You Are There (series)

You Are There
Genre	Educational
Created by	Goodman Ace
Directed by	John Frankenheimer Jack Gage Bernard Girard Sidney Lumet William D. Russell
Presented by	Walter Cronkite
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	147
Production
Producers	James D. Fonda Charles Russell
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	22–24 minutes
Original release
Release	February 1, 1953 (1953-02-01) – June 9, 1957 (1957-06-09)

You Are There is a 1947–1957 American

Created by Goodman Ace for CBS Radio, it blended history with modern technology, taking an entire network newsroom on a figurative time warp each week reporting the great events of the past. Reporters included John Charles Daly, Don Hollenbeck, and Richard C. Hottelet. The series was first heard on July 7, 1947, under the title CBS Is There. Its final broadcast was on March 19, 1950, under the title You Are There.^[2]

According to author/historian

The radio program made a transition to television in 1953, with Walter Cronkite as the regular host. Reporters included veteran radio announcers Dick Joy and Harlow Wilcox. The first telecast took place on February 1, 1953, and featured a re-enactment of the Hindenburg disaster. The final telecast took place on October 13, 1957.

Originally telecast live, most of the later episodes were produced on film. One of the episodes, for instance, features actor Pat Conway as James J. Corbett, the boxer who fought champion John L. Sullivan in 1892.

The series also featured various key events in American and world history, portrayed in dramatic recreations. Events that were covered included the

The program was seen again on

Notable guest stars included:^[citation needed]

• John Cassavetes as Plato in "The Death of Socrates"
• James Dean as Robert Ford in "The Capture of Jesse James"
• Vivi Janiss as Mrs. Gilchrist in "Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)"
• Marcus Brutus in "The Assassination of Julius Caesar" and as Nathan Hale
  in "The Fate of Nathan Hale"
• Jeanette Nolan as Sarah Bernhardt in "The Final Performance of Sarah Bernhardt"
• Felicia Montealegre Bernstein in "The Death of Rasputin" (1954)
• Kim Stanley as Cleopatra in "The Death of Cleopatra" (1953)
• Rod Steiger as Richard Burbage in "The First Command Performance of Romeo and Juliet"
• Beatrice Straight as Anne Boleyn in "The Crisis of Anne Boleyn"
• Joanne Woodward in "The Oklahoma Land Rush"

Home media

22 episodes of the 1950s version of You Are There are available on DVD from Woodhaven Entertainment. The 1970s version is currently not available on VHS or DVD. Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications has 20 episodes available for on-site viewing only. Both versions have also been made available to schools on 16mm film for educational purposes.

Some episodes of the radio and television version are available for sale commercially. CBS retains the copyrights.

In popular culture

• The 1950s edition was briefly parodied in a
  Custer's Last Stand
  .
• On one of the "Classic 39" episodes of The Honeymooners, Art Carney as Norton—hearing Jackie Gleason as Ralph say he had a plan to get wife Alice (Audrey Meadows) to give him the money to go to the Raccoon Lodge convention—launched into this soliloquy parodying You Are There's famous catchphrase: "May 3, 1953. Ralph Kramden … in search … for money … for capital … to enter his No-Cal Pizzeria … He says, 'I have a sure-fire plan of getting the money, it can't fail!' … Alice Kramden says, 'No!' … unquote … all things are as they were then, except you are there!"
• The series was parodied on The Ernie Kovacs Show as "Vas You Dere?" The cast performed a lampoon of the stabbing of Julius Caesar, presented as a carnival act.
• The series was parodied on a segment of The Victor Borge Show which featured journalist Mike Wallace interviewing Franz Liszt (played by Borge) through a "time window". Wallace opened the interview by asking "Are you there?" in a similar style to the series' opening.
• The series was parodied on The Electric Company in a sketch titled You Weren't There. "You weren't born yet, you were out of town, or you just weren't paying attention," says the narrator.
• The
  Evangelical Christian radio program Adventures in Odyssey
  used the device of a modern news room reporting on past events for their "O.T. Action News" segments.
• The series was parodied in an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. Titled "You Are There", the episode features a modern-day reporter doggedly following and interviewing various characters (believed to be real, historical figures within the premise of the TV show), both in the field and a studio setting.