Wide Wide World

For other uses, see Wide Wide World (disambiguation).

Cover of booklet created by NBC to promote Wide Wide World

Wide Wide World is a 1955–1958 90-minute documentary series telecast live on NBC on Sunday afternoons at 4pm Eastern. Conceived by network head Pat Weaver and hosted by Dave Garroway, Wide Wide World was introduced on the Producers' Showcase series on June 27, 1955. The premiere episode, featuring entertainment from the US, Canada and Mexico, was the first international North American telecast in the history of the medium.

It returned in the fall as a regular Sunday series, telecast from October 16, 1955 to June 8, 1958. The program was sponsored by General Motors and Barry Wood was the executive producer. Nelson Case was the announcer.[1] In March 1956, Time magazine reported that it was the highest-rated daytime show on television.[2]

Garroway was the host of the series which featured live remote segments from locations throughout North America and occasional reports on film from elsewhere in the world. The series carried live events into four million households. The October 16 premiere, "A Sunday in Autumn," featured 50 cameras in 11 cities, including a college campus, the fishing fleet at Gloucester, Massachusetts, rainswept streets in Manhattan and Monitor broadcasting in NBC's Radio Central studio. An appearance by Dick Button ice skating at Rockefeller Center was canceled because the rain had washed away the ice, and a curious coverage by a nervous Ted Husing of an attempt by Donald Campbell to break a speed record showed nothing more than his boat, on the other side of the lake, failing to take off. Time reviewed:

Publicity photo from the September 15, 1957 show, The Challenge of Space
NBC's Wide Wide World whisked its audience all over the map. The camera lazed its way down the Mississippi, poked into a New Jersey lane where lovers walked and old men raked autumn leaves, wandered around Gloucester harbor as fishermen mended nets. There were vivid contrasts between the chasm of the Grand Canyon and the topless towers of Rockefeller Center, the swaying wheat fields of Nebraska and the money-conscious hubbub of the Texas State Fair, an underwater ballet from Florida and the overwater speed trials of Donald Campbell's jet racer at Arizona's man-made Lake Mead. Always there was the immediacy of things happening this very minute, but the real brilliancy of Wide World may lie in its avoidance of the TV interview. The only one attempted, at the Texas Fair, proved again that—given a microphone and someone to interview—an announcer can turn any subject into a crashing bore. The words needed in Wide World were supplied by Dave Garroway and kept to a literate minimum.[3]

Other episodes: "New Orleans" (February 2, 1958), "American Theater '58" (March 16, 1958), "Flagstop at Malta Bend" (March 30, 1958) and "The Museum of Modern Art" (April 27, 1958).

  1. ^ Alicoate, Jack, Ed. (1957). The 1957 Radio Annual and Television Year Book. Radio Daily Corp. P. 1196.
  2. ^ "Birth of a Baby", Time, March 5, 1956.
  3. ^ "The Week in Review", Time, October 31, 1955.