Lassie is a popular television show from the United States that chronicles the exploits of a female Rough Collie dog named Lassie and her traveling friends, both human and otherwise. Television broadcasts of the show began on September 12, 1954, and continued until March 24, 1973. The show was conceived of by producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax. The show, which is now considered one of the longest-running on television, originally aired on CBS for a total of seventeen seasons before going into first-run syndication for its final two seasons. The show was initially filmed in black and white, but in 1965, it made the switch to color filming. The first 10 seasons of this television series chronicle Lassie's exploits in a bucolic farming village. Lassie's first human companions are a fictional eleven-year-old boy named Jeff Miller, his mother, and his grandfather. This continues until the fourth season, when Lassie is joined by a seven-year-old boy named Timmy Martin and his adoptive parents. In the eleventh season, as Lassie's antics on the farm come to an end, she joins a series of Rangers from the United States Forest Service and goes on new adventures in the forest with them. Lassie eventually finds a new home at a children's home for her final two seasons of syndication after spending the previous year wandering the country without human leads. The first season of Lassie won two Emmy Awards and earned positive reviews from critics when it originally aired. Emmy nominations have been submitted for stars Jan Clayton and June Lockhart. During the life of the show, a variety of other products such as books, a Halloween costume, apparel, and toys were made as merchandise. The show's longtime sponsor, Campbell's Soup, provided two premiums, of which thousands were given out to the show's loyal followers. In August of 1963, the feature picture Lassie's Great Adventure was released, and it contained an episode that was broken up into multiple parts. Jon Provost, who had previously starred in the television series Lassie, made his return to the medium in the role of Steve McCullough in the 1989 season of The New Lassie. A selection of the episodes has been made available on DVD.
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