The Adventures of Tugboat Annie

1957 - United Kingdom, Canada

Anglo-Canadian sitcom about Annie Brennan, the fog-horn voiced captain of the Narcissus, a tugboat based in a harbour on the Pacific North West of America. Her main preoccupation was getting the better of fellow skipper Horatio Bullwinkle and the two spent most of their time trading insults although deep down they were really friends and shared many adventures together. Tugboat Annie first appeared in Norman Reilly Raine's short stories that appeared in the weekly US journal Saturday Evening Post in the late 1920s.

In 1933 a movie was made which starred Marie Dressler as Annie and Wallace Beery as Bullwinkle. Tugboat Annie Sails Again appeared in 1940 and Captain Tugboat Annie in 1945. In each movie Annie was portrayed by a different actress. The independent US production company TPA (Television Programs of America) commissioned a series in 1954 but the pilot was beset with problems; taking two years to complete and costing a then record $129,000.

Among the favoured stars to play the lead role was the original Bride of Frankenstein; Elsa Lanchester. When the series was finally made (by Normandie Productions, Inc. a Canadian subsidiary of TPA) former opera singer Minerva Urecal was cast as Annie and Walter Sande as Bullwinkle. Annie's deckhands were Whitey and Pinto (Don Baker and Don Orlando) while Bullwinkle was supported by Jake (James Barron). Filmed in Ontario, Canada for US Syndication and Associated Rediffusion in the UK.

Published on November 26th, 2018. Written by Laurence Marcus for Television Heaven.

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Play and Single Dramas

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November 27th, 2018

BBC hobby programme for children.

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December 10th, 2018

British-produced anthology series along similar lines to Douglas Fairbanks Presents; both were made to cash in on the growing US and British television markets.

The Abbott & Costello Show (1951)

November 26th, 2018

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Educating Archie (1958)

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As strange as it may seem now, Archie Andrews was a ventriloquists dummy that first hit the big time on Radio!

About the Home (1951)

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Long-running 1950s afternoon programme designed to help women improve their domestic skills with tips on everything they could wish to know about from cookery to soft furnishings and needlework to bringing up baby and doing their own DIY.

Annie Oakley (1954)

November 27th, 2018

Television's first Western heroine was played by Gail Davis and co-starred Brad Johnson as Deputy Sheriff Lofty Craig and Jimmy Hawkins, as Annie's brother, Tagg.

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