The Greatest Show on Earth is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 drama series

Dramatic programming

Dramatic programming in the UK, or television drama and television drama series in the US, is television program content that is scripted and fictional along the lines of √a traditional drama. This excludes, for example, sports television, television news, reality show and game shows, stand-up...

 starring Jack Palance

Jack Palance

Jack Palance , was an American actor. During half a century of film and television appearances, Palance was nominated for three Academy Awards, all as Best Actor in a Supporting Role, winning in 1991 for his role in City Slickers.-Early life:Palance, one of five children, was born Volodymyr...

 about the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

, which aired on ABC

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...

 from September 17, 1963, to April 28, 1964. It was produced by Desilu, the production company founded by Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball

Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...

 and Desi Arnaz, Sr.

Desi Arnaz

Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is probably best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series I Love Lucy, starring with Lucille Ball, to...

.

Synopsis

Palance portrayed Johnny Slate, the circus manager, who became involved in the personal lives of the circus performers. Stuart Erwin

Stuart Erwin

Stuart Erwin was an American actor. Erwin began acting in college in the 1920s, first appearing on the stage, then breaking into films in 1928 in Mother Knows Best...

 played Otto King in five episodes.Buck Taylor

Buck Taylor

Walter Clarence "Buck" Taylor, III is an American actor and water color artist best known for his role as gunsmith-turned-deputy Newly O'Brien in 113 episodes during the last eight seasons of CBS's Gunsmoke television series . In recent years, he has painted the portrait of his friend and Gunsmoke...

 appeared in two episodes as Joe.

The Greatest Show on Earth faced competition from two comedy programs on CBS: Petticoat Junction

Petticoat Junction

Petticoat Junction is an American situation comedy produced by Filmways which originally aired on CBS from 1963 to 1970. The series is one of three interrelated shows about rural characters created by Paul Henning; the others are The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres.The setting for the series...

, Edgar Buchanan

Edgar Buchanan

Edgar Buchanan was an American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s...

's burgeoning spin-off

Spin-off (media)

In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...

 of The Beverly Hillbillies

The Beverly Hillbillies

The Beverly Hillbillies is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for nine seasons on CBS from 1962 to 1971, starring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer, Jr....

, and the long-running The Jack Benny Program

The Jack Benny Program

The Jack Benny Program, starring Jack Benny, is a radio-TV comedy series that ran for more than three decades and is generally regarded as a high-water mark in 20th-century American comedy.-Cast:*Jack Benny - Himself...

. NBC aired The Richard Boone Show

The Richard Boone Show

The Richard Boone Show is a short-lived, award-winning anthology television series. It aired on NBC during the 1963-64 season.-Synopsis:Richard Boone hosted the series and starred in about half of the episodes, garnering an Emmy nomination for himself and a Golden Globe award for the show...

at the same 9 p.m. Tuesday slot. The series was canceled after one season.

Notable guest stars

Guests on the program included Harry Guardino

Harry Guardino

Harry Guardino was an American actor whose career spanned from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. In 1964, he was cast in a short-lived CBS series entitled The Reporter, a drama about a hard-hitting investigative journalist named Danny Taylor. His principal co-star was Gary Merrill as city...

 (1925–1995) in the opening episode "Lion on Fire". Popular character actor

Character actor

A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

 J. Pat O'Malley

J. Pat O'Malley

James Patrick O'Malley was an English singer and character actor, who appeared in many American films and television programs during the 1940s–1970s, using the stage name J. Pat O'Malley...

 appeared with Spring Byington

Spring Byington

Spring Byington was an American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a key MGM contract player appearing in films from the 1930s through the 1960s.-Early life:Byington was born Spring Dell Byington in Colorado Springs,...

 in the episode "The Train Don't Stop Till It Gets There", which aired on April 14, 1964.

