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eries lasting until 1958). The program was sponsored by General Motors / United Motors System and its subsidiaries like Delco Remy, AC Spark Plugs Electronic Division, and Guide T3 Safety Headlamps Lamp Division. Dave Garroway was the host of the series which featured live remote segments from locations throughout North America. This ground-breaking series carried live events into four million households. This October 16, 1955 premiere, "A Sunday in Autumn," featured 73 cameras in 11 cities, including a college campus, the fishing fleet at Gloucester, Massachusetts, rainswept streets in Manhattan and the famed radio series, "Monitor" broadcasting live in NBC's Radio Central studio. Also seen live: The Grand Canyon, Radio City Music Hall, The Texas State Fair held in Dallas, Weeki-Wachee Springs in Tampa, and a curious coverage by a nervous Ted Husing of an attempt by Donald Campbell to break a speed record at Lake Mead in Nevada, showing nothing more than his boat, on the other side of the lake, failing to take off. A GM commercial with Nelson Case is shown. Interiors and Exteriors of a San Francisco Cable Car in operation is observed. A point of view shot of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers from an airborne plane is shown, The 85th Fighter Squadron is seen in flight. Ground shots of the MIssissippi River is viewed and a paddleboat is seen on the river. An appearance by Dick Button ice skating at Rockefeller Center was canceled because the rain had washed away the ice. The show was parodied in the 1959 Warner Bros. Cartoons short, "Wild Wild World" (hosted by Cave Darroway) [also found here on YouTube:http://youtu.be/2koBB1VtsyU ], which pre-conceived Hanna-Barbera's "The Flintstones" by a year! Time reviewed this show: "NBC's Wide Wide World whisked its audience all over the map. The camera lazed its way down the Mississippi, poked into a New Jersey lane where lovers walked and old men raked autumn leaves, wandered around Gloucester harbor as fishermen mended nets. There were vivid contrasts between the chasm of the Grand Canyon and the topless towers of Rockefeller Center, the swaying wheat fields of Nebraska and the money-conscious hubbub of the Texas State Fair, an underwater ballet from Florida and the overwater speed trials of Donald Campbell's jet racer at Arizona's man-made Lake Mead. Always there was the immediacy of things happening this very minute, but the real brilliancy of Wide World may lie in its avoidance of the TV interview. The only one attempted, at the Texas Fair, proved again that—given a microphone and someone to interview—an announcer can turn any subject into a crashing bore. The words needed in Wide World were supplied by Dave Garroway and kept to a literate minimum."