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| Watching Mary Martin's "Peter Pan" on TV was a major milestone for young boomers. |
NBC was the first American television network to broadcast in color, in 1954. That is, they broadcast some programs in color, just a handful at first. Most were still black and white. The three principal commercial television networks and their broadcast stations adopted color slowly. The last one to go all-color was ABC in 1966.
But NBC was first and showcased its leadership with a program called “Producers’ Showcase.” It was mostly highbrow stuff, Shakespeare, Coward, other plays, ballets, classical music, and Broadway musicals. It ran for three years, 37 episodes, all in color and all performed live. There were no reruns.
One of their most successful productions, the only one done twice, was “Peter Pan,” a musical spectacular then running on Broadway. Most musicals are identified by the names of their composers, but this “Peter Pan” is indelibly associated with its star, Mary Martin.
The “Producers’ Showcase” presentation of “Peter Pan” was broadcast on March 7, 1955, a Monday.
I was 3 ½ years old.
To say I remember it might be overstatement, but I know I saw it, and loved it, and watched it again ten months later. Like the original, the 1956 broadcast was performed live. Everything was the same. In 1960, they did it one more time. Videotape had been invented by then, so it was recorded, periodically replayed, and eventually released on home video. If you’ve seen it, that’s probably the one you’ve seen. A kinescope of the original 1955 broadcast is available on the free streamer Pluto TV, and probably YouTube and other places.
A kinescope is simply a film, typically 16mm, made by aiming a film camera at a TV monitor. It synchronizes the TV’s frame rate with that of the film camera, but that’s as sophisticated as the technology got. Kinescopes were used to make a record of live programs, but they weren’t intended for rebroadcast, just reference. The quality is poor and although the program was broadcast in color, the kinescope is black and white.
My mother had the 1954 original Broadway cast recording of this “Peter Pan,” a portfolio of 78-RPM records. Each disk contained two songs, one on each side. Although 33 1/3 long-playing (LP) records had been around for a few years, 78s were still being released in 1954.
My mother loved the musical and loved that I loved it. We would listen to the records together and sing along. It’s a happy memory. That production of that musical will always be Peter Pan to me.
I keep saying “that production” and “this version” because there have been a bunch.
The character and story of Peter Pan were created in 1904 by J. M. Barrie, originally as a play. From the beginning the part of Peter, a young boy, was always played by an adult woman. In the original West End production, the “lost boys,” Peter’s crew, were all played by adult women too.
Barrie subsequently reworked the play as a novel. The story and character became very popular and there were many productions and adaptations. Barrie wrote several sequels. The first film version was made in 1924.
Walt Disney started to think about an animated adaptation in 1935. He originally intended it to follow “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” his first feature-length cartoon. He obtained the film rights in 1938. “Pinocchio” took Peter’s place in Disney’s queue, and the project was shelved when WWII began. It finally went into production in 1949 and hit theaters in 1953.
As a kid, I liked the Disney version well enough. I even liked a couple of the songs, but the Mary Martin version will always be my favorite.
While Disney was working on his Pan, Leonard Bernstein was working on his. Bernstein’s version debuted in 1950 with Jean Arthur as Peter and Boris Karloff as Captain Hook. It was a “play with songs,” as opposed to a full musical. It ran for 321 performances, closing in January of 1951. Despite Bernstein’s prominence, his Pan was overshadowed by the Disney cartoon and 1954 musical and is almost completely forgotten today.
In later years it was discovered that Bernstein wrote a full musical, but it was pared down for the 1950 production. That version has since been revived but only in concert form. It hasn’t been restaged.
Coming along after Bernstein and Disney, producer Edwin Lester created his Peter Pan (i.e., my Peter Pan) specifically as a vehicle for Mary Martin, a popular Broadway star. It was originally a play with songs but was reworked into a full musical. It was a huge hit even before the 1955 television broadcast made it legendary.
Unlike “Producers’ Showcase,” most television programs in the 1950s were produced on film. Unlike the crude, 16mm kinescopes this was 35mm film, essentially the same technology as movies. All sitcoms and prime time dramas were made this way. (Daytime soaps were live.) With today’s digital film restoration technology, these films now look incredibly sharp and crisp, like they were made yesterday. This isn’t always a good thing. You can see how cheaply most of the sets were made.
I went down the Peter Pan rabbit hole because I’ve been enjoying another favorite from my childhood, “The Danny Thomas Show,” also known as “Make Room for Daddy.” I recently saw an episode in which Kathy Nolan appears as an aspiring performer seeking Danny’s help. Nolan played Wendy Darling in the Mary Martin “Peter Pan.” She later played Kate McCoy in “The Real McCoys,” so she was all over my childhood.
Another TV icon, Tony Soprano, said, "nostalgia is the lowest form of conversation." Considering the source, nostalgia about old TV shows must be lower still. I’ve seen many changes in my 74 years, in televised entertainment and just about everything else, and will probably see many more before I go. One of the pleasures of old age is having lived through and experienced a lot of history first hand.
Sorry, but that’s as profound as I can manage at the moment.
