The Buster Keaton Show

(October 4, 1895-February 1, 1966)

By the late 1940s, it seemed Buster Keaton’s career had ended. With the exception of increasingly rare daywork, he’d barely worked in almost 5 years, other than a four week part in a famous Paris based circus in 1947 and prior to that, touring in a summer theater production of The Gorilla in 1941.

But in 1949, comedian Ed Wynn had a variety show on the relatively new broadcast format of television and he invited Keaton to appear on his CBS show, which was televised live only on the West Coast and then recorded on kinescope, then film prints were made and distributed to other parts of the country.(there was no transcontinental broadcast until September, 1951).

“So it was one of the thrills of my life when I got a chance in December of 1949 to do my own weekly TV show on KHJ (KTTV), the “Los Angeles Times” broadcasting station. By then I had almost given up hope of getting another real chance as an actor.”  Buster Keaton

There were two series produced of The Buster Keaton Show, the first series was recorded on kinescope and provided the unseen pristine episodes from February 2 and 23, 1950 both of which are viewed here for or the first since their original air date over 75 years ago. The other seven episodes originated from the second series, which were produced on film.

The series initially received high ratings on the West Coast but the lack of a studio audience response and its laughter (canned laughter didn’t exist) to Keaton’s brilliant physical humor, doomed the series.

These episodes were restored by renowned archivist/preservationist Jeff Joseph and have been digitally upgraded to high resolution.