This morning while perusing the list of people born on December 1, I noted that among them are Mary Martin (12/1/1913 - 11/3/1990) and Cyril Ritchard (12/1/1897 - 12/18/1977). I find that interesting because she was Peter Pan to his Captain Hook in the musical adaptation of Peter Pan that opened on Broadway in October of 1954 and ran for 152 performances until February, 1955.
In March of 1955, an anthology series called "Producers' Showcase," which NBC used to showcase its color programming, broadcast a 90-minute version of the Broadway hit. Mary flew around on wires, and Cyril was as evil as he could be. I remember watching it, live and in black-and-white (because we didn't have a color TV). I was eight and a half years old at the time, and I thought it was marvelous.
The show was so well received that it was repeated, live, in 1957 and again in 1960. Video tape had been invented by then, and in 1973, NBC decided to show that last performance again. They made a big deal out of it, hyping it for weeks. A friend of mine made a small party out of it, inviting me and a couple other twenty-somethings to watch it at her house and share in the collective nostalgia. Before the show came on, we assembled drinks and snacks and entertained each other with our memories of the original event.
Finally it was time for the show to start. With giddy anticipation we all settled down in front of the tube. After watching about ten minutes of what we unanimously declared to be the hokiest thing we'd ever seen, we turned it off and spent the rest of the evening playing pinochle.
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