Best movies & TV Shows like Howdy Doody

Amen is an American television sitcom produced by Carson Productions that ran from September 27, 1986 to May 11, 1991 on NBC. Set in Sherman Hemsley's real-life hometown of Philadelphia, Amen stars Hemsley as the deacon of a church and was part of a wave of successful sitcoms on NBC in the 1980s which featured entirely or almost-entirely black casts. Others included The Cosby Show, A Different World, and 227.

American Dreams is an American television drama program broadcast on the NBC television network, produced by Once A Frog and Dick Clark Productions in association with Universal Network Television and NBC Studios. The series was created by Jonathan Prince and developed by Josh Goldstein and Prince; the latter was also one of the executive producers with Dick Clark. It debuted on September 29, 2002. The show is set mostly in Philadelphia. It initially aired on Sundays at 8:00 pm Eastern time, but moved to the same time on Wednesdays from March 9, 2005, to the third season finale. The show tells the story of the Pryor family of Philadelphia during the mid-1960s. Season one takes place in 1963–64, season two in 1964–65, and season three in 1965–66. The show was known as Our Generation when it debuted in Australia, however it was changed back to American Dreams when it returned for the second season. The theme song "Generation" was written and performed by Emerson Hart, lead singer of the band Tonic. The song earned Hart an ASCAP award for Best Theme Song of Television in 2003. The show was the 2003 TV Land Awards "Future Classic" winner.

The Barbara Stanwyck Show is an American anthology drama television series which ran on NBC from September 1960 to September 1961. Barbara Stanwyck served as hostess, and starred in all but four of the half-hour productions. The four she did not star in were actually pilot episodes of potential series programs which never materialized. Stanwyck won the Emmy Award in 1961 for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Series. Three of the shows in which Stanwyck starred were an attempt at spinning off a dramatic series of her own, in which she appeared as "Josephine Little", an American woman running an import-export shop in Hong Kong. The series, produced at Desilu Studios, was directed by Stuart Rosenberg. The Barbara Stanwyck Show lasted one season. It aired at 10 p.m. Eastern on Mondays opposite Jackie Cooper's military sitcom Hennesey on CBS and the second half of Gardner McKay's Adventures in Paradise on ABC.

Being Ian is a Canadian animated series produced by Studio B Productions, Corus Entertainment and Nelvana, focusing on 12-year-old Ian Kelley, who aspires to become a filmmaker. It originally aired from January 1, 2005 to April 22, 2007. The series is created by and based on the early life of actor/writer Ian James Corlett. It is set in the city of Burnaby, British Columbia. Produced in 2004, it debuted January 4, 2005 on YTV. The series aired in the United States on Qubo from September 19, 2009 - October 24, 2009.

Blue's Clues is an American children's television show that premiered on September 8, 1996 on the cable television network Nickelodeon, and ran for ten years, until August 6, 2006. Producers Angela Santomero, Todd Kessler and Traci Paige Johnson combined concepts from child development and early-childhood education with innovative animation and production techniques that helped their viewers learn. It was hosted originally by Steve Burns, who left in 2002 to pursue a music career, and later by Donovan Patton. Burns was a crucial reason for the show's success, and rumors that surrounded his departure were an indication of the show's emergence as a cultural phenomenon. Blue's Clues became the highest-rated show for preschoolers on American commercial television and was crucial to Nickelodeon's growth. It has been called "one of the most successful, critically acclaimed, and ground-breaking preschool television series of all time". A spin-off called Blue's Room premiered in 2004. The show's producers and creators presented material in narrative format instead of the more traditional magazine format, used repetition to reinforce its curriculum, and structured every episode the same way. They used research about child development and young children's viewing habits that had been conducted in the thirty years since the debut of Sesame Street in the U.S. They revolutionized the genre by inviting their viewers' involvement. Research was part of the creative and decision-making process in the production of the show, and was integrated into all aspects and stages of the creative process. Blue's Clues was the first cutout animation series for preschoolers, and resembled a storybook in its use of primary colors and its simple construction paper shapes of familiar objects with varied colors and textures. Its home-based setting was familiar to American children, but had a look unlike other children's TV shows. A live production of Blue's Clues, which used many of the production innovations developed by the show's creators, toured the U.S. starting in 1999. As of 2002, over 2 million people had attended over 1,000 performances.

