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 9 of Kraft Television Theatre premiered on September 1955 and ended in September 1956. There were two pre-emptions, one in March 14th, 1956 for a documentary about Adolph Hitler and the other on August 22nd, 1956 for coverage of the Republican National Convention. NBC broadcast 49 episodes this season, of which at least 34 survive. The network also rebroadcast one episode (“A Night to Remember”) using a kinescope recording of the live broadcast from earlier in the season.
The Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) has 24 episodes from this season in its collection, one of which is incomplete. The UCLA Film & Television Archive (UCLA) and The Paley Center for Media (Paley) both have 11. The Library of Congress (LOC) has just one. Together, these four institutions have copies of 34 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 1955-1956 season out there somewhere.
Season 9: 1955-1956 | |||
# | Episode Title | Airdate | Status |
---|---|---|---|
435 | “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz”” | 9/28/1955 | Paley |
436 | “The Beautiful Time”” | 10/5/1955 | |
437 | “Trucks Welcome” | 10/12/1955 | |
438 | “I, Mrs. Bibb” | 10/19/1955 | LOC/Paley/UCLA |
439 | “One” | 10/26/1955 | |
440 | “Number Four with Flowers” | 11/2/1955 | MBC |
441 | “The Ticket and the Tempest” | 11/9/1955 | MBC |
442 | “Summer’s End” | 11/16/1955 | MBC |
443 | “Day of Judgement” | 11/23/1955 | MBC |
444 | “Once a Genius” | 11/30/1955 | MBC/UCLA |
445 | “Lady Ruth” | 12/6/1955 | MBC |
446 | “A Nugget from the Sunrise” | 12/14/1955 | MBC |
447 | “A Christmas Dinner” | 12/21/1955 | MBC |
448 | “Eleven O’Clock Flight” | 12/28/1955 | Paley |
449 | “The Thieving Magpie” | 1/4/1956 | MBC |
450 | “The Sears Girl” | 1/11/1956 | MBC |
451 | “The Devil as a Roaring Lion” | 1/18/1956 | MBC/UCLA |
452 | “Home Is the Hero” | 1/25/1956 | Paley |
453 | “Five Minutes to Live” | 2/1/1956 | MBC/Paley |
454 | “Good Ole Charlie Faye” | 2/8/1956 | Paley |
455 | “Man on Roller Skates” | 2/15/1956 | Paley/UCLA |
456 | “Snapfinger Creek” | 2/22/1956 | Paley/UCLA |
457 | “Bobbie” | 2/29/1956 | |
458 | “The Fool Killer” | 3/7/1956 | Paley |
PRE-EMPTED: The Twisted Cross | 3/14/1956 | ||
459 | “The Lost Weekend” | 3/21/1956 | |
460 | “A Night to Remember” | 3/28/1956 | MBC/Paley/UCLA |
461 | “Paper Foxhole” | 4/4/1956 | MBC |
462 | “The Last Showdown” | 4/11/1956 | MBC/UCLA |
463 | “No Riders” | 4/18/1956 | UCLA |
464 | “The Gentle Grafter” | 4/25/1956 | |
REPEAT: “A Night to Remember” | 5/2/1956 | N/A | |
465 | “Death Is a Spanish Dancer” | 5/9/1956 | MBC |
466 | “A Profile in Courage” | 5/16/1956 | MBC/UCLA |
467 | “Bedroom Twelve on the Appalachian Waterfall” | 5/23/1956 | |
468 | “Box 704” | 5/30/1956 | |
469 | “The Night of May Third” | 6/6/1956 | |
470 | “Boy in a Cage” | 6/13/1956 | |
471 | “Flying Object at Three O’Clock High” | 6/20/1956 | |
472 | “Starfish” | 6/27/1956 | MBC*/Paley/UCLA |
473 | “Tear Open the Skies” | 7/4/1956 | MBC |
474 | “The Long Arm” | 7/11/1956 | MBC |
475 | “Babies for Sale” | 7/18/1956 | MBC |
476 | “Prairie Night” | 7/25/1956 | MBC |
477 | “One Way West” | 8/1/1956 | |
478 | “Anna Santonello” | 8/8/1956 | MBC |
479 | “The Magic Box” | 8/15/1956 | |
PRE-EMPTED: Republican National Convention | 8/22/1956 | ||
480 | “The Girl Who Saw Too Much” | 8/29/1956 | MBC |
481 | “Mock Trial” | 9/5/1956 | UCLA |
482 | “Shadow of Evil” | 9/12/1956 |
*The Museum of Broadcast Communications has an incomplete version of “Starfish” in its collection.
I’m looking for two episodes in season 10 of Kraft Television Theatre. 27 Night of the Plague and 42 The First and The Last.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Is a person able to purchase episodes from The Museum of Broadcast Communications and such?
Thanks,
Krista