Your Hit Parade

Several posts back (Inner Sanctum), I rattled off the names of a few vintage TV shows our family used to watch.  I forgot one of our favorites:Your Hit Parade.  It ran 1950-59, preceded by 15 years of radio broadcasts, hosted by Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and others.  My brothers and I speculated on which song would be numero uno, got it right most of the time.

Allegedly, the TV show featured the 7 most popular songs of the week, based on record sales and play frequency on radio, jukebox, and so on.  I use the term allegedly because the much-touted selection procedure (Authentic Tabulation!) was never divulged, and perhaps wasn't all that authentic.  But that's beside the point.

The show aired on Saturday nights, the songs arranged in countdown mode, and usually sung by one of the 4 regulars pictured above: Dorothy Collins, Gisele MacKenzie, Snooky Lanson, Russell Arms.  Guest vocalists appeared sporadically.    

Rock and roll was the show's demise.  The above-named artists were great with show tunes and big band songs but weren't able to make the transition.  Poor old Snooky botched Elvis' Hound Dog hit so badly- several times - that he was credited with bringing the show to its knees.