For Better or Werts : TV Worth Watching

TV WORTH BUYING: Classic series stamps

Lassie will be happy to mail your letter. So will The Lone Ranger. Even Ralph Kramden.

TV icons from 20 classic series get a U.S. Postal Service salute Tuesday, when a commemorative sheet of 44-cent stamps called Early TV Memories becomes available at post offices and online.

Here's the full list of 1950s series that'll get your mail moving:
The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
The Dinah Shore Show
Dragnet
The Ed Sullivan Show
The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show
Hopalong Cassidy
The Honeymooners
Howdy Doody
I Love Lucy
Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Lassie
The Lone Ranger
Perry Mason
The Phil Silvers Show (Sgt. Bilko)
The Red Skelton Show
Texaco Star Theater (Milton Berle)
The Tonight Show (Steve Allen)
The Twilight Zone
You Bet Your Life (Groucho Marx)

What, no Mister Peepers?

3 Comments

Eileen said:

This is a great idea from the US Postal Service. I'll buy them for my friends, all children of the 50s, and to save for posterity.

Your mention of Mr. Peepers made me laugh. Who can forget Wally Cox? But, what about Our Miss Brooks with the delightful Eve Arden, later to be "hunk" Richard Crenna, and if memory serves, Gale Gordon.

Glad you highlighted these stamps. They aren't making shows like these anymore. How many of the shows on today will be rerunning 50+ years from now ala Lucy and The Honeymooners.

My firm belief is the only reason to celebrate New Year's Eve in New York City is that at the stroke of midnight WPIX starts their Honeymooners' Marathon. Enough said?

August 12, 2009 11:47 AM

Eileen said:

This is a great idea from the US Postal Service. I'll buy them for my friends, all children of the 50s, and to save for posterity.

Glad you highlighted these stamps. They aren't making shows like these anymore. How many of the shows on today will be rerunning 50+ years from now ala Lucy and The Honeymooners.

My firm belief is the only reason to celebrate New Year's Eve in New York City is that at the stroke of midnight WPIX starts their Honeymooners' Marathon. Enough said?

August 12, 2009 11:47 AM

Sean Dougherty said:

What this says more than anything else is the debt American entertainment owes to broadcast radio.

I count 14 shows on this list whose stars made their names in radio before moving to TV, and it would be 15 if you count Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, who wrote thousands of radio scripts as well.

The best place to celebrate 50s entertainment therefore, is not the post office but the Friends of Old Time Radio Convention, which will be held October 22-25, 2009 at the Holiday Inn North in Newark, NJ, www.fotr.net.

August 14, 2009 9:16 AM

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Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

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