Kraft Television Theatre
Material Witness
TV Flash files “Material Witness” as hour 495 of 526 in the TV Flash guide — Kraft Television Theatre (1947–1958) on NBC, season 11, episode 20, aired 1958-02-19, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S11E20: listed hour 495 of 526 in the Kraft Television Theatre guide, hour 20 of 51 in season 11. It aired 1958-02-19 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “The Spell of the Tigress” (S11E19). Next is “The Women at High Hollow” (S11E21). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Material Witness sit in the Kraft Television Theatre guide?
S11E20 is listed hour 495 of 526 — hour 20 of 51 in season 11, season 11 episode 20.
When did Kraft Television Theatre S11E20 air?
Material Witness aired 1958-02-19 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with whatever surviving kinescopes you can find of the live-play form — the point is the weekly Broadway-subscription feel, not a continuing cast.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Kraft Television Theatre is live drama with a cheese sponsor: hundreds of teleplays, young stars cutting teeth between product acts, prestige as a grocery brand. Watch it now as a Golden Age cornerstone — industrial-scale living-room theater, incomplete kinescope survival, and proof early TV thought of itself as Broadway first.
The lighting is grocery-brand prestige. Not a red carpet, not a tag: live drama poured into living rooms like a weekly Broadway subscription, Kraft selling product between acts. *Kraft Television Theatre*, primarily NBC, 1947–1958, 526 episodes across 11 seasons — period tallies cite on the order of 650 Kraft productions — stage and screen talent still learning the camera. Young stars and writers cut their teeth in that light. Survival rates for kinescopes are incomplete, which only deepens the lost-library…