| Alt Name: | The Quaker Oats Show |
| Director: | Vincent J. Donehue |
| Starring: | Gabby Hayes |
| Country: | United States |
| Runtime: | 15 and 30 minutes |
| Channel: | NBC |
The Gabby Hayes Show was the name given to two early children's television series. Both series were broadcast on NBC, and both were sponsored by the Quaker Oats Company.[1] [2]
Gabby Hayes was the host of a series that featured history stories. He also introduced another program that showed scenes from old western films.[3]
In 1953, The Gabby Hayes Show was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of outstanding children's program, but lost to Time for Beany.[4]
The series, originally titled The Quaker Oats Show, debuted on October 15, 1950.[5] The series' title was changed in 1951.[2] The live half-hour show was about historical events, and host Gabby Hayes would be seen in a general store in "Quaker Canyon."[5] He would tell humorous stories for the benefit of Clifford Sales and Lee Graham, two "pleasingly natural children."[3]
The history-based stories were written by Horton Foote and Jerome Coopersmith[5] and were filmed in NBC's Studio 3A at Rockefeller Center. Each episode had a budget of $5,500, and costs were kept low by using stock sets. In 1950 the series was seen in 39 cities.[3]
Some of the earliest episodes were on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Battle of the Alamo, Buffalo Bill as a youngster, John Paul Jones, and Thanksgiving.[3] In January 1952 Ross Martin played Wyatt Earp, and the following week Betty Garde played Belle Starr.[6] A January 27, 1952 newspaper column stated that the Sunday Gabby Hayes series had been cancelled.[7]
On December 11, 1951[8] a fifteen-minute weekday series entitled The Gabby Hayes Show began on NBC, starting at 5:15 p.m. This series originally aired on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays,[1] but was later shown five days a week, from Mondays through Fridays.[9]
In the series Hayes told tales about his eccentric relatives, and then scenes from an old B western film was shown. Since it was a fifteen-minute show each film had to be spread out over several days. Hayes would tell another tall tale at the end of the episode.[10]
This weekday series ran until January 1, 1954.[8]
A young Fred Rogers worked as a floor manager on this show prior to returning to Pittsburgh to work for the first public television station WQED.[11]
After NBC's weekday series ended multiple episodes were edited into 25-minute versions[2] which presented scenes from an entire western film.[12] There were 52 of the longer episodes created.[13]
ABC television showed the half-hour version of the series on Saturdays from 5:30 to 6:00 p.m.[14] starting on May 12, 1956, and ending July 14, 1956.[8] The series was then syndicated, and aired on individual stations until at least 1959.[15] [16]
On April 25, 2006, Alpha Video released Region 0 (world-wide) DVDs of the half-hour western film version of The Gabby Hayes Show.[17]