Series Description

The Chrysler Theatre TV show was a 60 minute anthology series that was hosted by Bob Hope and aired on NBC for 103 episodes from 1963-1967. The stories were a mix of Adventure, Comedy, Crime, Drama, and Mystery and usually featured a well-known star of the time. In sydication, it was known as "Universal Star Time".

Chrysler Theatre Cast

Bob Hope .... Host

Chrysler Theatre Trivia:

Bob Hope received a salary of $25,000 for each episode that he simply introduced. He got a whopping $500,000 for each episode where he appeared as the star! That was a ridiculously huge salary in that day!

Although most of the episodes of Bob Hope's Chrysler Theatre were 60 minutes in length, there was occasionally a special that ran for 90 minutes.

Bob Hope was so popular and well-liked that he had no problem drawing other big name actors to co-star or star on the Chrysler Theatre. Some of them included Angie Dickinson ("Police Woman"), Peter Falk ("Columbo"), Jack Lord ("Hawaii Five-0"), Hugh O'Brian ("Wyatt Earp"), Suzanne Pleshette ("Bob Newhart Show"), and William Shatner ("Star Trek").

Episode #63, "Tell Them The Streets Are Dancing" was the pilot episode of the "Wojeck" TV series.

Bob Hope Presents the Chrsler Theatre was nominated for 12 Emmys and won five of them. The series itself won in 1966 for "Outstanding Variety Special" for the Christmas show that aired on December 22, 1965. Actress Shelly Winters won another for a guest star appearance and writer Rod Serling ("The Twilight Zone") also won for "Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama - Adaptation". Even after the Chrysler Theatre left the air, numerous episodes appeared in rerun through 1972. For the first two seasons they were referred to as the "NBC Comedy Playhouse". During the last year they were called the "NBC Action Playhouse", "NBC Adventure Theatre", or the "NBC Comedy Theater", depending upon the genre of each particular episode. Bob Hope's introductions were edited out and introductions by other personalities were used. First was Monty Hall ("Let's Make A Deal") as host of the "NBC Comedy Playhouse" in 1968. Jack Kelly ("Maverick") took over Monty's duties in 1970 and also stayed thereafter to host the "Comedy Theater" episodes. Art Fleming (the original host of "Jeopardy") hosted the "NBC Adventure Theatre" episodes, Peter Marshall ("Hollywood Squares") hosted the "NBC Action Playhouse" episodes, and Ed McMahon ("The Tonight Show") hosted those on the "NBC Adventure Theatre".