Television in the United States

Table of Contents

Television in the United States, the body of television programming created and broadcast in the United States. American TV programs, like American popular culture in general in the 20th and early 21st centuries, have spread far beyond the boundaries of the United States and have had a pervasive influence on global popular culture.

Introduction

TelevisionAPAlthough television was first regarded by many as “radio with pictures,” public reaction to the arrival of TV was strikingly different from that afforded the advent of radio. Radio in its early days was perceived as a technological wonder rather than a medium of cultural significance. The public quickly adjusted to radio broadcasting and either enjoyed its many programs or turned them off. Television, however, prompted a tendency to criticize and evaluate rather than a simple on-off response.

One aspect of early television that can never be recaptured is the combined sense of astonishment and glamour that greeted the medium during its infancy. At the midpoint of the 20th century, the public was properly agog about being able to see and hear actual events that were happening across town or hundreds of miles away. Relatively few people had sets in their homes, but popular fascination with TV was so pronounced that crowds would gather on the sidewalks in front of stores that displayed a working television set or two. The same thing happened in the typical tavern, where a set behind the bar virtually guaranteed a full house. Sports events that might attract a crowd of 30,000 or 40,000 suddenly, with the addition of TV cameras, had audiences numbering in the millions. By the end of television’s first decade, it was widely believed to have greater influence on American culture than parents, schools, churches, and government—institutions that had been until then the dominant influences on popular conduct. All were superseded by this one cultural juggernaut.

The 1950s was a time of remarkable achievement in television, but this was not the case for the entire medium. American viewers old enough to remember TV in the ’50s may fondly recall the shows of Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and Lucille Ball, but such high-quality programs were the exception; most of television during its formative years could be aptly described, as it was by one Broadway playwright, as “amateurs playing at home movies.” The underlying problem was not a shortage of talented writers, producers, and performers; there were plenty, but they were already busily involved on the Broadway stage and in vaudeville, radio, and motion pictures. Consequently, television drew chiefly on a talent pool of individuals who had not achieved success in the more popular media and on the young and inexperienced who were years from reaching their potential. Nevertheless, the new medium ultimately proved so fascinating a technical novelty that in the early stages of its development the quality of its content seemed almost not to matter.

Fortunately, the dearth of talent was short-lived. Although it would take at least another decade before areas such as news and sports coverage approached their potential, more than enough excellence in the categories of comedy and drama emerged in the 1950s to deserve the attention of discriminating viewers. They are the most fondly remembered of the Golden Age genres for both emotional and intellectual reasons. Live TV drama was, in essence, the legitimate theatre’s contribution to the new medium; such shows were regarded as “prestige” events and were afforded respect accordingly. The comedies of the era are remembered for the same reason that comedy itself endures: human suffering and the ever-elusive pursuit of happiness render laughter a necessary palliative, and people therefore have a particular fondness for those who amuse them.

Steve Allen

The Golden Age: 1948–59

Getting started

Until the fall of 1948, regularly scheduled programming on the four networks—the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS; later CBS Corporation), the National Broadcasting Co. (NBC), and the DuMont Television Network, which folded in 1955—was scarce. On some evenings, a network might not offer any programs at all, and it was rare for any network to broadcast a full complement of shows during the entire period that became known as prime time (8–11 pm, Eastern Standard Time). Sales of television sets were low, so, even if programs had been available, their potential audience was limited. To encourage sales, daytime sports broadcasts were scheduled on weekends in an effort to lure heads of households to purchase sets they saw demonstrated in local appliance stores and taverns—the venues where most TV viewing in America took place before 1948.

Berle, MiltonEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.Although a television set cost about $400—a substantial sum at the time—TV was soon “catching on like a case of high-toned scarlet fever,” according to a March 1948 edition of Newsweek magazine. By autumn of that year, most of the evening schedules on all four networks had been filled, and sets began appearing in more and more living rooms, a phenomenon many credited to comedian Milton Berle. Berle was the star of TV’s first hit show, The Texaco Star Theatre (NBC, 1948–53), a comedy-variety show that quickly became the most popular program at that point in television’s very short history. When the series debuted, fewer than 2 percent of American households had a television set; when Berle left the air in 1956 (after starring in his subsequent NBC series The Buick-Berle Show [1953–55] and The Milton Berle Show [1955–56]), TV was in 70 percent of the country’s homes, and Berle had acquired the nickname “Mr. Television.”