Dwayne Hickman

Dwayne Hickman

Dwayne Bernard Hickman is a former American actor and television executive at CBS.He is known primarily for his "teenage" actor roles on television sitcoms. The naturally brown-headed Hickman is best known for playing Chuck MacDonald, Bob Collins's crazy teenaged nephew, on the popular 1950s...

 appeared with Annette Funicello

Annette Funicello

Annette Joanne Funicello is an American singer and actress. She was Walt Disney's most popular cast member of the original Mickey Mouse Club, and went on to appear in a series of beach party films.-Early life and early stardom:...

 in the March 24 episode "Rosetta". Hickman's former Dobie Gillis co-star Tuesday Weld

Tuesday Weld

Tuesday Weld is an American actress.Weld began her acting career as a child, and progressed to more mature roles during the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcomer in 1960...

 guest starred in the episode "Silent Love, Secret Love". On October 29, the Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

 singer, Fabian, starred as Mac in the episode "Uncaged". Lucille Ball appeared as Kate Reynolds in the December 10 episode "Lady in Limbo"; character actor Robert F. Simon

Robert F. Simon

Robert F. Simon was an American character actor, often portraying military or authority figure roles. Though his face was recognized by audiences, he was mostly unknown by name...

 also appeared in the episode. In the series finale, Joan Blondell

Joan Blondell

Rose Joan Blondell was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for five decades as Joan Blondell.After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career...

 joined Joe E. Brown

Joe E. Brown (comedian)

Joseph Evans Brown was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. In 1902 at the age of nine, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons which toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville...

 and Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...

 in the episode "You're All Right, Ivy".

Among the other impressive guest stars were the following: Chris Alcaide

Chris Alcaide

Christopher "Chris" Alcaide was an American actor particularly known for his role in television westerns. He surfaced to national attention as Deputy Joshua Tate in the 1956 film Gunslinger, co-starring Beverly Garland as a woman marshal.In 2003, Alcaide was among recipients, including the Sons of...

, Phyllis Avery

Phyllis Avery

Phyllis Avery was an American television and film actress.-Early life and career:Avery was born in New York City to Evelyn and author Stephen Morehouse Avery. Her father hailed from Webster Groves, Missouri, near St. Louis. Her first role was as Marjorie in the 1951 film Queen for a Day based on...

, Ruth Roman

Ruth Roman

Ruth Roman was an American actress. One of her most memorable roles was in the Alfred Hitchcock 1951 thriller Strangers on a Train....

, Harold J. Stone

Harold J. Stone

Harold J. Stone was an American film and television character actor.Born Harold Hochstein to a Jewish acting family, he began his career on Broadway in 1939 and appeared in five plays in the next six years, including One Touch of Venus and Stalag 17, following which he made his motion picture...

, Brenda Vaccaro

Brenda Vaccaro

Brenda Buell Vaccaro is an American stage, television and film actress.-Early life:Vaccaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian American parents Christine M. and Mario A. Vaccaro , both of whom were pioneers in Italian cuisine...

, Hugh O'Brian

Hugh O'Brian

Hugh O'Brian is an American actor, known for his starring role in the ABC television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp .-Early years and career:...

, Bradford Dillman

Bradford Dillman

-Early life:Bradford Dillman was born on April 14, 1930 in San Francisco, California, the son of Josephine and Dean Dillman, a stockbroker. He studied at Town School for Boys and St. Ignatius High School. Later he attended the Hotchkiss boarding school in Connecticut, where he became involved in...

, Peggy McCay

Peggy McCay

Peggy McCay is a long-time American actress with a career lasting over sixty years in film and television...

, Martha Scott

Martha Scott

Martha Ellen Scott was an American actress best known for her roles as mother of the lead character in numerous films and television shows.-Early life:...

, James Coburn

James Coburn

James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...

, Cliff Robertson

Cliff Robertson

Clifford Parker "Cliff" Robertson III was an American actor with a film and television career that spanned half of a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie Charly...

, Frank Sutton

Frank Sutton

Frank Spencer Sutton was an American actor best remembered for his role of Gunnery Sergeant Vince Carter on the CBS television series Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.-Early life:...

, John Astin

John Astin

John Allen Astin is an American actor who has appeared in numerous films and television shows, and is best known for the role of Gomez Addams on The Addams Family, and other similarly eccentric comedic characters.-Early years:...

, Felicia Farr

Felicia Farr

Felicia Farr is a former American actress and model.-Biography:Felicia Farr appeared in several modeling photo shoots and advertisements throughout the 1950s and 1960s...

, Anthony Franciosa

Anthony Franciosa

Anthony Franciosa was an American actor, usually billed as Tony Franciosa during the height of his career.-Early life:...

