The Troubleshooters is an American 26-segment half-hour adventure series starring Keenan Wynn as Kodiak and Bob Mathias as Frank Dugan. The show aired on NBC Television from September 11, 1959, to April 10, 1960. Based on events at international construction sites, the program was directed by Robert Altman early in his career. It was the first TV series offered by United Artists. It starred Chet Allen as Slats, Roland "Bob" Harris as Jim, Bob Fortier as Scotty, and stunt actor Carey Loftin as Skinner. Forrest Compton also appeared in two episodes as Davis.
Seven Color Mask (七色仮面, Nanairo Kamen) is the name and title character of a tokusatsu TV series, later called New Seven Color Mask (新七色仮面, Shin Nanairo Kamen). It was created by Kōhan Kawauchi, who also created Moonlight Mask. This B&W TV show was the first superhero TV series by Toei Company Ltd. It was broadcast on NET (now TV Asahi) from June 3, 1959 to June 30, 1960, with a total of 57 episodes divided into 7 segments. Aside from being Toei's first TV superhero show, this series was also the debut of actor Sonny Chiba, who was 19 at the time, who took over the title role from Susumu Namijima after Episode 32.
Clutch Cargo is an animated television series produced by Cambria Productions and syndicated beginning on March 9, 1959. Notable for its very limited animation, yet imaginative stories, the series was a surprise hit at the time, and could be seen on 65 stations nationwide in 1960.
This animated series was broadcast in Italy in syndication in the early 1980s with two different titles: Tre contro tutti and Clutch Cargo.
The Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black-and-white, half-hour episodes. "The Rifleman" aired on ABC from September 30, 1958 to April 8, 1963 as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first prime time series to have a widowed parent raise a child.
Naked City is a police drama series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture of the same name, and mimics its dramatic “semi-documentary” format.
In 1997, the episode “Sweet Prince of Delancey Street” was ranked #93 on TV Guide’s “100 Greatest Episodes of All Time”.
Rescue 8 is a syndicated American action drama series about Los Angeles County Fire Department Rescue Squad 8. It premiered in 1958 and originally ran for two seasons with syndicated reruns continuing for almost a decade thereafter. It starred Jim Davis as fireman Wes Cameron, much later cast as Jock Ewing on CBS's Dallas, and Lang Jeffries as the fireman Skip Johnson. Nancy Rennick and Mary K. Cleary each appeared in twenty-four episodes as Patty Johnson and Susan Johnson, the wife and daughter, respectively of Skip Johnson. The series was produced by Screen Gems, with directors Dann Cahn and William Witney. Rescue 8 produced seventy-four half-hour episodes.
The real Los Angeles County Fire Department Station 8 is at 7643 West Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, California. Rescue 8 shows more physically oriented rescues than the later, similar television series Emergency!, as firemen were not then trained as paramedics but acquired the expanded role in the early 1970s.
The Adventures of William Tell is a British swashbuckler adventure series, first broadcast on the ITV network in 1958, and produced by ITC Entertainment.
Northwest Passage is a 26-episode half-hour adventure television series produced by Metro Goldwyn Mayer about Major Robert Rogers during the time of the French and Indian War. The show derived its title and the main characters Rogers, Towne, and Marriner from the 1937 novel of the same name by Kenneth Roberts, and from the 1940 MGM feature film based on the novel. The scope of the novel was much broader than that of the series, and the second half of the book included an historically based attempt by Rogers to find a water route through North America as a "passage" to the Pacific Ocean. This attempt, lending its name to the novel and used by Roberts as a metaphor for the questing human spirit, is referenced in the first episode.
One of the earlier series telecast in color, Northwest Passage aired new episodes on NBC from September 14, 1958, to March 13, 1959. Keith Larsen played the lead role; Buddy Ebsen, later the star of CBS's The Beverly Hillbillies and Barnaby Jones, appeared as Sergeant Hunk Marriner, and Do
Wanted: Dead or Alive is an American Western television series starring Steve McQueen as the bounty hunter Josh Randall. It aired on CBS for three seasons from 1958–61. The black-and-white program was a spin-off of a March 1958 episode of Trackdown, a 1957–59 western series starring Robert Culp. Both series were produced by Four Star Television in association with CBS Television.
The series launched McQueen into becoming the first television star to cross over into comparable status on the big screen.
Moonlight Mask (aka Gekko Kamen), is a black and white tokusatsu TV drama series, produced by the advertising agency Senkosha and was aired on KRTV (now TBS) from February 24, 1958 to July 5, 1959, with a total of 130 (or 131) episodes, divided into 5 segments.
Since the original show, Gekko Kamen has gained the popularity of being the first Japanese live action television superhero, appearing in films and TV shows well past the length of the original series.
Ivanhoe is a British television series first shown on ITV in 1958-59. The show features Roger Moore in his first starring role, as Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, in a series of adventures aimed at a children's audience. The characters were drawn loosely from Sir Walter Scott's 1819 novel.
Sea Hunt is an American adventure television series that aired in syndication from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in syndication for decades afterwards. The series originally aired for four seasons, with 155 episodes produced. It stars Lloyd Bridges as ex-Navy frogman Mike Nelson, and was produced by Ivan Tors.
New York City policewoman Casey Jones' assignment to fight crime often entails her going undercover in some of the seediest and most dangerous parts of the city. Decoy is a groundbreaking American crime drama television series created for syndication and initially broadcast from October 14, 1957, to July 7, 1958, with thirty-nine 30-minute black-and-white episodes. It was the first American police series with a female protagonist. Many Decoy episodes are in the public domain.