Burns, George; Allen, GracieBettmann/CorbisTelevision was still in its experimental stage in 1948, and radio remained the number one broadcast medium in terms of profits, audience size, and respectability. Most of the big stars of radio—Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and the team of George Burns and Gracie Allen, for example—were at first reluctant to risk their substantial careers on an upstart medium like television. Berle, on the other hand, had not had much success on the radio and had little to lose by trying his luck with TV. The reluctant stars would, of course, soon follow his lead.

Early genres

As more television sets began to be sold, a question arose: what sort of programming could fill the networks’ airtime? Because television, like motion pictures, was characterized by moving images and synchronized sound, one natural style to emulate was that of Hollywood films. But movies were expensive, time-consuming productions that required multiple sets and locations. Not yet turning a profit with their TV divisions, the broadcast networks (still dominated by their radio components) could not afford to make little movies for nightly broadcast. Furthermore, until the mid-1950s, Hollywood studios wanted little to do with this threatening new medium. Radio provided another possible programming model. Many early TV shows were in fact based on radio programs, some of which were even simulcast for years on both media. In many cases, however, images that could be implied with sound on radio were impossible to produce cheaply for cameras. Early television broadcasters, therefore, searched for events that could be shot easily and inexpensively. Because videotape did not come into widespread use until the1960s, very early programmers relied on live transmissions of musical performances, sporting events, sermons, and even educational lectures to fill their limited schedules.

Variety shows

After a period of experimentation, the immediacy of live television led programmers to turn to the theatre, especially vaudeville. Before the advent of radio and sound movies, vaudeville had been the most popular of the performing arts in the United States. Traveling shows circulated through cities and towns, providing live entertainment consisting of an emcee and a variety of acts, including musicians, comics, dancers, jugglers, and animals. Many former vaudevillians had become the stars of radio variety shows, and the vaudeville format promised to be even more amenable to television. Vaudeville-inspired variety shows could be shot live with a minimum of inexpensive sets, and there was still a significant pool of vaudeville-trained performers eager to work again.

Davis, Sammy, Jr.CBS Photo Archive/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesBy the 1949–50 season, the three highest-rated television programs were variety shows: The Texaco Star Theatre (NBC, 1948–53), Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town (CBS, 1948–71; renamed The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955), and Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts (CBS, 1948–58). Within a few years, entertainers such as Jackie Gleason, Dinah Shore, Perry Como, Red Skelton, and George Gobel would headline their own popular variety series. Common elements to most such shows included an emcee, a live audience, a curtain, and a steady stream of guests ranging from recording stars to comedians to classical musicians.

The variety format allowed for a wide range of styles. In contrast to the raucous pie-in-the-face antics of shows such as The Texaco Star Theatre, for example, was Your Show of Shows (NBC, 1950–54), an urbane comedy-variety program produced by Broadway legend Max Liebman and starring an ensemble of versatile character actor-comics that included Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, and Howard Morris. A variety of acts punctuated this 90-minute program, including excerpts from operas and ballets, but it is most remembered for its superbly written and acted comedy sketches. Many of the cast members went on to star in another variety show, Caesar’s Hour (NBC, 1954–57), which included among its writing staff future film directors Woody Allen and Mel Brooks as well as playwright Neil Simon.

Anthology series

In addition to vaudeville, the traditional stage play was also a natural genre for early television adaptation. Most televised plays took the form of “anthology dramas,” which were weekly series that presented original and adapted plays under a single umbrella title. Tending to be more cerebral than the comedy-variety shows, these programs also had a very prominent place in network schedules throughout the 1950s. The anthology dramas are remembered fondly by critics and cognoscenti who value the live theatre over contemporary television offerings; they are also the shows most often referred to in discussions of the “Golden Age” of television. Indeed, it was during this period that prime-time network television offered series with lofty-sounding titles such as The Pulitzer Prize Playhouse (ABC, 1950–52). Dramatic adaptations of classic plays and literature were commonplace: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, for example, was staged by network television many times during the period between 1948 and 1960, as were the plays of William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, and George Bernard Shaw.

