ABC's Wide World of Entertainment
| ABC's Wide World of Entertainment | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Variety |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | American Broadcasting Company |
| Original release | January 8, 1973 – January 10, 1976 |
ABC's Wide World of Entertainment is a late night block of programs created by the American Broadcasting Company. It premiered on January 8, 1973 and ended three years later.[1]
Program schedule
Unable to find a single talk show to compete with NBC's highly successful Tonight Show, the network aired a collection of comedy specials, documentaries, mystery movies, music concerts and talk shows with a variety of hosts.[2] Included in the broadcasts were The Dick Cavett Show, Jack Paar Tonite, Good Night America (with Geraldo Rivera), the live concert series In Concert, the UK-originated anthology series Thriller, and Comedy News (with Robert Klein, Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory).[3] Initially, Paar, Cavett, comedy specials and mystery movies were each given one week per month. Two nights of music concerts, broadcast every other Friday on weeks where specials or movies were broadcast, completed the monthly schedule.[4]
Monty Python broadcast
Monty Python's Flying Circus, the British comedy sketch television series, taped its last episode in December 1974 and was syndicated to American public television stations soon after. On October 3, 1975, ABC aired the first of two edited compilations of sketches from the series as one of its Wide World of Entertainment comedy specials. The Python group represented by Terry Gilliam, the group's only American-born member, sued ABC for copyright infringement.[5]
ABC Late Night
The comedy and variety specials proved to be unpopular and, along with most of the talk shows, were dropped by the summer of 1974. They were replaced with reruns of television movies and the programming block was retitled ABC Late Night on January 12, 1976. In addition to movies (which were seen under the Tuesday Movie of the Week banner), the network aired a variety of prime-time series reruns including Police Woman, Mannix, Starsky and Hutch, Soap, Barney Miller and Fantasy Island. ABC Late Night ended on October 21, 1982.
References
- ↑ Terrace, Vincent (1981). Television 1970-1980. San Diego: A.S. Barnes and Company. ISBN 0-498-02577-2.
- ↑ Brooks, Tim & Marsh, Earle (2007). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present (9th ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-49773-4.
- ↑ Terrace, Vincent (1976). The Complete Encyclopedia of Television Programs 1947-1976 (Vol. 1). South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes and Company. ISBN 0-498-01561-0.
- ↑ "Show Business: ABC's Potpourri." (February 26, 1973). Time Magazine. Retrieved 2011-03-24.
- ↑ http://www.law.uconn.edu/homes/swilf/ip/cases/gilliam.htm