Jukebox Jury was an hour-long television series hosted by disc jockey Peter Potter which aired in the 1953

1953 in television

The year 1953 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1953.-Events:*January 19 – 68% of all US television sets were tuned in to I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth to little Ricky....

-54

1954 in television

The year 1954 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1954.-Events:*January 1 – NBC broadcasts the Rose Parade in NTSC color on 21 stations.*January 3 – RAI launched in Italy....

 season on the American Broadcasting Company

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

. It was thereafter syndicated

Television syndication

In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 in 1959.

The program actually began in 1948 in Los Angeles, California on the CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 station KNXT-TV

KCBS

KCBS may refer to:* KCBS-TV, a television station licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States* KCBS-FM, a radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States...

, since KCBS

KCBS

KCBS may refer to:* KCBS-TV, a television station licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States* KCBS-FM, a radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States...

. Five years later, Jukebox Jury went national for one season. The show has been compared to a radio program replete with commercial endorsements and movie previews.

The jury on the program consisted of six usually young lesser-known film stars or minor recording artists who judged the latest releases from the record companies. Among the "jurors" were Barry Sullivan

Barry Sullivan (actor)

Barry Sullivan was an American movie actor who appeared in over 100 movies from the 1930s to the 1980s.Born in New York City, Sullivan fell into acting when in college playing semi-pro football...

, Maureen O'Sullivan

Maureen O'Sullivan

Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was an Irish actress.-Early life:O'Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents Mary Lovatt and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in The Connaught Rangers who served in The Great War...

, and Jane Powell

Jane Powell

Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens...

. Mike Connors

Mike Connors

Mike Connors is an American actor best known for playing detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series, Mannix. Before that, he had played a crime-fighting investigator, wielding a .38 handgun hidden in his back, in another CBS series, Tightrope.-Early life:Connors was born Krekor Ohanian in...

, long before Tightrope

Tightrope (TV series)

Tightrope is an American crime drama series that aired on CBS from September 1959 to September 1960. Produced by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene in association with Screen Gems, the series stars Mike Connors as an undercover agent named "Nick" who was assigned to infiltrate criminal gangs...

and Mannix

Mannix

Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is a private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors...

, appeared on an early KNXT episode under the name "Touch" Connors. Once the program was added to the network schedule, many who appeared as jurors to yell "Hit" or "Miss" at each song selection were already or later well-known entertainers, having included: Steve Allen

Steve Allen

Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...

, Walter Brennan

Walter Brennan

Walter Brennan was an American actor. Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on three separate occasions, which is currently the record for most wins.-Early life:...

 (four years before The Real McCoys

The Real McCoys

The Real McCoys is an American situation comedy co-produced by Danny Thomas' "Marterto Productions", in association with Walter Brennan and Irving Pincus's "Westgate" company...

), Lloyd Bridges

Lloyd Bridges

Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr. was an American actor who starred in a number of television series and appeared in more than 150 feature films. Bridges is best known for his role of Mike Nelson in Sea Hunt, the most-popular syndicated American TV series in 1958...

, Ann B. Davis

Ann B. Davis

Ann Bradford Davis is an American television actress.Davis achieved prominence for her role in The Bob Cummings Show for which she twice won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series...

 (prior to The Bob Cummings Show

The Bob Cummings Show

The Bob Cummings Show is an American sitcom starring Robert "Bob" Cummings which was produced from January 2, 1955 to September 15, 1959, and originally sponsored by R.J. Reynolds' Winston cigarettes...

), Elinor Donahue (a year before the premiere of Father Knows Best

Father Knows Best

Father Knows Best is an American radio and television comedy series which portrayed a middle class family life in the Midwest. It was created by writer Ed James in the 1940s.-Radio:...

), Zsa Zsa Gabor

Zsa Zsa Gabor

Zsa Zsa Gabor is a Hungarian-born American stage, film and television actress.She acted on stage in Vienna, Austria, in 1932, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that...

, Dean Martin

Dean Martin

Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...

, Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen

Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...

 (five years before Wanted: Dead or Alive), Jayne Meadows

Jayne Meadows

-Early life:Jayne Meadows was born as Jayne Cotter in Wu-ch'ang, in Heilongjiang, China, to Episcopal missionary parents, the Rev. Francis James Meadows Cotter and his wife, the former Ida Miller Taylor, who had married in 1915. Meadows is the older sister of the late actress Audrey Meadows. She...

, Johnny Mercer

Johnny Mercer

John Herndon "Johnny" Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He is best known as a lyricist, but he also composed music. He was also a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as those written by others...

, Sal Mineo

Sal Mineo

Salvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. , was an American film and theatre actor, best known for his performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause...

, Leslie Nielsen

Leslie Nielsen

Leslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters...

, Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds

Debbie Reynolds is an American actress, singer, and dancer.She was initially signed at age 16 by Warner Bros., but her career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her a small, but significant part in the film Three Little Words , then signed her to...

, Mamie Van Doren

Mamie Van Doren

Mamie Van Doren is an American actress and singer; who rose to popularity as Universal Pictures's version of 20th Century Fox's Marilyn Monroe....

, Robert Wagner

Robert Wagner

Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...

, and Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood, born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko was an American film and television actress. After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.Wood began acting in movies at the...

. Dick Clark used this listen-and-comment technique from persons in his audience on a reduced scale with his later long-running Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

-based ABC series, American Bandstand

American Bandstand

American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...

.

Jukebox Jury aired at 9:30pm on Sundays, preceding Billy Graham

Billy Graham

William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian evangelist. As of April 25, 2010, when he met with Barack Obama, Graham has spent personal time with twelve United States Presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for...

's Hour of Decision spiritual program. The program was somewhat similar to NBC's half-hour Judge for Yourself

Judge for Yourself

Judge for Yourself, at first subtitled The Fred Allen Show, is an unconventional Mark Goodson and Bill Todman quiz and audience participation television program, with comedian Fred Allen as the emcee. It aired on NBC from August 18, 1953, to May 11, 1954...

, which aired that same season, starring Fred Allen

Fred Allen

Fred Allen was an American comedian whose absurdist, topically pointed radio show made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio.His best-remembered gag was his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny, but it...

 and Dennis James

Dennis James

Dennis James was an American television personality, actor, and announcer. He is credited as the host of television's first network game show, the DuMont Network's Cash and Carry in 1946...

.