Some acclaimed original dramas were also written and produced for weekly anthology series. Young writers such as Gore Vidal, Paddy Chayefsky, and Rod Serling provided several highly regarded teleplays for the network series, many of which are best remembered, however, through their motion-picture remakes. For example, Marty (1955), a movie that won Academy Awards for best picture, best actor, best director, and best screenplay, was based on a 1953 episode of The Goodyear TV Playhouse (NBC, 1951–60). This episode, written by Chayefsky, is often cited as perhaps the finest single program of the Golden Age. Other well-regarded anthology series of the time included Kraft Television Theatre (NBC/ABC, 1947–58), Studio One (CBS, 1948–58), U.S. Steel Hour (ABC/CBS, 1953–63), and Playhouse 90 (CBS, 1956–61).

Developing genres

Lone Ranger: still with Moore and Silverheels from the “Lone Ranger” television series, 1951APAlthough there was a great deal of such fine programming during this period, it should be remembered that it was not the norm: much of what was on television was of average quality at best, and some of it was bad by nearly any standard. Furthermore, the Golden Age was not all live theatrical variety shows and anthology dramas. The prototypes of successful but less-acclaimed genres, most borrowed from radio, began showing up on the air almost from the start. Early filmed westerns such as Hopalong Cassidy (NBC, 1949–51; syndicated, 1952–54) and The Lone Ranger (ABC, 1949–57), crime shows such as Martin Kane, Private Eye (NBC, 1949–54) and Man Against Crime (CBS/DuMont/NBC, 1949–56), and game shows such as Stop the Music (ABC, 1949–56) and Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life (NBC, 1950–61) were all represented in the top 25 highest-rated shows of the 1950–51 season.

Sitcoms

Soon to emerge, however, was what would become the staple genre of American television: the situation comedy, or “sitcom.” The sitcom was a 30-minute format featuring a continuing cast of characters that appeared in the same setting week after week. Audience laughter (either live or by way of an added “laugh track”) usually featured prominently in these shows, most of which were built around families. The situation comedy had been an enormously popular program type on radio, but it had a comparatively slow start on TV. Some of the most popular early sitcoms included Mama (CBS, 1949–57), The Aldrich Family (NBC, 1949–53), The Goldbergs (CBS/NBC/DuMont, 1949–56), Amos ’n’ Andy (CBS, 1951–53), and The Life of Riley (NBC, 1949–50 and 1953–58). (It is noteworthy that these last three shows featured—if not always respectfully—Jewish, African American, and lower-income characters, respectively. These groups would see little representation in the sitcom again until the 1970s.)

“Honeymooners, The”CBS Photo Archive/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesThe variety show itself often showed evolutionary tendencies toward the sitcom. Some of the recurring sketches on Your Show of Shows, such as “The Hickenloopers,” which featured Caesar and Coca as bickering spouses, were really little domestic sitcoms lodged into a variety show. The Honeymooners (CBS, 1955–56), one of the most beloved sitcoms in TV history, began in 1951 as a sketch within Cavalcade of Stars (DuMont, 1949–52), and it then became a recurring segment of The Jackie Gleason Show (CBS, 1952–55; 1957–59; and 1964–70). The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (CBS, 1950–58) had one foot planted firmly in both the variety and sitcom genres. Like a variety show, it had a curtain, direct addresses to the audience, and guest stars. Like a sitcom, the principal set was a living room, the plotlines were standard-issue situation comedy, and it did not include jugglers, ballerinas, and other variety acts.

Ball, LucillePhotofestIn October 1951 the debut of the sitcom I Love Lucy (CBS, 1951–57), starring the husband-wife team of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, was the beginning of a revolution in American television. The show established new standards for TV programming: it was shot on film rather than broadcast live; it was produced in Hollywood rather than New York; and it followed the style of the episodic series rather than that of the anthology drama or the variety show. The extraordinary popularity of the show guaranteed that these new standards would be imitated by others. I Love Lucy was the most-watched series on television for four of its six seasons on the air, and it never fell below third place in the annual Nielsen ratings. If Milton Berle’s The Texaco Star Theatre had been TV’s first big hit, I Love Lucy was the first bona fide blockbuster.

