Here’s the schedule for NBC’s experimental station W2XBS in New York City for the week beginning Sunday, May 26th, 1940. It was a pretty full week, despite no broadcasts on Sunday or Monday, with two hours chock full of variety acts, a pair of Aesop fables in film form, some racing and wrestling and a dramatic sketch titled “Overtones” performed by the Centenary Junior College Players. Also, an hour-long drama by Clare Kummer called “The Rescuing Angel.”
Tuesday, May 28th, 1940
3:30-4:30PM – Films: “Oom Pah Pah,” an Aesop fable; “Let’s See America,” “The Toppers,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” “School of Another Chance.”
6:45-7:00PM – News Bulletins.
9:00-10:00PM – Variety: Arthur Upham Pope on “6,000 Years of Persian Art”; Russell Swann, magician, on the exercycle and Earle B. Perkins on “Marine Invertebrates” with film. Also Centenary Junior College Players in “Overtones,” a dramatic sketch.Wednesday, May 29th, 1940
3:30-4:30PM – Films.
6:45-7:00PM – News, Lowell Thomas.
9:00-10:15PM – Film, “Street Scene,” with Sylvia Sidney and William Collier, Jr.Thursday, May 30th, 1940
2:00-5:00PM – Racing, at Belmont Park–Suburban Handicap.
6:45-7:00PM – News–Lowell Thomas.
9:00-10:00PM – Drama, “The Rescuing Angel,” by Clare Kummer, with Sally O’Neill, Eric Dressler and Robert Allen.Friday, May 31st, 1940
3:30-4:30PM – Films, “Summertime,” an Aesop fable; “Men of the Plains,” with Rex Bell.
6:45-7:00PM – News, Lowell Thomas.
8:45-9:00PM – Television Reporter.
9:00-11:00PM – Wrestling, at Jamaica Arena.Saturday, June 1st, 1940
2:00-5:00PM – Racing, at Belmont Park–American Oaks.
9:00-10:00PM – Variety, “Hits and Bits of 1980,” with Lew Hearn, John Steele, Raymond and Caverly, Chez Chase, Joe Fields, Sandra Lynda, William Foran and Bill Hardy’s Quartet.
Source:
“Telecasts for the Week.” New York Times. 26 May 1940: X10.
What, “Let’s See America” and “The Last of the Mohicans” were on AGAIN???
More Van Beuren “Aesop’s Fables” on the schedule- “Oom Pah Pah” (1930) and “Summertime” (1929); “Men Of the Plains” (1936) was a “typical” Rex Bell Western for independent “Colony Pictures” that lasted a little over an hour, so the length of Friday afternoon’s “children’s hour” of movies should have been closer to 70 minutes.
Here’s a rarity for TV at that time: a Sam Goldwyn-produced film on Wednesday, “Street Scene” (1931), directed by King Vidor. That was usually as close as NBC got to presenting a “major” Hollywood studio’s film of “recent vintage” on their experimental station [not counting Walt Disney’s 1931 version of “The Ugly Duckling” on that W2XBS anniversary program a few weeks back]- the “big” studios were already starting to feel that embryonic TV was a “threat” to their domain as far as potential viewers- and loss of theatrical revenue- was concerned, and simply wouldn’t allow NBC or CBS access to ANY of their current studio product. Of course, this attitude cost them PLENTY when commercial TV became established as a major entertainment force to be reckoned with by the end of the ’40s.