Saturday, July 23, 2022

What Might've Been: The Richard Boone Show (1963)

Ah, the elegance of a community theatre. The hometown has two of them with the Theatre Institute, based out of Russell Sage College, and the Troy Foundry Theatre, which rents more unlikely venues, such as the former Trojan Hotel, for productions.

In 1963, game show legends Mark Goodson & Bill Todman, looking for a non-game show hit in primetime, decided to visit this concept in an anthology format. Unfortunately, The Richard Boone Show lasted just one season, despite a star studded repertory company that included Robert Blake, Lloyd Bochner, Harry Morgan, Bethel Leslie, Guy Stockwell, and Boone himself. Boone, fresh off Have Gun...Will Travel, was more than up to the task, as was the company, but the viewers appeared to be disinterested, likely because of whatever was on the other channels.

Edit, 2/8/24: Had to change the video, and this is the only clip left:


Boone & Morgan would team up again 10 years later in Hec Ramsey for NBC & Universal, and that lasted two seasons. 

No rating.
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2 comments:

  1. Mike DoranOctober 12, 2023

    Belatedly:
    The Producer of this series (what would nowadays be called the "showrunner") was Buck Houghton, who left The Twilight Zone to take the job.
    TZ had left the CBS schedule momentarily, freeing up Houghton; when it returned in January, various other hands took over, which devotees of the Zone blame for that show's subsequent decline.

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  2. hobbyfanAugust 31, 2024

    Oh, really? TIL.

    ReplyDelete