Warner Bros. Presents

Warner Bros. Presents is the umbrella title for three series telecast as part of the 1955-56 season on ABC: Cheyenne, a new Western series that originated on Presents, and two based on classic Warner Bros. films, Casablanca and Kings Row.

While neither a critical or popular success, this wheel series is an historically important program. Perhaps most significantly, it is the first television program of any kind made by Warner Brothers. It was also the original home of Cheyenne, the first hour-long television Western series and the first wholly original television series produced by a major Hollywood studio. It also allowed ABC, then a junior player in American television, to secure its first advertising contracts with commercial giants General Electric and tobacco company Liggett & Myers.

Historical background

At first, Warner Bros., like most other Hollywood studios, had seen television as a threat that it wished would disappear. Jack Warner tried to dismiss it as a mere passing fad, but by 1955 it was apparent that this was hardly the case. ABC had approached Warner Bros. about acquiring the rights to broadcast some of its relatively recent theatrical films, which were then not available for television broadcast. Instead, Warner saw a different potential for his company, inspired by ABC's Disneyland. He believed that perhaps television could be used to cross-market upcoming Warner films. Thus he created a...
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