‘The Red Skelton Show’: CBS Television City, Studio 33
‘The Red Skelton Show’: CBS Television City, Studio 33
This photo from dress rehearsal on January 15, 1957, the first show he had done in several weeks after learning that his 9 year old son, Richard, had leukemia. On December 1, I posted here about how CBS moved their color cameras around in Television City. This is another example of the how and when the TK41s from Studio 41 were brought to Studio 33 (using the Studio 41 control room). From 1955-1960, Skelton’s was the show most color cast on CBS with 100 episodes done in color. By 1960, CBS no longer manufactured television sets (unlike its rival NBC’s parent company, RCA) and pulled the plug on colorcasts. With the exception of a few specials, and the self produced shows Skelton did in color from his own facility in ’61 and ’62, CBS would not colorcast again on a regular basis until the 1965-66 fall season. I think the “woman/wife” here is Mickey Rooney in drag with Paul Wenchel and Jerry Mahoney as hosts of the a show then on CBS called ‘Do You Trust Your Wife’, which later became ‘Who Do You Trust’ when it, and a freshly fired CBS talent named Johnny Carson, moved to ABC in New York with Johnny as host.
does not think that’s Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney. Also, “Do You Trust Your Wife?” was hosted by Edgar Bergan and Charlie McCarthy
But if you look real carefully, Winchell & Mahoney were appearing on the Skelton show to do a parody–a spoof, satire, call it what you will–of “Do You Trust Your Wife?”.
The CBS primetime filmed quiz show upon which this parody was based had as its hosts the more-established human-and-dummy team of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, whose careers went back to vaudeville and radio, plus a few motion pictures.
As for the parody’s title, it seems to suggest one of the great “loaded questions” of all time.