The freeze

Although most programming at the time came from the networks, it had to be broadcast from a local affiliate. Overlapping signals among some nearby stations and a peak period in the interference-creating sunspot cycle caused near chaos in some areas of the country in the earliest days of television. In September 1948 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under its chairman Wayne Coy, elected to institute a freeze on the licensing of new stations in order to regroup and investigate the problem of station allocation and other regulatory issues. The freeze was supposed to last a few months, but it was not lifted until April 1952.

During the freeze large cities such as New York City and Los Angeles could accommodate the growing interest in and appetite for television with no problem, since these locales already had several stations in full operation. Many other cities around the country, however, had only one station, and some cities, both large and small, had none at all. When the freeze was finally lifted in 1952, the steadily building desire for television from those who had not yet been able to receive it was satisfied by the swift construction of new stations. Sometime during the 1953–54 season, the percentage of U.S. households with television sets passed the 50 percent mark for the first time. Television was truly becoming a mass medium, and its programming was starting to reflect it.

News and politics

The lifting of the freeze and the popularity of shows such as I Love Lucy helped establish television as the dominant form of American entertainment. In addition, the presidential election campaign of 1952 suggested that TV might also become the dominant format of political discourse. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953 was the first to be carried by coast-to-coast live television, and the 1952 presidential campaign had been the first to be battled out via the idiom of the television commercial.

The political commercial

Some optimists in the early 1950s saw television as a potentially powerful force in achieving the Jeffersonian ideal of an informed electorate. The medium held the possibility of educating the entire voting population on the candidates’ stance on the issues of the day. Citizens who might never have the chance to listen to a whistle-stop speech or have their hands shaken by a presidential candidate now had the technology to see and hear those candidates in the comfort of their own homes. But the fast-paced, entertainment-oriented, commercially sponsored nature of broadcasting was already too entrenched to allow political candidates to turn the medium into a forum for civics lessons every time an election rolled around. Political-advertising consultants quickly decided that complex issues were going to be difficult to communicate on a medium already known as a source of entertainment.

Eisenhower’s 1952 campaign commercials set a tone and style that still prevails today. The candidate was packaged and sold on television in the same style that other products were being advertised. The most memorable commercial of that election season featured a group of elephants and donkeys, animated by the Disney studios, singing and dancing to a tune written by Irving Berlin, “I Like Ike.” The advertisement contained virtually no information, but it created a mood that fit perfectly with the style of television and, it seemed, with the mood of the public. Eisenhower won the election handily against Democrat Adlai Stevenson, who would significantly intensify his own TV campaign four years later when he ran against Eisenhower for a second time.

Nixon’s “Checkers” speech

Nixon, Richard: “Checkers” speechStock footage courtesy The WPA Film LibraryTelevision’s political power proved itself in other ways in 1952. After vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon was accused of having a secret trust fund for his campaign, his presence on the Republican ticket became a serious threat to Eisenhower’s chances of victory. Nixon took his case to the American people in a nationally televised speech, for which his party bought time in the slot following the popular The Texaco Star Theatre. The choice of time slot and the speech itself exhibited a stunning level of acumen regarding the power and workings of television. Nixon brought his wife onto the stage to remind the audience that he was an upstanding family man and then neatly disposed of the campaign-fund issue. As the speech was winding down, Nixon confessed to yet another “crime” (in effect demonstrating his honesty and integrity) but announced that he was going to stand firm on his decision to keep the questionable contribution he was about to disclose. It seemed the Nixons had been given a gift that, as Nixon explained, had never been reported:

You know what it was? It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he had sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl—Tricia, the six-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know the kids, like all kids, love that dog, and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re going to keep it.

The speech was a success, and it was clear that Nixon had learned the extraordinary ability of television as an instrument of “spin control,” long before that term for manipulating public opinion was in circulation. The intimacy of TV and its ability to reach such a huge audience was clearly going to change the rhetoric of politics in the United States forever.

The red scare

One of the issues of the 1952 election was the fear of the spread of communism. Maoists had taken over mainland China in 1949, the same year the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb, and in 1950 former U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury for having denied being a Russian agent when questioned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. This committee, first established in 1938, was resurrected during this period to investigate people suspected of posing a threat to national security, and spectacular public hearings were held that added to the general state of paranoia. The entertainment industry was especially vulnerable to investigative efforts because the exposure of well-known persons was of great interest to the press and because many feared that the large audiences commanded by entertainers might make the consequences of their political intentions all the more insidious.

