Dan Raven
Encyclopedia
Dan Raven is a crime drama starring Skip Homeier
(born 1930), a former child actor
in film
s, which aired on NBC
between January 23, 1960, and January 6, 1961. The setting of the series is the famous Sunset Strip
of West Hollywood
, California
. The series focuses on activities of the sheriff
's department, including those of the fictitious Lieutenant
Dan Raven and his assistant, Sergeant
Burke, played by Dan Barton. Quinn K. Redeker
(born 1936) appeared too as photograph
er Perry Levitt. The program aired for a half-hour from January 1960 until September 23, when it expanded for thirteen hour-long segments. Dan Raven featured contemporary celebrities
appearing as themselves, including Buddy Hackett
(1924-2003), Paul Anka
(born 1941), Marty Ingels
(born 1936), Bob Crewe
(born 1931), and singer Bobby Darin
(1936-1973). Darin appeared in the first of the hour-long episodes entitled "The High Cost of Fame".
Ironically, the long-running 77 Sunset Strip
ran on ABC
at 9 p.m. Eastern on the same Friday evenings as Dan Raven, which started at 7:30. Dan Raven, in the hour format, faced difficult opposition from the second season of CBS western
series Rawhide
starring Eric Fleming
and Clint Eastwood
. Its competition on ABC was the sitcom Harrigan and Son
, starring Pat O'Brien
and Roger Perry
.
Other selected episodes include:
Dan Raven was partly replaced on January 13, 1961, by the return of the Ronnie Burns
's Happy
, a trivial sitcom about a talking baby.
Skip Homeier
-Career:Homeier began acting as Skippy Homeier at the age of six, on the radio show Portia Faces Life. From 1943 until 1944 he played the role of Emil in the Broadway play, Tomorrow the World. Cast as a child indoctrinated into Nazism, who is brought to the United States from Germany following the...
(born 1930), a former child actor
Child actor
The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...
in film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s, which aired on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
between January 23, 1960, and January 6, 1961. The setting of the series is the famous Sunset Strip
Sunset Strip
The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile-and-a-half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with Hollywood at Harper Avenue, to its western border with Beverly Hills at Sierra Drive...
of West Hollywood
West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, a city of Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984, with a population of 34,399 at the 2010 census. 41% of the city's population is made up of gay men according to a 2002 demographic analysis by Sara Kocher Consulting for the City of West Hollywood...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The series focuses on activities of the sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
's department, including those of the fictitious Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
Dan Raven and his assistant, Sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
Burke, played by Dan Barton. Quinn K. Redeker
Quinn Redeker
Quinn K. Redeker is an American actor and screenwriter, who is well-known for his work on soap operas.-Career:Redeker has been a screenwriter for over 30 years, with the most notable work to his name being the story writer for the 1978 film The Deer Hunter...
(born 1936) appeared too as photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
er Perry Levitt. The program aired for a half-hour from January 1960 until September 23, when it expanded for thirteen hour-long segments. Dan Raven featured contemporary celebrities
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
appearing as themselves, including Buddy Hackett
Buddy Hackett
Buddy Hackett was an American comedian and actor.-Early life:Hackett was born in Brooklyn, New York, New York, the son of a Jewish upholsterer. He grew up on 54th and 14th Ave in Borough Park, Brooklyn, across from Public School 103...
(1924-2003), Paul Anka
Paul Anka
Paul Albert Anka, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actor.Anka first became famous as a teen idol in the late 1950s and 1960s with hit songs like "Diana'", "Lonely Boy", and "Put Your Head on My Shoulder"...
(born 1941), Marty Ingels
Marty Ingels
Marty Ingels is an actor, comedian, theatrical agent, and, by many, best known as the voice of many cartoon characters and commercials. Born Martin Ingerman in Brooklyn, New York, he is the son of Jacob and Minnie Ingerman.His voice-overs and commercials include those for Paul Masson wines, with...
(born 1936), Bob Crewe
Bob Crewe
Bob Crewe is an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, record producer and fine artist. He is known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for The Four Seasons...
(born 1931), and singer Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin , born Walden Robert Cassotto, was an American singer, actor and musician.Darin performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk and country...
(1936-1973). Darin appeared in the first of the hour-long episodes entitled "The High Cost of Fame".
Ironically, the long-running 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
ran on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
at 9 p.m. Eastern on the same Friday evenings as Dan Raven, which started at 7:30. Dan Raven, in the hour format, faced difficult opposition from the second season of CBS western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
series Rawhide
Rawhide (TV series)
Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...
starring Eric Fleming
Eric Fleming
Eric Fleming was an American actor, known primarily for his role as Gil Favor in the long running CBS television series Rawhide.-Early life:...
and Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
. Its competition on ABC was the sitcom Harrigan and Son
Harrigan and Son
Harrigan and Son is an ABC sitcom about a father-and-son team of lawyers, played by Pat O'Brien and Roger Perry as Jim Harrigan, Sr., and Jim, Jr. In supporting roles, as secretaries, are Georgine Darcy as Gypsy and Helen Kleeb as Miss Claridge. The series aired 34 episodes at 8 p.m. Eastern Time...
