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American documentary television program

The Big Picture is an American documentary television program which aired from 1951 to 1964. The series consisted of documentary films produced by the United States Army Signal Corps Army Pictorial Service.

The series was conceived by Albert Gannaway Jr and David Burkey, a former television producer who served with the Signal Corps in the Korean War. They saw it as a way to use film footage accumulated by the Army Pictorial Service, packaged in a way that would be attractive to commercial television. The first series of 13 episodes was broadcast on CBS in late 1951, with each episode about an aspect of the Korean War. It had a positive reception from audiences and the Army decided to expand the scope as a publicity tool. Army information units from around the world suggested topics with the Signal Corps filming all the segments. Topics varied and included military history, contemporary weaponry, training exercises, cooperation with allied forces, and Army sporting activities. The half hour weekly program was filmed on the Astoria stages, now Kaufman Astoria Studios, which is a historic movie studio located in the Astoria section of the New York City borough of Queens. The host was Army Master Sergeant Stuart Queen (1919–1981), a World War II veteran and Korean War combat broadcaster. Though Queen is referred to as both a host and narrator, he essentially introduced and linked segments that were narrated by others. Narrators for filmed segments included Audie Murphy, Lorne Greene, Robert Mitchum, Alexander Scourby, Walter Cronkite, Raymond Massey, and Ronald Reagan. In the 1950s, the series was shot on 35mm black and white negative, but by the 1960s it was using 16mm color negative. It was eventually aired on 366 television stations on the CBS, ABC and DuMont networks and ran for 828 episodes. While the series as a regularly produced and scheduled program nominally ended in 1964, further episodes continued to be made on an irregular basis until 1971. In addition to the various network schedulings between 1951 and 1964, the show was also widely syndicated, and it continued to air in syndication until 1971.

As an official work of the United States government, The Big Picture was never eligible for copyright and has always been in the public domain, thus allowing it to be distributed far and wide without restriction. The National Archives and Records Administration has made individual episodes of The Big Picture available via Amazon and the Internet Archive, where they can be downloaded for free. Episode DVDs can also be copied for free by visitors to NARA's College Park, Maryland, facility. Many complete episodes and clips have been posted on YouTube.