The Gabby Hayes Show

The Gabby Hayes Show is a general purpose western television series in which the film star and Roy Rogers confidant, George "Gabby" Hayes, narrated each episode, showed clips from old westerns, or told tall tales for a primarily children's audience. The first Hayes program ran on NBC at 5:15 p.m. Eastern for fifteen minutes three times per week and preceded the puppet series, Howdy Doody. It aired from December 11, 1950, to January 1, 1954. The second version was a half-hour broadcast on Saturday mornings, carried for only thirteen weeks from May 12 to July 14, 1956, on ABC. The show was sponsored by Quaker Oats' puffed cereals, which were "shot from guns". As was common at the time, the host delivered the commercial. This often included Hayes firing a small cannon loaded with the cereal at the camera, while warning the viewers to "Watch out for your televisionary sets!" The floor manager for the show was Fred Rogers until 1953 when he left NBC to start working in public television.