Kraft Television Theatre broadcast some 585 episodes on NBC between May 1947 and 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 8 of Kraft Television Theatre premiered on September 1954 and ended in September 1955. There were no pre-emptions. NBC broadcast 52 episodes this season, of which at least 23 survive. Rod Serling’s acclaimed “Patterns” aired to such acclaim on January 12th, 1955 that Kraft Television Theatre staged it again four weeks later on February 9th.
The Library of Congress (LOC) has 15 episodes from this season in its collection. The Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) has eight. The UCLA Film & Television Archive (UCLA) has seven. The Paley Center for Media (Paley) has three. Together, these four institutions have copies of 23 different episodes.
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 1954-1955 season out there somewhere.
| Season 8: 1954-1955 | |||
| # | Episode Title | Airdate | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 383 | “A Simple Matter “ | 9/29/1954 | |
| 384 | “The Office Dance” | 10/6/1954 | |
| 385 | “Papa Was a Sport” | 10/13/1954 | |
| 386 | “The Luck of Roaring Camp” | 10/20/1954 | LOC |
| 387 | “Split Level” | 10/27/1954 | |
| 388 | “Full of the Old Harry” | 11/3/1954 | |
| 389 | “The World and the Werners” | 11/10/1954 | |
| 390 | “The Independent” | 11/17/1954 | |
| 391 | “Emma” | 11/24/1954 | LOC |
| 392 | “Camille” | 12/1/1954 | LOC |
| 393 | “Career” | 12/8/1954 | |
| 394 | “Account Rendered” | 12/15/1954 | |
| 395 | “The Little Stone of God” | 12/22/1954 | |
| 396 | “Strangers in Hiding” | 12/29/1954 | LOC |
| 397 | “One Hill, One River” | 1/5/1955 | MBC |
| 398 | “Patterns” | 1/12/1955 | LOC/MBC/Paley/UCLA |
| 399 | “The Written Word” | 1/19/1955 | |
| 400 | “Boys Will Be Boys” | 1/26/1955 | LOC |
| 401 | “The Skin Game” | 2/2/1955 | |
| 402 | “Patterns” | 2/9/1955 | UCLA |
| 403 | “Departure” | 2/16/1955 | MBC |
| 404 | “The Emperor Jones” | 2/23/1955 | LOC/Paley |
| 405 | “Half the World’s a Bride” | 3/2/1955 | |
| 406 | “The Night Watcher” | 3/9/1955 | MBC |
| 407 | “Jeanie” | 3/16/1955 | |
| 408 | “The Story of Mary Surratt” | 3/23/1955 | LOC |
| 409 | “The Southwest Corner” | 3/30/1955 | LOC/MBC |
| 410 | “Whim of Iron” | 4/6/1955 | UCLA |
| 411 | “Now, Where Was I?” | 4/13/1955 | |
| 412 | “Gramercy Ghost” | 4/20/1955 | LOC |
| 413 | “A Seacoast in Bohemia” | 4/27/1955 | UCLA |
| 414 | “Flowers for 2-B” | 5/4/1955 | |
| 415 | “Judge Contain’s Hotel” | 5/11/1955 | LOC/MBC/Paley/UCLA |
| 416 | “The Braveness of Christy Fellon” | 5/18/1955 | |
| 417 | “Million Dollar Rookie” | 5/25/1955 | |
| 418 | “A Woman for Tony” | 6/1/1955 | |
| 419 | “Someone to Hang” | 6/8/1955 | MBC |
| 420 | “My Aunt Daisy” | 6/15/1955 | |
| 421 | “Drop on the Devil” | 6/22/1955 | LOC/UCLA |
| 422 | “The Mob” | 6/29/1955 | LOC |
| 423 | “Impasse” | 7/6/1955 | |
| 424 | “The Straw” | 7/13/1955 | LOC |
| 425 | “In the La Banza” | 7/20/1955 | |
| 426 | “Meet a Body” | 7/27/1955 | |
| 427 | “Spur of the Moment” | 8/3/1955 | |
| 428 | “Two Times Two” | 8/10/1955 | |
| 429 | “The Failure” | 8/17/1955 | |
| 430 | “The Haunted” | 8/24/1955 | |
| 431 | “The Chess Game” | 8/31/1955 | LOC/MBC |
| 432 | “Woman of Principle” | 9/7/1955 | |
| 433 | “It’s Only Money” | 9/14/1955 | |
| 434 | “The King’s Bounty” | 9/21/1955 | UCLA |
In 1981, PBS included “Patterns” (the February 9th version) in a dramatic anthology retrospective called The Golden Age of Television alongside episodes of The United States Steel Hour, Playhouse 90, and Hallmark Hall of Fame. The Goldgen Age of Television was later released on LaserDisc and VHS, making “Patterns” one of a very few episodes of Kraft Television Theatre available on home video.
In 2009, The Criterion Collection released The Golden Age of Television on DVD.
