Max Liebman, the former producer of Your Show of Shows, was engaged by NBC in 1954 to helm television’s first colour “spectacular”, which aired on Sunday 12 September that year. It turned out to be a disaster,
For 90 minutes, live from New York, Max Liebman presented Satins and Spurs in four acts and thirteen scenes, in colour, at a cost of $200,000.
Star Betty Hutton jumped, twirled, sang, and yelled the part of a rodeo performer – in New York City to ride in the Madison Square Garden Rodeo – who fell for a photographer from Life magazine (played by Kevin McCarthy).
Critics described the production as loud and annoying, somewhat sophomoric, and certainly not spectacular.
Though Satins and Spurs had been labelled an original musical comedy, critics also noticed a strong resemblance to Annie Get Your Gun, a Broadway musical comedy that had also starred Betty Hutton.
Worst of all, the ten-city Trendex ratings service (which emphasised speed by focusing on fewer cities than the national Nielsen ratings) indicated that Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town (in black and white) had devastated the first spectacular, registering twice the audience.
Betty Hutton said she was quitting television. Nervous sponsors began muttering about throwing away their money and sent their lawyers searching for ways to break contracts.
Liebman’s second show, Lady in the Dark, a Broadway adaptation starring Ann Southern, which aired a fortnight later on 25 September 1954, barely beat its CBS competition – at a price of $500,00.
In spite of all the advance publicity, the nation’s viewers had not joyfully risen to embrace the spectaculars (over 90% of them were still viewing in black and white anyway), the competition had not been destroyed, and sales of colour television sets were as abysmal as ever.
Cindy Smathers
Betty Hutton Tony Barton
Kevin McCarthy Tex
Guy Raymond Chanteuse
Genevieve Ballerina
Mary Ellen Moylan Dick
Josh Wheeler Ursula
Neva Patterson
Star Betty Hutton jumped, twirled, sang, and yelled the part of a rodeo performer – in New York City to ride in the Madison Square Garden Rodeo – who fell for a photographer from Life magazine (played by Kevin McCarthy).
