New Comedy Showcase
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| New Comedy Showcase | |
|---|---|
 Newspaper advertisement for the premiere episode of New Comedy Showcase on August 1, 1960. | |
| Genre | Anthology series |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | August 1 – September 19, 1960 |
New Comedy Showcase is an American anthology television series that aired on CBS in the summer of 1960. The 30-minute episodes consisted of unsold television pilots.
By the mid-1950s, the practice of television executives of ordering dozens of pilots for proposed television series each year – far more than their networks could possibly broadcast as series – had created a sizable body of unsold pilots that had never aired.[1] By 1954, the American television industry had begun to consider the idea of packaging these unsold pilots in anthology series and airing them during the summer, providing television networks with a way of both providing fresh programming during the summer rerun season and recouping at least some of the expense of producing them.[1] ABC and NBC pioneered the concept in the summer of 1956, simultaneously premiering G.E. Summer Originals (on ABC) and Sneak Preview (on NBC), but CBS did not air its first two such series, The Comedy Spot and New Comedy Showcase, until the summer of 1960.[1][2]
New Comedy Showcase was a summer replacement for Hennesey and consisted entirely of unsold pilots for situation comedies.[3][4] Stars appearing in the series included Leon Ames, Jack Carson, Dick Van Dyke, Wayne Morris, George Murphy, Margaret O'Brien, Janis Paige, Martha Scott, Walter Slezak, and Gil Stratton.[1][2][3]