Hey, here's a half hour show you might even want to watch in full. It's the episode of College Bowl that ran on ABC on January 22, 1951. Like some of you, I thought of College Bowl as that game show Allen Ludden hosted for a while in which students from one college would compete in a test of knowledge against students from some other college. This is not that. This is a half-hour of music of the day, allegedly what kids on campus were dancing to at the time.
It had a team of singing/dancing boys and girls and in this episode, the only one you probably heard of is Andy Williams. There was a bit of a sitcom going on there with Chico Marx playing a character named Chico Ravelli. If the name sounds familiar, Chico's character in Animal Crackers was named Ravelli, his character in Horse Feathers was Baravelli and his character in The Big Store was Ravelli. For a time, he toured with a band and they were billed as Chico Marx and the Ravellis.
Chico Ravelli ran the soda shop in which the series was set and the guy behind the counter was played by Stanley Prager. Mr. Prager had an OK career as an actor but a pretty good one as a director. He directed a number of Broadway plays including Neil Simon's first (Come Blow Your Horn) and Woody Allen's first (Don't Drink the Water) and the infamous Minnie's Boys For a time, he fronted a band called Chico Marx and the Ravellis.
(To be technically accurate, Woody Allen's first Broadway show was a musical revue called From A to Z on which he was one of many writers but it closed after 21 performances so we don't count it.) Prager also directed a lot of touring companies and regional productions and a number of TV dramas plus The Patty Duke Show.
College Bowl ran two seasons and this was from the first season. It was done for a very low budget and kinescopes were later syndicated for years. I hope Chico got some money from them…