Revue Studios

Revue Studios
Founded	1943
Dissolved	1963 (became Universal Television)
President
Notable Works	Leave It to Beaver Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Jack Benny Program McHale's Navy Tales of Wells Fargo

Revue Studios is the original name of the television production company now known as Universal Television, a unit of NBCUniversal.

History

Revue Studios was founded in 1943 as Revue Productions by MCA (Music Corporation of America) as a producer of live radio programs. Revue's first association with television dates back to the NBC anthology show Armour Theatre, which debuted on that network on September 6, 1950.

Revue was a prolific producer of many classic TV shows for the American networks in the 1950s and early-1960s. Some of the most well-known shows made by Revue were the sitcoms Leave It to Beaver and Bachelor Father, the comedy show The Jack Benny Program, the suspense anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the Western shows Tales of Wells Fargo, Laramie, The Adventures of Kit Carson, Wagon Train and (for its first season) The Virginian, and the crime dramas State Trooper, City Detective and the original Mike Hammer. In 1957, parent company MCA created the dummy company EMKA Ltd., through which it purchased most of the pre-1950 Paramount Pictures theatrical library for TV distribution; one of the Paramount films purchased by EMKA, the 1946 film version of the novel The Virginian, later served as one of the bases for the creation of the Western series of the same name.

In 1958, MCA bought the Universal Studios film lot from Universal Pictures and renamed it, along with their TV production company, as Revue Studios. That same year, Revue introduced its iconic closing logo jingle, a loud orchestral horn fanfare composed and arranged by Stanley Wilson and Juan Garcia Esquivel [1] (a jingle which was later carried over to successor company Universal Television, [2] as well as used by MCA for its syndication division MCA TV [3]). In 1962, MCA dissolved its original talent agency business in order to purchase Universal Pictures and its then-parent company, the American branch of Decca Records, so as to avoid issues with the American antitrust laws of the period. A year after the Decca/Universal acquisition, in 1963, MCA replaced the Revue Studios logo with a modified version of the previous Revue logo replacing the "Filmed in Hollywood at Revue Studios" tag with "Filmed at Universal City" in the same design, then replaced that logo in 1964 with the zooming Universal globe and the title "Filmed at the studios of Universal City"; however, all television shows copyrighted under the Revue Productions name until 1966, when it was officially renamed Universal Television (in its first incarnation).

List of shows produced by Revue Studios

Title	Format	Buyer		Year(s)
The Jack Benny Program	Comedy	CBS		1950–64
		NBC		1964–65
Produced after 1963 by Universal Television
The Adventures of Kit Carson	Western	Syndication		1951–55
Biff Baker, U.S.A.	Adventure	CBS		1952–53
City Detective	Crime drama	Syndication		1953–55
General Electric Theater	Anthology	CBS		1953–62
Meet Mr. McNulty	Sitcom	CBS		1953–55
The Pride of the Family	Sitcom	ABC		1953–55
The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse	Anthology	ABC		1953–55
The Man Behind the Badge	Crime drama	CBS		1953–55
Studio 57	Anthology	DuMont		1954–55
		Syndication		1955–58
Soldiers of Fortune	Adventure	Syndication		1955–57
Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Suspense anthology	CBS		1955–60
		NBC		1960–62
Crusader	Drama	CBS		1955–56
The Rosemary Clooney Show	Variety	NBC		1956–57
State Trooper	Crime drama	Syndication		1956–59
Tales of Wells Fargo	Western	NBC		1957–62
Wagon Train	Western	NBC		1957–62
		ABC		1962–65
Produced after 1963 by Universal Television
M Squad	Crime drama	NBC		1957–60
The Restless Gun	Western	NBC		1957–58
		ABC		1958–59
Leave It to Beaver	Sitcom	CBS		1957–58
		ABC		1958–63
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer	Crime Drama	Syndication		1958–60
Laramie	Western	NBC		1959–63
COronado 9	Crime drama	Syndication		1960–61
Johnny Midnight	Crime Drama	Syndication		1960
The Tall Man	Western	NBC		1960–62
Thriller	Suspense anthology	NBC		1960–62
The Bob Cummings Show	Sitcom	CBS		1961–62
The Virginian	Western	NBC		1962–71
Produced after 1963 by Universal Television
McHale's Navy	Military sitcom	ABC		1962–66
Produced after 1963 by Universal Television
Going My Way	Sitcom	ABC		1962–63

External links

• Revue Studios projects on IMDb