Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Red Buttons Show: Red Buttons Promotional TV Photo

The Red Buttons Show was a comedy-variety series and later a sitcom that aired from October 1952 until May 1955 on CBS and NBC.

Though it is scarcely recalled today, The Red Buttons Show was hailed almost universally as the most promising new show of the 1952-1953 season. ( Buttons even appeared on the cover of Time Magazine that season). But by the end of its second season, after several changes in format and writers, the show's popularity had sagged considerably, and it was dropped by CBS. NBC picked up the show for the 1954-1955 season ( where it was slated on Friday nights , with The Jack Carson Show occupying the slot approximately every fourth week), but it did even less well.

Red Buttons had had considerable experience as a burlesque comedian, and his show began as a comedy-variety show; it was introduced by his familiar theme song , " The Ho Ho Song." Red would put his hands together in what appeared to be a gesture of supplication, lean his head against them at a funny angle , and hop around the stage singing " Ho! Ho!...He! He!...Ha! Ha!.. . Strange things are happenening." For a time that song became a national craze that infected millions of children around the country. The show itself featured monologues and dance numbers by Red, and sketches with his regulars and any guest stars. Some of the recurring characters portrayed by Red were Rocky Bottons, a punchy boxer; the Kupke kid, a lovable little boy; the sad sack; and Keeglefarven, a dumb, blundering German. There were also regular sketches about Red and his wife ( in a style that was to be imitated by George Gobel later in the 1950s) with Dorothy Jolliffe as his wife when the show first started. She was replaced in October by Beverly Dennis, and Miss Dennis gave way to Betty Ann Grove at the start of the 1953-1954 season. Other regulars included Pat Carroll, Allan Walker, Joe Silver, Jeanne Carson, Sara Seegar, Jimmy Little, Ralph Stanley, Sammy Birch and the Elliott Lawrence Orchestra.

A smash hit in its first season, The Red Buttons Show began to fade in its second year on CBS and was picked up by NBC after it had been canceled. The NBC series started as a variety show with guests but no regulars other than Red. That didn't seem to work so the format was changed to a situation comedy at the end of January. Red played himself as a TV comic who was always getting into troubles of one sort or another. Phyllis Kirk was his new wife, Bobby Sherwood his pal and director of the TV show and Paul Lynde, a newcomer to TV played Mr. Standish, a network vice president with whom Red had constant run-ins. Nothing seemed to help and Red, who had gone through literally dozens of writers in a quest to find a workable format, left the air that spring.

After the demise of his series, Red continued to appear in dramatic roles on television and on film, winning an Academy Award in 1957 for his performance in Sayanora. He later starred in a 1966 sitcom called The Double Life of Henry Phyfe. Red died on July 13, 2006.

An Article from Time Magazine

Next Week, a Cadillac?
Monday, Oct. 27, 1952

"I've just broken out of oblivion," says Red Buttons breathlessly. "I haven't slept for five nights in a row. I'm walking on air." Comedian Buttons, 33, has been playing around Manhattan for the past 17 years, mostly in burlesque and quick-folding musical comedies and nightclubs ("I wasn't any Danny Thomas, but I was doing all right"). Last week his Red Buttons Show (Tues. 8:30 p.m., CBS-TV) went on the air with little advance buildup, no sponsor and few prospects of one.

He opened with a strictly autobiographical monologue: "I grew up in the lower East Side. It was a pretty tough block. You either grew up to be a judge or you went to the chair." His family, he said, was poor: "To give you an idea, when we got a phone call at the corner candy store, we had to run upstairs to answer it." He did a couple of comedy skits and wound up with an emotional "Thank you, everybody, for everything." The CBS switchboard operators, with some amazement, reported one of the biggest responses to a single show they had ever had. The critics were kindly. Several prospective sponsors began pricing the show. Buttons, of course, was ecstatic.

The small (5 ft. 6½ in.), earnest funnyman was born Aaron Chwatt, the son of an immigrant hat blocker. He got the name "Red Buttons" because of his flaming hair—now prematurely grey—and a bellhop uniform he wore on his first comedy job while he was still attending a Bronx high school. Before the surprising success of his new show, Buttons had made some eight or nine guest appearances on TV without causing any particular excitement ("My first spot was on the Milton Berle show four years ago. And now—think of it—I'm playing in competition to Berle").

"When you ask me what kind of comedy I do," Buttons says, "I can't pinpoint it. I'm a little guy, and that's what I play all the time—a little guy and his troubles." He thinks of himself as a reporter: "Every comedian is one. You go somewhere, and look around you and say to yourself, 'Wouldn't it be funny if such & such happened?' " Success is happening so fast that Buttons still drives a Pontiac ("Next week, a Cadillac, maybe"). As for the future: "I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. I'm not thinking any further ahead than next Tuesday night at 8:30."

An Article from Time Magazine

Such Sweet Sorrow
Monday, Jun. 21, 1954

There was scarcely a dry eye last week on a trio of radio & TV shows. On CBS, Funnyman Red Buttons' career came to a halt almost as suddenly as it began. Two years ago Buttons came from nowhere (small parts in show business) to rank in the first five of TV's most popular shows. This year his rating dipped sharply and, though it strengthened in the past few months, Sponsor Maxwell House Coffee decided to drop him for a completely new show this fall.

Buttons will undoubtedly be back, but the award-winning Your Show of Shows said goodbye forever. The five-year-old revue was one of the few shows to run 1½ hours and was notable for raising Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca to stardom, for television pioneering in ballet and opera, for its parodies of U.S. and foreign films, and for pantomime sketches. Both Caesar and Coca will appear next year in their own separate TV shows, while veteran Producer-Director Max Liebman will take on the new job of overseeing NBC's big color TV spectacles planned for fall.

The breakup of Your Show of Shows caused a major displacement of the venerable Voice of Firestone, whose semiclas-sical music has been heard for 25 years over NBC radio and for five years over NBC-TV on the same day and time (Mon. 8:30 p.m.). NBC pre-empted the Firestone time period for its forthcoming Sid Caesar show and was hopeful that Firestone would drop the Voice and sponsor Caesar. Instead, Firestone stubbornly insisted on staying with its old format of orchestra and opera singers, whose opening theme ( If I Could Tell You) and closing theme (In My Garden) were both written by Idabelle Firestone, wife of the founder of the company. Firestone also refused alternate time periods suggested by NBC. After both sides read polite but edgy announcements over the air, Firestone this week took its radio and TV business to rival ABC, where the Voice will continue to be heard, as usual, on Monday nights at 8:30.

For a Biography of Red Buttons go to http://www.amdest.com/stars/redb.html

To listen to the Theme Song of THe Red Buttons Show go to http://www.televisiontunes.com/Red_Buttons_Show_(The).html