Sam and Friends

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Sam and Friends
Titlecard for Sam and Friends which was used around the late 1950s to 1961.
Created by	Jim Henson Jane Nebel
Starring	Jim Henson Jane Nebel Bob Payne Jerry Juhl
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	1,000 +
Production
Running time	5 minutes per sketch (and episode)
Original release
Network	WRC-TV (NBC O&O in Washington, D.C.)
Release	May 9, 1955 (1955-05-09) – December 15, 1961 (1961-12-15)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

Sam and Friends is an American live-action and puppet sketch comedy television series and a lead-in to The Tonight Show created by puppeteer Jim Henson and his eventual wife Jane Nebel. It was aired live twice daily as a local series in Washington, D.C., on WRC-TV in black and white, and later color^{[citation needed]}, on weeknights from May 9, 1955, to December 15, 1961. However, most of the original episodes were never recorded, and are considered lost. A few surviving episodes can be viewed at the Paley Center for Media but many can also be found on video websites like YouTube,^[1][2] such as those digitally archived by The Jim Henson Company. Some have been documented by either the Henson Archives or newspaper articles published while the show was still on air.