Stars Over Hollywood was a half-hour dramatic series based on the long-running radio program of the same name. It aired on NBC on Wednesdays from 10:30PM to 11PM during the 1950-1951 season. It premiered on September 6th, 1950 and the final new episode was shown on May 16th, 1951. There were apparently 37 episodes produced rather than the standard 39, which seems unusual. The last overall broadcast of the series was a repeat on August 29th, 1951.
The following status guide has been compiled primarily from contemporary television listings in The New York Times as well as several online episode guides, including The Classic TV Archive and the Internet Movie Database. Unfortunately, The New York Times never marked episodes as repeats and only occasionally included episode titles. Both online sources indicate “Girl or Ghost” aired on May 2nd, 1951 while The New York Times has it airing as the third episode of the series on September 20th, 1950. It may have been pre-empted or repeated.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive has two episodes of the series in its collection while The Paley Center for Media has one. Remember: just because specific archives/museums don’t have every episode of Stars Over Hollywood, that doesn’t mean the episodes are lost.
# | Episode Title | Airdate | Status |
---|---|---|---|
1 | “Beauty is a Joy” | 09/06/1950 | |
2 | “Grady Everett for the People” | 09/13/1950 | |
3 | “Girl or Ghost” | 09/20/1950 | |
4 | “Not a Bad Guy” | 09/27/1950 | |
5 | “Some Small Nobility” | 10/04/1950 | |
6 | “Rock Against the Sea” | 10/11/1950 | |
7 | “Texas Parson” | 10/18/1950 | |
8 | “Showdown” | 10/25/1950 | |
9 | “A Model Young Lady” | 11/01/1950 | |
10 | “Midnight” | 11/08/1950 | |
11 | “This Little Pig Cried” | 11/15/1950 | |
12 | “Winter Love” | 11/22/1950 | |
13 | “Landing at Daybreak” | 11/29/1950 | |
14 | “Small Town Story” | 12/06/1950 | |
15 | “My Rival is My Fiddle” | 12/13/1950 | UCLA |
16 | “Merry Christmas for Sweeney” | 12/20/1950 | Paley |
17 | “Never Trust on Redhead” | 12/27/1950 | |
18 | “My Nephew Norwell” | 01/03/1951 | |
19 | “The Ace of Spades” | 01/10/1951 | |
20 | “Yang Yin and Mrs. Wiswell” | 01/17/1951 | |
21 | “Moon on Wires” | 01/24/1951 | |
22 | “Cutie Pie” | 01/31/1951 | |
23 | “The Return of Van Sickle” | 02/07/1951 | UCLA |
24 | “Hand on My Shoulder” | 02/14/1951 | |
25 | “Son of the Rock” | 02/21/1951 | |
26 | “Autumn Leaves” | 02/28/1951 | |
27 | “When the Devil is Sick” | 03/07/1951 | |
28 | “Prison Doctor” | 03/14/1951 | |
29 | Unknown Episode (Repeat?) | 03/21/1951 | |
30 | “Old Mother Hubbard” | 03/28/1951 | |
31 | “Pearls from Paris” | 04/04/1951 | |
32 | “Tails for Jeb Mulcahy” | 04/11/1951 | |
33 | “The Kirbys” | 04/18/1951 | |
34 | “Pretty Boy” | 04/25/1951 | |
35 | “Girl or Ghost” (Repeat?) | 05/02/1951 | |
36 | “The Devil You Know” | 05/09/1951 | |
37 | “Nor Gloom of Night” | 05/16/1951 |
The second episode of the series, “Grady Everett for the People,” was reportedly the first television script sold by Rod Serling. A copy of the episode circulates among private collectors.
Revised November 2nd, 2015
All of the episodes in this series were frequently repackaged by MCA/Revue in different anthology “packages” (under different titles) over the years; in fact, MCA managed to lease most of those episodes to ABC in the 1952-’53 season under several different anthology titles [Brooks and Marsh’s “COMPLETE DIRECTORY TO PRIME-TIME NETWORK AND CABLE TV SHOWS, 1946-Present” mentions “This Little Pig Cried” as one of the episodes in those “packages”]. As late as September 1965, “Texas Parson” appeared on a local station as a Saturday afternoon repeat, in the Salt Lake City, Utah viewing area.
Landing at Daybreak was seen as late as September 27, 1968 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN viewing are a.
Stars Over Hollywood was a great early anthology program. I have Autumn Leaves and Return of Van Sickle in my 16mm collection. This series was as the previous comentor stated repackaged under several series titles.
At least one episode of this show wound up airing with the opening title of the One Step Beyond series.
That would be “Midnight”, and it’s on a One Step Beyond DVD on Delta 82 748, Out-of-print. Good luck if you can find it!
It’s on youtube along with all the episodes of One Step Beyond
It is in the public domain, so it’s not a Universal property anymore.