Kraft Suspense Theatre, an anthology series, was telecast from 1963 to 1965 on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

. Sponsored by Kraft Foods

Kraft Foods

Kraft Foods Inc. is an American confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang...

, it was seen three weeks out of every four and was pre-empted for Perry Como

Perry Como

Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...

's Kraft Music Hall

Kraft Music Hall

The Kraft Music Hall was a popular variety program, featuring top show business entertainers, which aired on NBC radio and television from 1933 to 1971....

specials once monthly. Como's production company, Roncom Films (which stands for "RONnie COMo", Perry's son, who was in his early twenties when this series premiered), also produced Kraft Suspense Theatre. Later syndicated under the title Crisis, it was one of the few suspense series telecast in color at the time. While most of NBC's shows were in color then, all-color network line-ups did not become the norm until the 1966-67 season.

Ben Cooper

Ben Cooper

Ben Cooper is a retired American actor of film and television, who won a Golden Boot award in 2005 for his work in westerns.-Early films:...

, Richard Crenna

Richard Crenna

Richard Donald Crenna was an American motion picture, television, and radio actor and occasional television director. He starred in such motion pictures as The Sand Pebbles, Wait Until Dark, Body Heat, the first three Rambo movies, Hot Shots! Part Deux, and The Flamingo Kid...

, John Forsythe

John Forsythe

John Forsythe was an American stage, television and film actor. Forsythe starred in three television series, spanning four decades and three genres: as single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the sitcom Bachelor Father ; as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend on the crime drama Charlie's...

, Ron Foster

Ron Foster (actor)

Ronald R. Foster, known as Ron Foster , is an American actor, whose longest-running role was as Dr. Charles Grant from 1991-1995 in the defunct CBS soap opera The Guiding Light....

, Brad Johnson, Leslie Nielsen

Leslie Nielsen

Leslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters...

, Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...

, James Whitmore

James Whitmore

James Allen Whitmore, Jr. was an American film and stage actor.-Early life:Born in White Plains, New York, to Florence Belle and James Allen Whitmore, Sr., a park commission official, Whitmore attended Amherst Central High School in Snyder, New York, before graduating from The Choate School in...

, and Michael Winkelman

Michael Winkelman

Michael L. Winkelman was an American child actor best known for his role as Little Luke McCoy from 1957 to 1963 in 157 episodes of the situation comedy television series, The Real McCoys, starring Walter Brennan in the title role of Grandpa Amos McCoy, with Richard Crenna as Luke McCoy, older...

 were among the actors cast on Kraft Suspense Theatre. Some episodes doubled as pilot

Television pilot

A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...

s for potential series; Rapture at Two-Forty was sold to NBC and premiered in the fall of 1965 as Run for Your Life

Run for Your Life (TV series)

Run for Your Life is an American television drama series starring Ben Gazzara as a man with only a short time to live. It ran on NBC from 1965 to 1968. The series was created by Roy Huggins, who had previously explored the "man on the move" concept with The Fugitive.-Synopsis:Gazzara plays lawyer...

. On May 7, 1964, Darryl Richard

Darryl Richard (actor)

Darryl Richard , is a former child actor who appeared on television from 1955 until 1966...

, a supporting actor on The Donna Reed Show

The Donna Reed Show

The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the upper middle class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz appears as her pediatrician husband Alex, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC at 10 pm from September...

, appeared in the episode "Charlie, He Couldn't Kill a Fly".

The 1968 theatrical film Sergeant Ryker

Sergeant Ryker

Sergeant Ryker is a film directed by Buzz Kulik. It stars Lee Marvin and Bradford Dillman. The film was originally broadcast as a two part episode The Case Against Paul Ryker of 1963's Kraft Suspense Theatre. It was released as a feature film in 1968 to captialise on Marvin's popularity from The...

, starring Lee Marvin

Lee Marvin

Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...

, was actually a two-part made-for-television film that first aired on Kraft Suspense Theatre as The Case Against Paul Ryker, which also served as a pilot for the 1966 series Court Martial

Court Martial (TV series)

Court Martial was an ITC Entertainment and Roncom Productions co-production crime drama TV series that premiered in 1966. Set during World War II, the series details the investigations of a Judge Advocate General's office....

, that would air on ABC-TV

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

.

Reruns of the series have been shown on RTV

Retro Television Network

The Retro Television Network is a system of television stations that airs classic television shows as well as more recently produced programs...

 and Antenna TV

Antenna TV

Antenna TV is an American digital broadcast television network, primarily featuring classic television series from the 1950s to the 1990s, along with some feature films. It is owned by Tribune Broadcasting, a division of the Chicago-based Tribune Company...

under the name Suspense Theatre, although many prints of episodes have had the syndicated rerun title "Crisis".