I wrote about Thrills and Chills (also known as Thrills and Chills Everywhere or Thrills and Chills with Doug Allen) in my Television Programs in 1941 article. Host Doug Allen used the show as an example numerous times in his 1946 book How to Write for Television. I included a brief excerpt from the book in which Allen talks about his original vision for the show. Here’s the complete passage:
Perhaps this idea might better be illustrated by my own initiation into television. I first presented an idea which I had previously written for a book called “One Minute to Live.” Each program was to be the dramatization of some hair-raising experience of an explorer or adventurer I had interviewed on radio or for publications. Such stories would naturally take the audience in fancy to the corners of the earth, and NBC didn’t seem to have that much space in their admittedly large studios.
Tom Hutchinson, who was then program direction of NBC’s television studio, told me I had a marvelous idea, but that it would take a Hollywood studio with its huge sets to produce it. After some careful thought, I decided that since we could not present the program as a live dramatic show, the most logical alternative was to interview the explorers and adventurers about their death-defying encounters, and then fade into a showing of motion pictures which they had taken on their expeditions. To this I later added the more intimate touch of putting the television spectator into our picture by explaining at the outset of the program, following the opening, that “tonight we are to set out on a safari into the dark jungles of French Equatorial Africa,” or to some other remote spot on the globe, and that our guide on this safari would be our distinguished guest of the evening. This program, “Thrills and Chills with Doug Allen,” which is now in its fifth year and is the oldest program in New York City, won top place only a few months after it was put on the air, and has consistently held top place, which it still enjoys [1].
It’s interesting that as early as 1941 people were imagining ways to use television that far exceeded the current technology, experience and/or studio space. Here’s another passage, one about an issue Thrills and Chills ran into:
For example, on one of my “Thrills and Chills” programs, we showed a film of the fire-walkers of Singapore walking through hot coals in one of their native ceremonies. The film was taken at silent speed, and when shown on an ordinary screen, the natives were walking at their normal rate, but when shown on television at the stepped-up speed of thirty frames instead of sixteen frames, they appeared to be running. My guest who had taken the pictures in Singapore felt like jumping into the fire himself when he saw those fanatical natives running over the burning coals [2].
There is no mention of when this particular incident took place or who the guest was. However, according to the television listings in The New York Times, Allen’s guest on the Tuesday, November 25th, 1941 installment was Singapore Joe Fisher. Of course, there’s no way of knowing if Singapore Joe Fisher was the one who took the film of the fire-walkers of Singapore.
Other guests on Thrills and Chills — all of these come from The New York Times television listings — included Roy Phelps, Sidney Shurcliff, Herman Bettinger, Lewis N. Cotlow, Paula Le Claire, Dr. William M. Marston, Father Bernard Hubbard, Armand Dennis, Earl Schenck and Malcolm Rosholt, among others. Finally, here’s part of a 1944 review of Thrills and Chills from The New York Times. It is the only contemporary account of the show I have come across so far and mentions an interesting incident:
As an example, “Doug” Allan, former newspaper man, presents a series of Sunday night hair-raisers over WABD called “Thrills and Chills.” His guests are explorers who have traveled, hunted and filmed their adventures in distant lands, and have brought back motion picture records of the trips–also snakes, baboons and other live fauna which are often let loose in the studio. The result is sometimes pandemonium, not only before the electric eye but also in the homes of countless televiewers, as once when an agitated animal dived for the electric eye of the studio camera. On that occasion the camera man ducked and so did the televiewers [3].
I’m sure there are plenty of stories like this one from the early days of television. But how many can hold a candle to an animal charging the camera?
Sources:
1 Allen, Doug. How to Write for Television. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1946: Pages 31-32.
2 Allen, Doug. How to Write for Television: Page 11.
3 Kennedy, Jr., T.R. “Television Notes.” New York Times. 10 Dec. 1944: X11.
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