The Chesterfield Supper Club
The Chesterfield Supper Club is an NBC Radio musical variety program (1944–1950), which was also telecast by NBC Television (1948–1950).
Genre
Musical variety
- 15 minute (1944–1948)
- 30 minutes (1949–1950)
USA
The Chesterfield Supper Club
- Martin Block (1944–1950)
- (1947 from Hollywood)[1][2]
- Mel Allen (1947 from New York)[2]
- Ben Grauer (1948)[3][4]
December 11, 1944 –
1950
"Smoke Dreams"
"A Cigarette, Sweet Music and You"
Television[edit]
The Chesterfield Supper Club appeared as a simulcast on NBC Television, beginning Christmas Eve, 1948, with a live performance by Perry Como.[26] This was the beginning of Como's long-standing tradition of television Christmas specials.
Initially, NBC had intended to broadcast three Friday night Supper Club shows on television as well as radio. The experiment had gone well enough for NBC to extend the experimental phase of televising The Chesterfield Supper Club through August 1949.[26][27][28][29]
On September 8, 1949, Supper Club became a regularly scheduled television program.[5] This series was the first of four regular primetime musical variety TV series hosted by Perry Como. He continued to host The Chesterfield Supper Club until 1950, when he moved to CBS and the NBC series ended. However, his association with Chesterfield continued with the Perry Como Chesterfield Show until 1955, when he returned to NBC.[30][31][32]