Action in the Afternoon

Action in the Afternoon is an American Western television series that aired live on CBS from February 2, 1953, to January 29, 1954. The series originated from the studios and back lot of WCAU, Channel 10 in Philadelphia, and was broadcast Monday through Friday regardless of the weather. The half-hour series aired variously at 3:30 pm or 4:00 pm, throughout its run.

Action in the Afternoon
Genre
Created byCharles Vanda
Written by
  • Leslie Urbach
  • William R. Cox
  • Dean Owens
  • John Fleming
  • Don Prindle
  • Clair Roskam
  • Richard Strome
Directed by
  • Bill Bode
  • John Ullrich
Starring
Narrated byBlake Ritter
Opening themeAaron Copland, Billy the Kid (Ballet Suite)
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
Production
Executive producers
  • Hubbell Robinson
  • Harry Omerle
ProducerDon Lenox
Production locationPhiladelphia
Cinematography
  • Dan Falzani
  • Ed Harper
Camera setupMulti-camera
Running time30 minutes
Release
Original networkCBS
Original releaseFebruary 2, 1953 (1953-02-02) –
January 29, 1954 (1954-01-29)

The show starred singing cowboy Jack Valentine, who was backed up by the Tommy Ferguson Trio. Other characters included Jack's sidekick Ozzie, Sheriff Ace Bancroft, and Kate, who published the Huberle Record.[1] Red Cotton ran the local saloon, the Copper Cup.[2] The show could be very violent; the premiere left one character dead and one wounded.[1]

Production

While ad-libbing his pitch for the series to the executives at CBS, vice-president Charles Vanda set the story in the fictional town of Huberle, Montana, a name derived from CBS executives Hubbell Robinson and Harry Omerle.[3]

Action in the Afternoon is the only live daily western to appear on network television in the United States.[4] Other live westerns existed, however Action in the Afternoon was the only one that did not include prerecorded film segments in the program.[5] If things moved along too fast, or actors needed time to move between the indoor and outdoor sets, the time would be filled by Jack Valentine singing with the Tommy Ferguson Trio playing along.

The outdoor sets included a general store, a bank, a blacksmith shop, the Copper Cup saloon, and six stagecoaches.[1]

Because the program was live and outdoors, music director Richard Lester (later to direct two Beatles movies) made every effort to hide the sounds of the world beyond the back lot. The sounds of airplanes overhead and trucks backfiring as they drove past the studio were covered with appropriate music. However, during one particular broadcast a very loud unscripted sound was heard, and was soon discovered to be a horse biting one of the many microphones hidden around the outdoor set.[3][5]

Only a few video episodes of Action in the Afternoon remain. They can be viewed at The Paley Center for Media in New York City. One episode can be streamed or downloaded at the Internet Archive.

John Zacherle, who appeared on the show, described it in an interview: "It was a half-hour every afternoon, five days a week. It was really very exciting. The show was set in, I seem to recall, Hubberly, Montana, [sic] in the 1880s. They built a lot of outdoor scenery, just false-front buildings, so you could ride in on a horse, and it looked like a town. They'd ride horses outside the studio, and then if there was a shootout, they'd scramble to get inside the studio. There was a barroom, a doctor's office. They had a horseshoe man, a newspaper man, a lady who ran the bar. They were the regulars. But every week, some stranger would come to town -- mostly nasty people who were trying to steal something. By Friday, the stranger would either end up in jail or chased out of town... or married. Ha ha! Then on Monday, another stranger would come into town, and they'd start all over again."[6]

Reception

Three weeks into the broadcast, Time wrote that the "dialogue limps even more obviously than the camera" and that the series is "an experiment that needs a lot more work."[7]

References
  1. Hyatt, Wesley (1997). The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television. Watson-Guptill Publications. p. 6. ISBN 978-0823083152. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  2. Woolery, George W. (1985). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946-1981, Part II: Live, Film, and Tape Series. The Scarecrow Press. pp. 10–11. ISBN 0-8108-1651-2.
  3. "Action in the Afternoon". Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia. 2005. Archived from the original on 5 July 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-10.
  4. Marill, Alvin H. (2011). Television Westerns: Six Decades of Sagebrush Sheriffs, Scalawags, and Sidewinders. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-8133-4. Retrieved January 21, 2020.
  5. "The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia". Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia. 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-10.
  6. Vogel, Mark (2016). Monster Mash: The Creepy, Kooky Monster Craze in America 1957-1972. Raleigh, NC: TwoMorrows Publishing. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-1-60549-064-9.
  7. "The New Shows". Time. 1953-02-23. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-10.
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