Warner Bros. Presents is the
umbrella title for three
television series which were aired as part of the
1955-56 season on
ABC:
Cheyenne, a concept that originated on
Presents, and two others based on classic Warner Bros.
films,
Casablanca and
Kings Row.
While neither a critical or popular success,
[Warner Brothers Presents at The Museum of Broadcast Communications] this
wheel series is an historically important program. Perhaps most significantly, it is the first television program of any kind made by
Warner Brothers. It was also the original home of
Cheyenne, the first hour-long American
western, and the first wholly original television series produced by a major
Hollywood studio. It also allowed ABC, then a junior player in American television, to secure its first advertising contracts with commercial giants,
General Electric and
Liggett & Myers.
Historical Background
At first, Warner Bros., like most other Hollywood studios, had seen television as a threat that it wished would disappear. Jack Warner tried to dismiss it as a mere passing fad, but by 1955 it was apparent that this was hardly the case. ABC had approached Warner Bros. about acquiring the rights to broadcast some of its relatively recent theatrical films, which were then not available for television broadcast. Instead, Warner saw a different potential for his company, inspired by ABC's Disneyland. He believed that perhaps television could be used to cross-market upcoming Warner films. Thus he created a television department and promoted his son-in-law, William T. Orr, to the new position of Head of Television Production. The initial goal was to provide new short fiction which they could wrap around information about upcoming film projects.[ Orr's first effort in that capacity was this program.]
Program evolution
Originally, the hour-long episodes consisted of only about 45 minutes of dramatic programming, followed by a 10 to 15 minute "Behind the Camera" section. During this portion of the program, viewers saw James Dean doing rope tricks on the set of Giant, Billy Wilder and Jimmy Stewart explaining the special effects of The Spirit of St. Louis, and other Warner Brothers notables. While completing Giant, and to promote Rebel Without a Cause, Dean filmed a short interview with actor Gig Young for an episode of Warner Bros. Presents[Youtube video] Dean's sudden death prompted the studio to re-film the section, and the piece was never aired.
The problem for ABC's newly acquired advertisers was that it amounted to a 15-minute commercial for Warner Brothers' products. They foolishly had ABC exert pressure to abolish the segment before the season concluded.
The concept changed in other ways as the season progressed. The dramatic portions of the program were attacked from the beginning as inept.[ All three series were overhauled, but only Cheyenne emerged as successful. In fact, it would've been rated in the top 20 if its ratings were calculated independently.][ Despite the relative success of Cheyenne, ABC and Warner continued to have problems injecting Kings Row and Casablanca with sufficient drama. These efforts failed. Kings Row, starring Jack Kelly and Robert Horton in the roles played by Robert Cummings and Ronald Reagan in the original film, was axed within just a few weeks of its first broadcast, while Casablanca, starring Kirk Douglas lookalike Charles McGraw in the Bogart part, survived almost to the end of the season. However, when they both went, the "umbrella" of Warner Brothers Presents effectively closed, pushing Cheyenne out on its own. Presents was renamed Conflict by ABC and relaunched as an anthology series (it was around this time that the films which inspired the Kings Row and Casablanca segments were sold, along with the rest of WB's pre-1950][You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (2008), p. 255.][WB retained a pair of features from 1949 that they merely distributed, and all short subjects released on or after September 1, 1948; in addition to all cartoons released in August 1948.] theatrical library, to Associated Artists Productions).
Aftermath
Conflict finished up the remainder of the 1955 season and continued on into 1956. But it, too, ultimately failed. By 1957, the only element remaining from the 1955 season was Cheyenne. Nevertheless, Presents may be regarded as a sort of midwife for an entirely new era of television—one in which big Hollywood studios actively made original, episodic television. It also began a long-running partnership between Warner Brothers and ABC. Over the course of the following decade, the two companies would provide American viewers with a string of popular programs. The relationship would pull ABC from the bottom of the ratings and help it avoid the fate the other struggling 1950s broadcaster, the DuMont Network.
