The morning movie was once a daily staple of many local television stations from the 1950s to the late 1960s, before the rise of the many morning talk shows that are now seen nationally. A local affiliate would be given a certain amount of time (often ninety minutes) to fill television screens with their own shows, and a simple solution was the showing of an old film in that time slot. Since the slot was relatively brief in comparison to prime time

Prime time

Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...

, shorter movies running anywhere from 71 to 85 minutes would usually be shown, and longer films would be split in half over two days. A morning movie would often be scheduled anywhere from 9:00 A.M. to 10:30 A.M., just after a network program such as Captain Kangaroo

Captain Kangaroo

Captain Kangaroo is a children's television series which aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for nearly 30 years, from October 3, 1955 until December 8, 1984, making it the longest-running children's television program of its day...

had ended, and before the local noon newscasts.

Local affiliates which showed network game show

Game show

A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

s such as Concentration

Concentration (game show)

Concentration was an American TV game show based on the children's memory game of the same name. Matching cards represented prizes that contestants could win...

or Hollywood Squares

Hollywood Squares

Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The "board" for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants...

usually did not show a morning movie.