, starring Pat O'Brien
Pat O'Brien (actor)
Pat O’Brien was an American film actor with more than one hundred screen credits.-Early life:O’Brien was born William Joseph Patrick O’Brien to an Irish-American Catholic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as an altar boy at Gesu Church while growing up near 13th and Clybourn streets...
and Roger Perry
Roger Perry
Roger Perry is an American film and television actor whose career began in the late 1950s.In the 1960-1961 television season, Perry portrayed a handsome young attorney, Jim Harrigan, Jr., in the ABC and Desilu Studios sitcom Harrigan and Son, with co-stars Pat O'Brien, Helen Kleeb, and Georgine...
.
Other selected episodes include:
- "The Mechanic" with Buddy Hackett on September 30
- "The Trade" with Paul Anka on October 7
- "Penny" with Paul RichardsPaul Richards (actor)Paul Richards was a Jewish American actor who appeared in films and on television in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s until his death from cancer at the age of fifty. He married actress Monica Keating in 1953.Richards guest-starred in a number of classic television western series, including Gunsmoke...
(1924-1974) on October 21 - "The Empty Frame" with Suzanne StorrsSuzanne StorrsSuzanne Storrs was a former Miss Utah and an American television actress who appeared in sixteen different television series between 1954 and 1961, usually as the beautiful leading lady, including Maverick with James Garner , Wanted Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen , Sugarfoot Suzanne Storrs...
on October 28 - "The Night Is Numbered" with Paul Crewe on November 4
- "The Satchel Man" with Paul AnkaPaul AnkaPaul Albert Anka, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and actor.Anka first became famous as a teen idol in the late 1950s and 1960s with hit songs like "Diana'", "Lonely Boy", and "Put Your Head on My Shoulder"...
and Parley BaerParley BaerParley Edward Baer was an American actor in film, television, and radio.-Radio:Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Baer had a circus background, but began his radio career at Utah station KSL...
on November 11 - "The Junket" with Don DubbinsDon DubbinsDon Dubbins , originally Donald Dubbins, was an American actor of film and television who in his early career usually played younger military roles, particularly in such classic pictures as From Here to Eternity and The Caine Mutiny...
(1928-1991) and Mel TormeMel TorméMelvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
(1925-1999) on November 18 - "The Man on the Ledge" with Marty IngelsMarty IngelsMarty Ingels is an actor, comedian, theatrical agent, and, by many, best known as the voice of many cartoon characters and commercials. Born Martin Ingerman in Brooklyn, New York, he is the son of Jacob and Minnie Ingerman.His voice-overs and commercials include those for Paul Masson wines, with...
on November 25 - "Amateur Night" with Marty Ingels and Claude AkinsClaude AkinsClaude Marion Akins was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television.Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series...
(1926-1994) on December 2 - "Tinge of Red" with Julie LondonJulie LondonJulie London was an American singer and actress. She was best known for her smoky, sensual voice. London was at her singing career's peak in the 1950s. Her acting career lasted more than 35 years...
(1926-2000), Judson PrattJudson PrattJudson Pratt was an American actor whose longest continuing work was in thirteen episodes of ABC's Walt Disney Presents and NBC's Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. A native of Hingham in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Pratt appeared in numerous television westerns and drama series from...
(1916-2002) and Gavin MacLeodGavin MacLeodGavin MacLeod is an American actor most notable for playing Happy Haines on McHale's Navy, Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Captain Merrill Stubing on The Love Boat...
(born 1930) on December 16 - "Buy a Nightmare" with Don HaggertyDon HaggertyDon Haggerty was an American film actor appearing in films in the 1940s and 1950s. Before entering films in 1947, Haggerty was a Brown University athlete and served in the US military...
(1914-1988), Harvey LembeckHarvey LembeckHarvey Lembeck was an American comedic actor best remembered for his role as Cpl. Rocco Barbella on The Phil Silvers Show in the late 1950s, and as the stumbling, overconfident outlaw biker Eric Von Zipper in the beach party movie series during the 1960s...
(1923-1982) and Adrienne EllisAdrienne EllisAdrienne Ellis is an American-Canadian actress, ex-daughter-in-law of actress Gloria Holden. She began her career in 1960, when she plays Shirley on the TV Series Dan Raven. Others credits includes TV Series Suspicion, The Virginian and Morning Star. Adrienne Ellis was the wife of actor Glen Corbett...
, the series finale.
Dan Raven was partly replaced on January 13, 1961, by the return of the Ronnie Burns
Ronnie Burns (actor)
Ronald Jon "Ronnie" Burns worked briefly as a television actor, but is primarily remembered as the adopted son of comedians George Burns and Gracie Allen.-Early life:...
's Happy
Happy (1960 TV series)
Happy is an NBC situation comedy about a talking baby, starring Ronnie Burns , the adopted son of George Burns and Gracie Allen, which aired from June 8 to September 28, 1960, and again from January 13 to September 8, 1961....
, a trivial sitcom about a talking baby.