The paranoia fostered by the anticommunist movement became known as the “red scare.” It affected television differently from the way it had affected the movie industry. Because TV was financed by advertising dollars, anticommunist groups could get quick results by threatening to organize boycotts of the goods produced by the sponsor of a show that employed a “blacklisted” individual, whether a performer or a member of the production staff. Afraid of having their products associated with anything “un-American,” sponsors would often respond by either firing the suspect from the show they were producing or, if they were sponsoring a show produced by the network, asking the network to do so.

As early as 1947, three ex-FBI agents began publishing Counterattack: The Newsletter of Facts on Communism, which gathered the names of employees in the broadcasting industry who had appeared in publications, at rallies, or on petitions of a “leftist” nature. The publishers sent Counterattack to television executives and sponsors and called for those listed to be fired immediately and treated as traitors. By the 1949–50 season, Ed Sullivan, host of the very popular Toast of the Town, was using Counterattack to determine whether he would clear a guest for an appearance on his show. In June 1950 the publishers of Counterattack issued a compact user-friendly guide that listed 151 entertainment industry employees whom they suspected of communist activities. The pamphlet, Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, included many well-known writers (Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy Parker, Arthur Miller), directors (Elia Kazan, Edward Dmytryk, Orson Welles), actors (Edward G. Robinson, Burgess Meredith, Ruth Gordon), composers (Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland), and singers (Lena Horne, Pete Seeger). Decision makers at advertising agencies and networks read the report, which caused the casts and staff of several shows to be changed and which destroyed several careers.

One owner of a chain of supermarkets threatened to condemn—by placing a sign on product displays—any companies that supported programs with employees whose names had appeared in the Counterattack publications. Networks, advertising agencies, and sponsors all became concerned about the negative effect these and other tactics might have on their businesses. The networks began to make efforts to stop the problem at its source, hiring special employees to investigate and approve each potential writer, director, actor, or anyone else who was an applicant for a position.

Responding to McCarthy

McCarthy, Joseph; Red ScareByron Rollins/APSen. Joseph R. McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, made anticommunism his issue and became the “star” of the anticommunist frenzy. He made spectacular accusations in public, claiming at one point that a spy ring of “card-carrying communists” was operating in the State Department with the full knowledge of the secretary of state. McCarthyism became a watchword of the times, referring to the blacklisting, guilt-by-inference, and harassment tactics that the senator used. Although McCarthy used the media to disseminate his beliefs, it was also the media that accelerated his downfall.

Murrow, Edward R.UPI—Bettmann/Corbis Edward R. Murrow had established his reputation broadcasting radio news reports from besieged London during World War II. In 1951 he and his partner, Fred W. Friendly, began coproducing a television news series, See It Now (CBS, 1951–58). Murrow also hosted the show, presenting in-depth reports of current news, and in 1953 he and Friendly turned their attentions to anticommunism. On Oct. 20, 1953, they broadcast a story on Lieut. Milo Radulovich, who had been dismissed from the U.S. Air Force because his father and sister had been accused of being communist sympathizers. CBS refused to advertise the upcoming episode, which Murrow and Friendly promoted by purchasing their own ad in The New York Times. Later in the same season, the pair took on McCarthy himself in one of the most notorious news broadcasts in television history. The entire March 9, 1954, episode of the program addressed McCarthy’s recent activities, mostly as seen and heard through film and audio clips of his speeches. Stringing together McCarthy’s own words, the show exposed him as a liar, a hypocrite, and a bully.

Although public opinion about McCarthy did not completely change overnight, the broadcast was the beginning of the end for the senator. The following month, on April 22, hearings began regarding McCarthy’s accusations of subversive activity in the army. McCarthy’s charges, which were mostly fabricated, did not hold up to close scrutiny, and the Senate voted to condemn his actions. The ABC network, still without a daytime schedule of programming, was the only network to carry the “Army-McCarthy” hearings in full. The ratings were surprisingly high, and McCarthy’s appearance and mannerisms—seen in the intimate closeups made possible by television—turned most viewers against the senator.

