The Alcoa Hour is a live

Live television

Live television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...

 anthology television series sponsored by Alcoa

Alcoa

Alcoa Inc. is the world's third largest producer of aluminum, behind Rio Tinto Alcan and Rusal. From its operational headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Alcoa conducts operations in 31 countries...

 and telecast in the United States from 1955 to 1957. The series was seen Sundays 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...

 at 9pm.

Overview

Like the Philco Television Playhouse and Goodyear Television Playhouse

Goodyear Television Playhouse

The Goodyear Television Playhouse produced live television dramas from 1951 to 1957 during the "Golden Age of Television".Sponsored by Goodyear, the hour-long anthology series was telecast Sundays at 9pm on NBC...

that had preceded it, The Alcoa Hour was a one-hour live dramatic anthology series presenting both original stories and adaptations of popular works. The three series were essentially the same, with the only real difference being the name of the sponsor.

The series alternated weeks in the same time slot with the Goodyear Television Playhouse until both series ended in 1957.

Notable episodes

One of the series' most famous episodes was the first, live-action version, in 1956, of The Stingiest Man in Town, a music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

al adaptation of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

's A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...

, starring Basil Rathbone

Basil Rathbone

Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...

 as Scrooge

Ebenezer Scrooge

Ebenezer Scrooge is the principal character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despises Christmas and all things which give people happiness...

 and Martyn Green

Martyn Green

William Martyn-Green , better known as Martyn Green, was an English actor and singer. He is best known for his work as principal comedian in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas, which he performed and recorded with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and other troupes.After army service in World War I,...

 as Bob Cratchit

Bob Cratchit

Robert "Bob" Cratchit is a fictional character who is the abused, underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol...

. It was the only Alcoa Hour production to be granted an original cast album recording. The Stingiest Man in Town was remade

Remake

A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...

 in 1978 as a Rankin-Bass animated cartoon

Animated cartoon

An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...

, starring the voice of Walter Matthau

Walter Matthau

Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...

 as Scrooge.

The series' premire episode, The Black Wings, marked the U.S TV debut of Ann Todd

Ann Todd

Dorothy Anne Todd was an English actress and producer.She was born in Hartford, Cheshire and was educated at St. Winifrid's School, Eastbourne. She became a popular actress from appearing in such films as Perfect Strangers and The Seventh Veil...

.

The show garnered press in February 1956 for actor Lloyd Bridges

Lloyd Bridges

Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr. was an American actor who starred in a number of television series and appeared in more than 150 feature films. Bridges is best known for his role of Mike Nelson in Sea Hunt, the most-popular syndicated American TV series in 1958...

' emotional performance in an episode titled "Tragedy in a Temporary Town", directed by Sidney Lumet

Sidney Lumet

Sidney Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men , Dog Day Afternoon , Network and The Verdict...

. During the performance, Bridges inadvertently slipped some profanity in while ad-libbing

Ad libitum

Ad libitum is Latin for "at one's pleasure"; it is often shortened to "ad lib" or "ad-lib"...

. Although the slip of the lip generated hundreds of complaints, the episode won a Robert E. Sherwood

Robert E. Sherwood

Robert Emmet Sherwood was an American playwright, editor, and screenwriter.-Biography:Born in New Rochelle, New York, he was a son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the former Rosina Emmet, a well-known illustrator and portrait painter known as Rosina E. Sherwood...

 Television Award, with Bridges' slip being defended even by some members of the clergy. The episode, during which an innocent Puerto Rican man is targeted by a mob for a sexual crime, was cited by the Anti-Defamation League

Anti-Defamation League

The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...

as "the best dramatic program of the year dealing with interethnic group relations."