Kraft Television Theatre broadcast some 585 episodes on NBC from May 1947 to October 1958. The series ran year-round with no summer breaks, meaning it didn’t have traditional seasons. I’ve aligned this status guide with episode lists and guides available online, like those found at TV.com, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and the Classic TV Archive (CTVA).
Season 2 of Kraft Television Theatre premiered on September 1948 and ended in September 1949. There were no pre-emptions. NBC broadcast 52 episodes, of which only six survive. The Library of Congress has copies of six episodes from 1949, one of which can also be found at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
As always, keep in mind that just because the big TV archives/museums only have certain episodes doesn’t mean there aren’t additional episodes of Kraft Television Theatre from the 1948-1949 season out there somewhere.
Season 2: 1948-1949 | |||
# | Episode Title | Airdate | Status |
---|---|---|---|
72 | “Her Husband’s Wife” | 09/22/1948 | |
73 | “Great Day” | 09/29/1948 | |
74 | “Twin Diamonds” | 10/06/1948 | |
75 | “The Truth Game” | 10/13/1948 | |
76 | “Criminal At Large” | 10/20/1948 | |
77 | “Biography” | 10/27/1948 | |
78 | “Old Lady Robbins” | 11/03/1948 | |
79 | “The Detour” | 11/10/1948 | |
80 | “The Ivory Door” | 11/17/1948 | |
81 | “Wuthering Heights” [Excerpts Only] | 11/24/1948 | |
82 | “The Dover Road” | 12/01/1948 | |
83 | “The Flashing Stream” | 12/08/1948 | |
84 | “The Old Soak” | 12/15/1948 | |
85 | “Hansel and Gretel” | 12/22/1948 | |
86 | “Meet the Prince” | 12/29/1948 | |
87 | “To Catch the Wind” | 01/05/1949 | |
88 | “Miranda” | 01/12/1949 | |
89 | “Duet for Two Hands” | 01/19/1949 | |
90 | “There’s Always Juliet” | 01/26/1949 | |
91 | “Her Master’s Voice” | 02/02/1949 | |
92 | “Gramercy Ghost” | 02/09/1949 | |
93 | “Room Service” | 02/16/1949 | |
94 | “The Flying Gerardos” | 02/23/1949 | |
95 | “A Bill of Divorcement” | 03/02/1949 | |
96 | “Arrival of Kitty” | 03/09/1949 | |
97 | “Consider Lily” | 03/16/1949 | |
98 | “Village Green” | 03/23/1949 | |
99 | “Wicked is the Vine” | 03/30/1949 | LOC/UCLA |
100 | “As Husbands Go” | 04/06/1949 | |
101 | “The Miracle of Chickerston” | 04/13/1949 | LOC |
102 | “The Whole Town’s Talking” | 04/20/1949 | LOC |
103 | “Green Stockings” | 04/27/1949 | |
104 | “Adam and Eva” | 05/04/1949 | |
105 | “Oath of Hippocrates” | 05/11/1949 | LOC |
106 | “Big Hearted Herbert” | 05/18/1949 | |
107 | “Autumn Fire” | 05/25/1949 | |
108 | “The Elephant Shepherd” | 06/01/1949 | |
109 | “Payment Deferred” | 06/08/1949 | |
110 | “Little Brown Jug” | 06/15/1949 | |
111 | “Pink Strings and Sealing Wax” | 06/22/1949 | LOC |
112 | “Baby Mine” | 06/29/1949 | |
113 | “Within the Law” | 07/06/1948 | |
114 | “A Young Man’s Fancy” | 07/13/1949 | |
115 | “The Curtain Rises” | 07/20/1949 | |
116 | “Time for Elizabeth” | 07/27/1949 | LOC |
117 | “Heaven and Charing Cross” | 08/03/1949 | |
118 | “The Misleading Lady” | 08/10/1949 | |
119 | “Mr. Pim Passes By” | 08/17/1949 | |
120 | “Where the Deer and the Antelope Play” | 08/24/1949 | |
121 | “Bedelia” | 08/31/1949 | |
122 | “Respectfully Yours” | 09/07/1949 | |
123 | “Little Darling” | 09/14/1949 |
Revised April 10th, 2019
At one time, NBC had an entire shelf of “KRAFT TELEVISION THEATER” kinescopes in their warehouse at Fort Lee, New Jersey…and then they systematically “cleared their shelves” of those and other historically significant TV series by tossing them out- often destroying the film itself. And they did this every few years…we’re lucky four of them from the 1948-’49 season DID survive! Too bad Kraft couldn’t have socked most of them away in their own warehouse, as Westinghouse did with most of their “STUDIO ONE” kinnies….
Are you sure they don’t exist? NBC donated over 100,000 kinies to the Library of Congress in the early 80s and they have a ton of Kraft Television Theatres. I’m not sure how many but its a significant amount numbering in the hundreds.
The last time I searched the Library of Congress database online — and this was at least a year ago — I found around 50 episodes of Kraft Television Theatre. There could certainly be plenty more that I either missed or are not searchable via the online database.
If you go to museum.tv and sign up to view the archives, you can watch (under Drama) a number of episodes of this program.
I was mistaken about how many episodes the Library of Congress has. Not 50 but 196 or so.