996), p. 58
- ^ a b Dunning, p. 334
- ^ a b c McNeil, pp. 480-481
- ^ a b "This Week -- Network Debuts, Highlights, Changes". Ross Reports on Television including The Television Index. August 31, 1952. p. 1. Retrieved April 20, 2022.
- ^ McNeil, pp. 393-394