Captain Kangaroo was an American children's television series which aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for nearly 30 years, from October 3, 1955 until December 8, 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television program of its day. In 1986, the American Program Service integrated some newly produced segments into reruns of past episodes, distributing the newer version of the series until 1993. The show was conceived and the title character played by Bob Keeshan, who based the show on "the warm relationship between grandparents and children." Keeshan had portrayed the original Clarabell the Clown on The Howdy Doody Show when it aired on NBC. Captain Kangaroo had a loose structure, built around life in the "Treasure House" where the Captain would tell stories, meet guests, and indulge in silly stunts with regular characters, both humans and puppets. The show was telecast live to the East Coast and the Midwest for its first four years and broadcast on kinescope for the West Coast, as Keeshan would not perform the show live three times a day, and was in black-and-white until 1966. The May 17, 1971 episode saw two major changes on the show: The Treasure House was renovated and renamed "The Captain's Place" and the Captain replaced his navy blue coat with a red coat. In September 1981, CBS shortened the hour-long show to a half-hour, briefly retitled it Wake Up with the Captain, and moved it to an earlier time slot; it was later moved to weekends in September 1982, and returned to an hour-long format. It was canceled by CBS at the end of 1984.

The Chica Show is an American animated television series based on the puppetry segments of The Sunny Side Up Show on PBS Kids Sprout, which features the chicken puppet character Chica in full episodic and animated adventures rather than the traditional continuity of Sunny Side Up. The program premiered on November 24, 2012, with a preview episode airing on October 31, 2012. The program began to air as part of the NBC Kids block on Comcast sister network NBC in February 2013, and is fully compliant with E/I regulations. A second season started on July 29, 2013.

H.R. Pufnstuf is a children's television series produced by Sid and Marty Krofft in the United States. It was the first Krofft live-action, life-size puppet program. The seventeen episodes were originally broadcast from September 6, 1969 to December 27, 1969. The broadcasts were successful enough that NBC kept it on the Saturday morning schedule until August 1972. The show was shot in Paramount Studios and its opening was shot in Big Bear Lake, California. Reruns of the show aired on ABC Saturday morning from September 2, 1972 to September 8, 1973 and on Sunday mornings in some markets from September 16, 1973 to September 8, 1974. It was syndicated by itself from 1974 to 1978 and in a package with six other Kroft series under the banner Kroft Superstars from 1978 to 1985. In 2004 and 2007, H.R. Pufnstuf was ranked #22 and #27 on TV Guide's Top Cult Shows Ever.

Inch High, Private Eye is a 1973 Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show originally ran from September 8, 1973, to August 31, 1974, on NBC Saturday morning for 13 episodes. Since the 1980s it has enjoyed resurgence on cable television, in repeats on USA Cartoon Express, Cartoon Network and Boomerang.

Kukla, Fran and Ollie is an early American television show using puppets, originally created for children but soon watched by more adults than children. It did not have a script and was entirely ad-libbed. It aired from 1947 to 1957.

Laramie is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. A Revue Studios production, the program originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, Robert Fuller as Jess Harper, Hoagy Carmichael as Jonesy and Robert L. Crawford, Jr., as Andy Sherman.

Lawman is an American western television series originally telecast on ABC from 1958 to 1962 starring John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop and featuring Peter Brown as Deputy Marshal Johnny McKay. The series was set in Laramie, Wyoming during 1879 and the 1880s. Warner Bros. already had several western series on the air at the time, having launched Cheyenne with Clint Walker as early as 1955. The studio continued the trend in 1957 with the additions of Maverick with James Garner and Jack Kelly, Colt .45 with Wayde Preston, and Sugarfoot with Will Hutchins. One year later, Warner Bros. added Lawman and Bronco with Ty Hardin. Prior to the beginning of production, Russell and Brown and producer Jules Schermer made a pact to maintain the quality of the series so that it would not be seen as "just another western." At the start of season two, Russell and Brown were joined by Peggie Castle as Lily Merrill, the owner of the Birdcage Saloon, and a love interest for Dan.

Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program airing on NBC. It is the longest-running television series in American broadcasting history, despite bearing little resemblance to the original format of the program seen in its television debut on November 6, 1947. Meet the Press is the highest-rated of the American television Sunday morning talk shows. It has been hosted by 11 moderators, beginning with Martha Rountree. The current host is David Gregory, who assumed the role in December 2008. The show began using a new set on May 2, 2010, with video screens and a library-style set with bookshelves, and different, modified intro music, with David Gregory previewing the guests using a large video screen, and with the Meet the Press theme music in a shorter "modernized [style]... the beginning repeated with drum beats". Meet the Press and similar shows specialize in interviewing national leaders on issues of politics, economics, foreign policy and other public affairs. Over the past few years, the program's usual time slot over the NBC network is between 9-10 a.m. local time in most markets, though this may vary by markets due to commitments by affiliates to religious, E/I or local news and public affairs programming. It also varies several weeks in the summer due to morning coverage of French Open tennis or the Monaco Grand Prix by NBC Sports. In earlier years, the program would air at noon every Sunday. The program also re-airs Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m. ET and early Monday mornings at 4 a.m. ET on MSNBC, along with an early Monday morning replay as part of NBC's "All Night" lineup. The program is also distributed to radio stations via syndication by Dial Global, and aired as part of C-SPAN Radio's replay of the Sunday morning talk shows.

Monsters is a syndicated horror anthology series which originally ran from 1988 to 1991 and reran on the Sci-Fi Channel during the 1990s. As of 2011, Monsters airs on NBC Universal's horror/suspense-themed cable channel Chiller in sporadic weekday marathons. In a similar vein to Tales from the Darkside, Monsters shared the same producer, and in some ways succeeded the show. It differed in some respects nonetheless. While Tales sometimes dabbled in stories of science fiction and fantasy, this series was more strictly horror. As the name implies, each episode of Monsters featured a different monster which the story concerned, from the animatronic puppet of a fictional children's television program to mutated, weapon-wielding lab rats. Similar to Tales, however, the stories in Monsters were rarely very straightforward action plots and often contained some ironic twist in which a character's conceit or greed would do him in, often with gruesome results. Adding to this was a sense of comedy often lost on horror productions which might in some instances lighten the audience's mood but in many cases added to the overall eeriness of the production.

NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News, the news division of the NBC television network in the United States, and is the #1-rated newscast in America. NBC Nightly News is produced from Studio 3B at NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City. Since 2015, the broadcast has been anchored by Lester Holt on weeknights, José Díaz-Balart on Saturday and Kate Snow on Sunday. On weeknights, it is broadcast live over most NBC stations from 6:30-7:00 p.m. Eastern and occasionally updated for Pacific Time Zone viewers in a "Western Edition". Its current theme music was composed by John Williams.

Password is an American television game show which was created by Bob Stewart for Goodson-Todman Productions. The host was Allen Ludden, who had previously been well known as the host of the G.E. College Bowl. Password originally aired for 1,555 daytime telecasts each weekday from October 2, 1961 to September 15, 1967 on CBS, along with weekly prime time airings from January 2, 1962 to September 9, 1965 and December 25, 1966 to May 22, 1967. An additional 1,099 daytime shows aired from April 5, 1971 to June 27, 1975 on ABC. The show's announcers were Jack Clark and Lee Vines on CBS and John Harlan on ABC. Two revivals later aired on NBC from 1979–1982 and 1984–1989, followed by a prime time version on CBS from 2008–2009. In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #8 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.

