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Here's something that you don't see anywhere on television anymore, a program featuring people who actually know about something (in this case art and archaeology) examining artifacts and going through the process of figuring out what they are. We the viewers may actually learn something about art and history, but also see the process of detailed critical analyses and reasoned inquiry, in other words we might actually learn how to think for ourselves, not just get information fed like pablum, and actually be entertained at the same time.

Broadcast out of WCAU in Philadelphia, and run on the CBS Television Network through the early 50's, this Peabody Award Winning Show was hosted by Dr Froelich Rainey from the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and other experts like Dr. Carleton Coon and Jacques Lipschitz, this episode is also neat because Vincent Price is the special guest and he shows off his own expertise in art and history as well. If people talking in long, complete sentences in more than three-letter words bores you, don't bother (and don't bother me), but if you're like me and wish that even Public Television was this intelligent these days, this will be a wonderful nostalgic look at the days when even the commercial networks made an effort to actually educate the public. And the creepy old live television way they introduce the artifacts is fun:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ut5Fe5a2dM



RICHARD M ROBERTS

Once upon a time television was very diverse. Literally something for everyone.
OMNIBUS ran on the weekends. And Sunday afternoon always aired some two hour grand opera
or classical music concert -- that is until then NFL grabbed all of our attention.
(And I am of guilty of that...although less so with each passing year)

I has just turned 13 when I moved away from the Philadelphia television area in 1963, and I remember this show well, so it must have continued broadcasting into the early '60s. It was fascinating, or to me at least, with its Sherlock Holmesian approach to identifying ancient objects, with the big reveal coming at the end. Or at least that's how I remember it; I'll have to view this episode tonight to see if it lives up to my youthful memories.

Tom Reeder

I remember it well as well. Of course it wasn't my favorite program as a kid, but back in the day you watched what was on, not what you wanted. And we LIKED it!

BTW, interesting that it is NOT announced by John Facenda, but 1954 may have pre-dated his tenure.

Yes, we watched what was ON, not what we wanted, since I shared a home with six other Nosy Parkers.
It was a red-lettered day when the folks got a color TV in the mid-Sixties. I didn't care about color (besides Disney's Wonderful World of Color), but it meant that we now had a spare set in the house.
And L&H aired twice a week back then....