| Kraft Television Theatre | |
|---|---|
 Ed Begley, Everett Sloane and Richard Kiley in Rod Serling's Patterns on Kraft Television Theatre (1955) | |
| Also known as | Kraft Mystery Theatre |
| Genre | Anthology drama |
| Narrated by | Ed Herlihy (1947-55) Charles Stark (1955) |
| Theme music composer | Norman Cloutier |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 11 |
| No. of episodes | 650 |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 48–52 minutes |
| Production companies | J. Walter Thompson Agency Talent Associates |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC |
| Release | May 7, 1947 – October 1, 1958 |
| Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) | |
Kraft Television Theatre is an American anthology drama television series running from 1947 to 1958. It began May 7, 1947 on NBC, airing at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday evenings until December of that year. It first promoted MacLaren's Imperial Cheese, which was advertised nowhere else.[1] In January 1948, it moved to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, continuing in that timeslot until 1958. Initially produced by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, the live hour-long series offered television plays with new stories and new characters each week,[2] in addition to adaptations of such classics as A Christmas Carol and Alice in Wonderland. The program was broadcast live from Studio 8-H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, currently the home of Saturday Night Live.
Beginning October 1953, ABC added a separate series (also titled Kraft Television Theatre), created to promote Kraft's new Cheez Whiz product. This series ran for sixteen months, telecast on Thursday evenings at 9:30 p.m., until January 1955. After Kraft cancelled the second show, the second show changed its sponsor to become Pond's Theatre on ABC-TV from March 1955, while the original Kraft Theatre continued on NBC-TV.
- ^ Kraft Foods profile, from AdAge
- ^ Griffith, Benjamin (2002). "Kraft Television Theatre". St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture. Thomas Gale. Archived from the original on 2008-02-17. Retrieved 2008-07-19.