Search for Tomorrow is an American soap opera that premiered on September 3, 1951, on CBS. The show was moved from CBS to NBC on March 29, 1982. It continued on NBC until the final episode aired on December 26, 1986, a run of thirty-five years. At the time of its final broadcast, it was the longest-running non-news program on television. This record would later be broken by Hallmark Hall of Fame, which premiered on Christmas Eve 1951 and still airs occasionally. The show was created by Roy Winsor and was first written by Agnes Nixon for thirteen weeks and, later, by Irving Vendig.

Sherri is an American sitcom starring Sherri Shepherd that ran on Lifetime Television for one season from October 5, 2009 to December 1, 2009. The show is based on Shepherd's life. The first preview of the show aired on September 4, 2009. Sherri was the first comedy series ever to be owned by Lifetime. The network picked up 12 episodes of the program, which were produced in New York by Lifetime Television.

The Snorks is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera which ran on NBC from September 15, 1984, to May 13, 1989. Although not as popular as the animated series The Smurfs, the program continued to be available in syndication from 1986 to 1989 as part of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera's 3rd season, on USA Network in the late-1980s and early-1990s, on the BBC in the late 1990s, and from 2009–2011 and again from 2012–Present on Boomerang.

Space Patrol is a science fiction adventure series that was originally aimed at juvenile audiences of the early 1950s via television, radio, and comic books. However, it soon developed a sizable adult audience such that by 1954, the program consistently ranked in the top 10 shows broadcast on a Saturday.

An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions.

Today is a daily American morning television show that airs on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was the first of its genre on American television and in the world, and is the fifth-longest running American television series. Originally a two-hour program on weekdays, it expanded to Sundays in 1987 and Saturdays in 1992. The weekday broadcast expanded to three hours in 2000, and to four hours in 2007. Today's dominance was virtually unchallenged by the other networks until the late 1980s, when it was overtaken by ABC's Good Morning America. Today retook the Nielsen ratings lead the week of December 11, 1995, and held onto that position for 852 consecutive weeks until the week of April 9, 2012, when it was beaten by Good Morning America yet again. In 2002, Today was ranked #17 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest Television Shows of All Time.

Walt Disney Productions has produced an anthology television series under several different titles since 1954. The original version of the series premiered on ABC, Wednesday night, October 27, 1954. The same basic show has since appeared on several networks, with its latest revival debuting in 2012 on Disney Junior. The show is the second longest showing prime-time program on American television, behind its rival, Hallmark Hall of Fame. However, Hallmark Hall of Fame was a weekly program only during its first five seasons, while Disney remained a weekly program for more than forty years.

Rosie and Jim was a British children's television programme produced by Ragdoll Productions which aired on CITV from 3 September 1990 to 11 December 2000.

The Rosie O'Donnell Show was an American daytime television talk show hosted and produced by actress and comedian Rosie O'Donnell. It aired for six seasons from 1996 to 2002. Topics often discussed on the show include Broadway, children, extended families and charitable works, people and organizations. The show was based out of Studio 8G at NBC's Rockefeller Center studios in New York City, NY, USA and was produced and syndicated by KidRo Productions, Telepictures Productions and Warner Bros. Television.

Old Bear Stories was a BAFTA award winning stop frame animation television series for children based on the Old Bear and Friends books by Jane Hissey. Jane Hissey also created the television series, starting it on 24 September 1993, and creating 3 seasons, which ended on 24 December 1997 with a double-length Christmas special. In all, 41 episodes were made. The series was produced by Ealing Animation and was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV. Episodes have subsequently been repeated on Channel 5 in the UK, and are also broadcast in the United States and other countries worldwide. The show also aired for a short time on the CBC morning children's block in Canada. It also aired in the United States as part of Cartoon Network's Small World show. Episodes of the series were released on VHS by Carlton Video.

