Dinah Shore Chevy Show, The

In 1956, Dinah Shore began a one hour program on NBC, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show. The program was extremely popular, and its theme song "See the USA in your Chevrolet . . ." always ending with Shore's famous farewell kiss to the television audience, remain television icons. The high production values of her 15-minute program continued on the 60-minute show. The lineup usually contained two or three guests drawn from the worlds of music, sports, and movies. Shore was able to make almost any performer feel comfortable and could bring together such unlikely pairings as Frank Sinatra and baseball star Dizzy Dean.

The Dinah Shore Chevy Show was produced in Burbank, California by Bob Banner who also directed each episode. The choreographer was Tony Charmoli who occasionally danced on camera. Often the production numbers took advantage of special visual effects. For "76 Trombones," Banner used prisms mounted in front of the television cameras to turn 12 musicians into several dozen. The number was so popular that it was repeated on two subsequent occasions. For "Flim Flam Floo," Banner used the chromakey so that objects appeared and disappeared, and actors floated through the air without the aid of wires. In his review of the opening show of 1959, Jack Gould called the program "a spirited and tuneful affair." Miss Shore, he wrote "sang with the warmth and infectious style that are so distinctly her own," and he judged that she "continues to be the best dressed woman in television."