, Billy Gray

Billy Gray (actor)

William Thomas "Billy" Gray , is a former American actor known primarily for his role as James "Bud" Anderson, Jr., in 193 episodes of the NBC and CBS situation comedy, Father Knows Best, which aired between 1954 and 1960. Gray's fellow cast members were Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Elinor Donahue,...

, Ricardo Montalban

Ricardo Montalbán

Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, KSG was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and film actor. He had a career spanning six decades and many notable roles...

, Michael Parks

Michael Parks

Michael Parks is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in almost fifty films and has made frequent TV appearances, but is probably best known for his work in recent years with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and Kevin Smith as well as the 1969 television series Then Came...

, Fay Spain

Fay Spain

Fay Spain was an American actress in motion pictures and television. She was born in Phoenix, Arizona.-Theater apprentice:...

, Dean Stockwell

Dean Stockwell

Dean Stockwell is an American actor of film and television, with a career spanning over 65 years. As a child actor under contract to MGM he first came to the public's attention in films such as Anchors Aweigh and The Green Years; as a young adult he played a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and...

, Nina Foch

Nina Foch

Nina Foch was a Dutch-born American actress and leading lady in many 1940s and 1950s films.- Personal life :...

, Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...

, Bill Mumy

Bill Mumy

Charles William "Bill" Mumy, Jr. is an American actor, musician, pitchman, instrumentalist, voice-over artist and a figure in the science-fiction community. He is known primarily for his work as a child television actor....

, Geraldine Brooks, Yvonne De Carlo

Yvonne De Carlo

Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced ; Anna in Criss Cross ; Sephora the...

, Dorothy Malone

Dorothy Malone

Dorothy Malone is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind , for which she won the Academy...

, John Dehner

John Dehner

John Dehner was an American actor in radio, television, and films, playing countless roles, often as a droll villain. Between 1941 and 1988, he appeared in over 260 films and television programs. Prior to acting, Dehner had worked as an animator at Walt Disney Studios, and later became a radio...

, Patricia Breslin

Patricia Breslin

Patricia Rose Breslin was an American actress known for her guest roles in various television series in the 1950s and 1960s.-Early years:...

, Ellen Burstyn

Ellen Burstyn

Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...

, Tony Dow

Tony Dow

Tony Lee Dow is an American film producer, director, sculptor, and a television child actor of the 1950s and 1960s.Dow is best known for his role in the television sitcom Leave It to Beaver, which ran in primetime from 1957 to 1963...

, Martha Hyer

Martha Hyer

Martha Hyer is an American actress.She attended Northwestern University and was a member of Pi Beta Phi fraternity. After completing her education, she next appeared in The Locket in 1946...

, Ruby Keeler

Ruby Keeler

Ruby Keeler, born Ethel Hilda Keeler, was an actress, singer, and dancer most famous for her on-screen coupling with Dick Powell in a string of successful early musicals at Warner Brothers, particularly 42nd Street . From 1928 to 1940, she was married to singer Al Jolson...

, Jeremy Slate

Jeremy Slate

Jeremy Slate was an American film and television actor.-Early life:He attended a military academy and joined the navy when he was 16. He was barely 18 when his destroyer assisted in the Normandy Invasion on D-Day . After the war he attended St. Lawrence University where he graduated with honors in...

, Jack Lord

Jack Lord

John Joseph Patrick Ryan , best known by his stage name Jack Lord, was an American television, film, and Broadway actor. He was known for his starring role as Steve McGarrett in the American television program Hawaii Five-O from 1968 to 1980. Lord appeared in feature films earlier in his career,...

, Russell Johnson

Russell Johnson

Russell David Johnson is an American television and film actor best known as "The Professor" on the CBS television sitcom Gilligan's Island...

, William Demarest

William Demarest

Carl William Demarest was an American character actor. He frequently played crusty but good-hearted roles.-Early life and career:...

, Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...

, Don Ameche

Don Ameche

Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...

, Betty Hutton

Betty Hutton

Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...

, Sheree North

Sheree North

Sheree North was an American actress, singer, and dancer. She was known for being 20th Century Fox's answer to Marilyn Monroe from 1954 to 1956...

, Rory Calhoun

Rory Calhoun

Rory Calhoun was an American television and film actor, screenwriter and producer, best known for his roles in Westerns.-Early life:...