Redigo is a 15-week Western dramatic series, set on a New Mexico ranch during the early 1960s, which aired over NBC from September 24 to December 31, 1963. The series features Richard Egan as ranch owner Jim Redigo, Roger Davis as Mike the ranch hand, and Elena Verdugo as Gerry. Don Diamond appeared in four episodes, three as the character Arturo. Redigo was the truncated second half-hour season of the previous one-hour series, Empire, which aired from September 25, 1962, to May 13, 1963. Both programs were placed on the Tuesday evening schedule against CBS's The Red Skelton Show. Redigo also lost out in the ratings to the ABC military sitcom, McHale's Navy, starring Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway. In Redigo, Egan's character Jim Redigo was no longer the manager of the large Garrett Ranch but the owner of his own smaller spread nearby. The half-hour format made it hard for the program to develop complex characters as had been done in the initial one-hour version of the show.

The Robonic Stooges was a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series featuring the characters of The Three Stooges in new roles as clumsy crime-fighting bionic superheroes. It was developed by Norman Maurer and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 10, 1977, to March 18, 1978, on CBS and contained two segments, The Robonic Stooges and Woofer & Wimper, Dog Detectives. The Robonic Stooges originally aired as a segment on The Skatebirds from September 10, 1977, to December 24, 1977, on CBS. When CBS canceled The Skatebirds in early 1978, the trio was given their own half-hour timeslot which ran for 16 episodes.

Presented by Neil Oliver, A History of Scotland is a television series first broadcast in November 2008 on BBC One Scotland and later shown UK-wide on BBC Two during January 2009. The second series began on BBC One Scotland in early November 2009, with transmission at a later point on network BBC Two. Along with the series, BBC Scotland planned a range of radio programmes, a new website, an interactive game, and concerts. The Open University, in collaboration with the BBC, also created a series of audio walks around historic locations in Scotland, with narration from Oliver. In Australia, series one aired on SBS One Sundays at 7:30pm from 6 December 2009 to 3 January 2010. Series two commenced on 24 October 2010 running until 21 November in the same Sunday night Lost Worlds strand. It has since been repeated.

Studio 57 is an American anthology series that was broadcast on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network from September 1954 to September 1955, and in syndication from 1955 to 1956.

Lights Out was an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. Variety gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but Lights Out did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.

Say kids! What time is it? Well, in 1976 it was time for The New Howdy Doody Show! A new generation met Howdy and his friends that year, and now you can enjoy them again! Featuring songs, gags, and the peanut gallery, it's as good as you remember! This is a remake of the original Howdy Doody Show.In the 1970s, "Buffalo Bob" Smith revived the character he'd help create and turn into a true American icon during the 50s, the freckle-faced marionette known as Howdy Doody. Bill LeCornec (who played Chief Thunderbird and the voice of Dilly Dally on the original Puppet Playhouse) joins them as Nicholson Muir, with Marilyn Patch as Happy Harmony.

Muffin the Mule is a puppet character in British television programmes for children. The original programmes featuring the character were presented by Annette Mills, sister of John Mills, and broadcast live by the BBC from their studios at Alexandra Palace from 1946 to 1952. Mills and the puppet continued with programmes that were broadcast until 1955, when Mills died. The series then transferred to ITV in 1956 and 1957. A modern animated version of Muffin appeared on the BBC in 2005. The original mule puppet was created in 1933 by Punch and Judy puppet maker Fred Tickner for husband-and-wife puppeteers Jan Bussell and Ann Hogarth to form part of a puppet circus for the Hogarth Puppet Theatre. The act was soon put away, and the puppet was not taken out again until 1946, when Bussell and Hogarth were working with presenter Annette Mills. Shes named the puppet mule "Muffin", and it first appeared on television in an edition of For The Children broadcast on 20 October 1946.

The Voice of Firestone is a long-running radio and television program of classical music. The show featured leading singers in selections from opera and operetta. Originally titled The Firestone Hour, it was first broadcast on the NBC Radio network on December 3, 1928 and was later also shown on television starting in 1949. The program was last broadcast in 1963.

Early NBC series showcasing compilation films - documentaries made from existing archival footage. Patterned on the successful Victory at Sea, it employed fast-paced editing, music, and narration. Concentrating on public affairs and public life, it steered clear of controversial subjects and enjoyed strong ratings, inspiring many competitors such as Air Power and The Twentieth Century. In later years, however, it would be criticized as superficial in comparison to "serious" documentary and current events programs.