“The Tab Hunter Show”

Heartthrob Tab Hunter was given a starring role in this eponymous 1960-1961 sitcom. He played Paul Morgan, creator of a popular comic strip not-so-loosely based on his own life. As a womanizing bachelor, Paul traveled the world over chasing skirts and having flings with beautiful girls and then turned his own experiences into stories for the comic strip. The series was part of NBC’s attempt to alter the way it programmed the 8-9PM time slot on Sunday evenings. It didn’t work.

Sunday nights on NBC from 8-9PM had, since the start of the 1950s, been a showcase for variety hours, with The Colgate Comedy Hour airing in the time slot from 1950 to 1955 and then The Steve Allen Show. In February of 1959, NBC decided to shift the start of The Steve Allen Show to 7:30PM, beginning with the March 15th broadcast.

The Tab Hunter Show

This gave The Steve Allen Showa half-hour lead on The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS and bring it in line with the start of ABC’s Maverick [1]. Not only would the change hopefully boost ratings for The Steve Allen Show, it would also give NBC a stronger showing in the 7:30-8PM half-hour.

On March 15th and 22nd, The Steve Allen Show was expanded to ninety minutes to fill the entire 7:30-PM time slot. An evening of musical/variety specials on March 29th pre-empted The Steve Allen Show and on April 5th, Pete Kelly’s Blues (a half-hour drama about a trumpet player/private investigator starring William Reynolds) premiered in the 8:30-9PM time slot following The Steve Allen Show. Pete Kelly’s Blues would run for thirteen episodes, ending in July of 1959.

For the 1959-1960 season, The Steve Allen Show moved to Mondays and NBC filled the 8-9PM hour with a dramatic anthology series called Sunday Showcase, which premiered on September 20th, 1959.

In March of 1960, NBC announced a new half-hour sitcom starring often bare-chested actor Tab Hunter, called Bachelor-at-Large, to be produced by Norman Tokar [2]. It was the first starring television role for Hunter, who first appeared in films in the early 1950s and starred in Damn Yankees! in 1958. His previous television appearances were primarily guest roles on anthology programs, including the debut of Playhouse 90 in October of 1954, as well as episodes of Climax! and Lux Video Theatre.

In the series, Hunter would play cartoonist Paul Morgan, creator of the wildly popular “Bachelor-at-Large” comic strip for which the series was titled.

In April, the name of the series was changed to The Tab Hunter Show and it was given the Sunday, 8:30-9PM time slot [3]. The P. Lorillard Company would sponsor the series, which was part of NBC’s restructuring of its Sunday line-up for the 1960-1961 season [4]. The schedule: The Shirley Temple Show from 7-8PM, then National Velvet from 8-8:30PM, The Tab Hunter Show from 8:30-9PM, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show from 9-10PM, The Loretta Young Show from 10-10:30PM and finally This Is Your Life from 10:30-11PM. Only The Dinah Shore Chevy Show and The Loretta Young Show had been held over from the 1959-1960 season.

The fictional comic strip at the heart of The Tab Hunter Show — “Bachelor-at-Large” — followed the adventures of a young bachelor living in sunny Malibu, California, who loved life and women. The strip was semi-autobiographical, mirroring the life Paul Morgan led in Malibu with his good friend Peter Fairfield III (played by Richard Erdman) and plenty of beautiful young women.

Seven years before they appeared together in The Tab Hunter Show, Tab Hunter and Richard Erdman co-starred in the 1953 film The Steel Lady, about a group of oilmen who find a tank in the desert, repair it, and find themselves fighting for their lives.

Paul Morgan

Peter Fairfield III, also a bachelor, was a wealthy young man with a passion for fast cars. Paul and Peter would often find themselves stuck in tricky situations typically involving a good-looking girl. The tale would then find its way into “Bachelor-at-Large” for the enjoyment of the strip’s readers.

Paul’s boss, John Larsen (played by Jerome Cowan), although exasperated by Paul’s antics, is always hounding him to get his strips in on time — “Bachelor-at-Large” is, after all, popular with readers and thus a moneymaker. Also appearing in the series was Reta Shaw as Paul’s housekeeper, Thelma, who disapproved of his lifestyle but stayed on the job nevertheless.

Episodes of The Tab Hunter Show were, as one might imagine, centered on the girls in Paul’s life. Week in and week out, Paul would run into a beautiful girl, no matter where he was. The girl-of-the-week could be found in California, London, Paris or Spain, on a train or on a boat. Paul never stayed with one girl too long — he was a bachelor at large, after all — and sometimes moved from girl to girl within the same episode!

Several famous (and very good-looking) actresses guest-starred on The Tab Hunter Show, including Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, Tuesday Weld, Suzanne Pleschett, Gena Rowlands and Joan Staley. Occasionally, the female guest stars were credited as simply “Blonde” or “Brunette” to reflect the bachelor ideal of beautiful girl – name not important.

Mary Tyler Moore on The Tab Hunter Show

On a regular basis, the episodes took place in other countries, as Paul routinely went on vacation. For example, one episode saw Paul falling for a matador while in Spain, while another found him falling for British nobility on the way to Europe, and another involved an author in France. For the episodes that took place back in California, many of them involved Larsen fighting to get Paul to work.

In one episode, Larsen hires a female cartoonist to try to force Paul to get his strips done, thinking that being one-upped by a girl would do the trick. You can probably imagine how that one turned out. In another episode, Paul gets an assistant – a girl who is too annoying to work with.

Additional episodes involved a Hollywood starlet trying to commit suicide, Paul being sued by a girl who insists that a character in “Bachelor-at-Large” is based on her, and Paul’s speaking engagement at an all-women’s college.

Jack Gould, writing in The New York Times, felt the premiere episode of The Tab Hunter Show “utilized far-fetched situations, but there was a flashy brittleness to the show that perhaps will catch on with younger teenagers [5]. Ratings for the series were sufficient to warrant a renewal for the remainder of the season in January of 1961 [6].

Paul’s Studio

In March, however, it was reported that NBC planned to overhaul its Sunday line-up, canceling or rescheduling every single program [7]. Ultimately, The Tab Hunter Show , The Shirley Temple Show , The Loretta Young Show and This Is Your Life would get the ax, while National Velvet was moved to Mondays and The Dinah Shore Show to Fridays, alternating with The Bell Telephone Hour .

During the 1961-1962 season, NBC aired the second half-hour of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color from 8-8:30PM and Car 54, Where Are You? from 8:30-9PM. Scripted programming in the 8-9PM time slot had become the norm for NBC, even if The Tab Hunter Show failed to draw sufficient viewers to warrant a second season.

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Last Updated December 31st, 2009