, 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...

, Deborah Walley

Deborah Walley

Deborah Walley was an American actress.-Biographical Information:Deborah Walley was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Ice Capades skating stars and choreographers Nathan and Edith Walley. She attended Central High School in Bridgeport. At fourteen she was playing summer-stock theatre. She...

, Andrew Duggan

Andrew Duggan

-Career:During World War II, Duggan was in the 40th Special Services Company, led by actor Melvyn Douglas in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. His contact with Douglas later led to his performing with Lucille Ball in the play Dreamgirl. He developed a friendship with Broadway...

, Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...

, Brandon De Wilde

Brandon De Wilde

Andre Brandon deWilde was an American theatre and film actor. He was born into a theatrical family in Brooklyn. Debuting on Broadway at the age of 7, De Wilde became a national phenomenon by the time he completed his 492 performances for The Member of the Wedding and was considered a child...

, Joanna Cook Moore

Joanna Cook Moore

Joanna Moore was an American film and television actress best known for her guest roles on the popular television shows of the 1960s, most notably as Sheriff Andy Taylor's love interest, Peggy "Peg" McMillan in four episodes of The Andy Griffith Show...

, Edgar Bergen

Edgar Bergen

Edgar John Bergen was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.-Early life:...

, Barry Nelson

Barry Nelson

Barry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.-Early life:...

, Arthur O'Connell

Arthur O'Connell

Arthur O'Connell was an American stage and film actor. He appeared in films in 1941 and television programs...

, Red Buttons, Bruce Dern

Bruce Dern

Bruce MacLeish Dern is an American film actor. He also appeared as a guest star in numerous television shows. He frequently takes roles as a character actor, often playing unstable and villainous characters...

, Julie Newmar

Julie Newmar

Julie Newmar is an American actress, dancer and singer. Her most famous role is Catwoman in the Batman television series.-Early life:...

, Dabbs Greer

Dabbs Greer

Robert William "Dabbs" Greer was an American actor who performed many diverse supporting roles in film and television for some fifty years. His distinctive, southern-accented voice fitted well in shows featuring rustic characters, such as westerns...

, and Robert F. Simon

Robert F. Simon

Robert F. Simon was an American character actor, often portraying military or authority figure roles. Though his face was recognized by audiences, he was mostly unknown by name...

.

Episodes

Episode #	Episode title	Original airdate
1-1	"Lion on Fire"	September 17, 1963
1-2	"Silent Love, Secret Love"	September 24, 1963
1-3	"No Middle Ground For Harry Kyle"	October 1, 1963
1-4	"Don't Look Down, Don't Look Back"	October 8, 1963
1-5	"Garve"	October 15, 1963
1-6	"The Loser"	October 22, 1963
1-7	"Uncaged"	October 29, 1963
1-8	"The Circus Never Came To Town"	November 5, 1963
1-9	"An Echo of Faded Velvet"	November 12, 1963
1-10	"The Hanging Man"	November 19, 1963
1-11	"Leaves In the Wind"	November 26, 1963
1-12	"The Wrecker"	December 3, 1963
1-13	"Lady in Limbo"	December 10, 1963
1-14	"A Black Dress for Gina"	December 17, 1963
1-15	"Where the Wire Ends"	January 7, 1964
1-16	"Corsicans Don't Cry"	January 14, 1964
1-17	"Big Man From Nairobi"	January 21, 1964
1-18	"The Show Must Go On - to Orange City"	January 28, 1964
1-19	"A Place to Belong"	February 11, 1964
1-20	"Man In a Hole"	February 18, 1964
1-21	"Clancy"	February 25, 1964
1-22	"The Last of the Strongmen"	March 3, 1964
1-23	"The Night the Monkey Died"	March 10, 1964
1-24	"Of Blood, Sawdust, and a Bucket of Tears"	March 17, 1964
1-25	"Rosetta"	March 24, 1964
1-26	"The Glorious Days of the Used to Be"	March 31, 1964
1-27	"Love the Giver"	April 7, 1964
1-28	"This Train Don't Stop Till It Gets There"	April 14, 1964
1-29	"There Are No Problems, Only Opportunities"	April 21, 1964
1-30	"You're All Right, Ivy"	April 28, 1964