Television: The Lost Programs 2,077 Concepts That Never Became a Series, 1920-1950 (hardback) (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781629337111)

It never made it to the air, but in 1953, Frank Sinatra starred in a proposed private eye series called Blues in the Night. Also not becoming series were adaptations of old time radio programs like The First Nighter, The Witch's Tale and Mandrake the Magician. There were also some strange proposals like Grave Sight (about a young woman who can communicate with spirits) and Suture Girl (about a vigilante who kills criminals, rips them apart, then stitches them back together). There were even prequel series that were meant to explore characters before they became famous, like Amazon (to explore Diana Prince before she became Wonder Woman) and The Graysons, to show Dick Grayson's life before he aligned himself with Batman.

There are over 2,000 such proposals that were conceived but never produced contained within the pages of this book. Not only will you be presented with the concepts, but the performers who were considered for major roles and the producers who were assigned to the projects. This is the first time such a book has been produced covering this rare aspect of television, so much so that they can be considered the lost programs for television, as virtually all the information contained here cannot be found anywhere else, not even the Internet.

In addition to the programs, you'll find credits for actors that are also lost as they appear nowhere else. These include Eva Longoria, Leonardo DiCaprio, Claudette Colbert, Jane Wyman, Cindy Williams, Lou Costello, Tori Spelling. Kyra Sedgwick, Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, Robert Redford, and Drew Barrymore. As for producers, such well known names as Aaron Spelling, George Burns, Anthony E. Zuiker, Jack Wrather, Gene Reynolds, Ivan Tors, J.J. Abrams, Norman Lear, Stephen King and Steven Spielberg are also chronicled here.

To make for an easy approach to all the information contained here, the book has been divided into several chapters; Chapter 1 contains the programs in which actors were cast; Chapter 2 explores the projects assigned to producers; and Chapter 3 is a listing of 150 intriguing ideas that were neither cast or assigned to a producer. It concludes with an Actors Index and a Producers Index.

If you are interested in the shows, actors and producers of a lost period in television's past, the Television: The Lost Programs can provide you with all the information that is possible on a never before covered aspect of television.