The late Golden Age

By the mid-1950s, television programming was in a transitional state. In the early part of the decade, most television programming was broadcast live from New York City and tended to be based in the theatrical traditions of that city. Within a few years, however, most of entertainment TV’s signature genres—situation comedies, westerns, soap operas, adventures, quiz shows, and police and medical dramas—had been introduced and were spreading across the network schedules. Much of this change had to do with the fact that the centre of the television production industry was moving to the Los Angeles area, and programming was transforming accordingly: the live theatrical style was giving way to shows recorded on film in the traditions of Hollywood.

The major Hollywood studios, all of which had originally isolated themselves from the competitive threat of television, were finally entering the TV production business. Walt Disney’s film studio began supplying programming to ABC in 1954, and Warner Bros. followed the next year. Independent Los Angeles production companies such as Desilu, which began producing I Love Lucy in 1951, had started supplying programs on film even earlier. Whereas 80 percent of network television was broadcast live in 1953, by 1960 that number was down to 36 percent. (By the end of the 1960s, the only programs that continued to be broadcast live on a regular basis were news and sports shows, along with a few of the soap operas.) Many of the live programs were replaced by filmed westerns and adventures, genres that the major studios were well equipped to produce. They had been making western movies for decades and had an ample supply of costumes, sets, props, and cowboy actors. Filmed TV shows proved at least as popular as their live counterparts, and, unlike live programs, they could generate income indefinitely through the sale of rerun rights.

The changing nature of the TV audience also had an impact on programming throughout the 1950s. The price of a TV set was the equivalent of several weeks’ salary for the average worker in 1950, and most of the audience consisted of urban Northeasterners who lived within reception range of the major stations. The programming of the time reflected this demographic reality. This would change throughout the ’50s, however, as TV sets became less expensive and the opening of hundreds of new stations across the country after the removal of the freeze made television broadcasts available to the entire country. In 1950 only 9 percent of American households had televisions; by 1959 that figure had increased to 85.9 percent. The nature of programming would reflect the perceived tastes of this ever-growing and diversifying audience.

“Gunsmoke”: Arness and Curtis© Columbia Broadcasting SystemThe hugely popular western series Gunsmoke (CBS, 1955–75) proved to be, for the remainder of the century at least, the longest-running fictional series on American prime-time television. One reason for its success was its ability to adapt throughout the years to the country’s changing values and cultural styles by using its western setting as a springboard for episodes on serious social issues such as rape, civil disobedience, and civil rights. This attention to contemporary politics made the show singular among 1950s prime-time programs. Indeed, with a few exceptions, entertainment television during this period tended to present action-packed dramas or utopian comedies that made little or no reference to contemporary issues. Among the more emblematic series of the mid- to late 1950s was the suburban family sitcom, which presented traditional happy families in pristine suburban environments. Father Knows Best (CBS/NBC, 1954–62) was the most popular at the time, but Leave It to Beaver (CBS/ABC, 1957–63), because of its wide availability and popularity in syndicated reruns, has since emerged as the quintessential 1950s suburban sitcom.

The network run of Leave It to Beaver coincided almost exactly with a distinct and dangerous era of American history. The series debuted on Oct. 4, 1957, the same day the Soviet Union announced that it had rocketed into space Sputnik I, the first man-made object to orbit the Earth. The show’s final broadcast was on Sept. 12, 1963, just two months before the assassination of U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy. During the run of Leave It to Beaver, the world witnessed the space race, the threat of nuclear war, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s promise to “bury” the United States, increasing American involvement in the Vietnam War, and the Bay of Pigs invasion and Cuban missile crisis.

Mathers, Jerry: “Leave It to Beaver” cast, including Mathers, Beaumont, Billingsley, and Dow© American Broadcasting CompanyLeave It to Beaver did not acknowledge any of these events. It was, of course, a family comedy and not a political drama; however, the Cleavers—father Ward, mother June, and sons Beaver and Wally—seemed to exist in a world that looked and sounded contemporary but that was free of serious danger. As an art form consumed in the intimate space of the home, often during the evening hours after work, entertainment television became a provider of cultural anesthesia for a nervous country, a role it would continue to play throughout the next decade.