This show began in 1956 broadcasting all live ninety-minute plays, with only a sub-par kinescope film (film camera aimed at the live broadcast on the television monitor) as an archive. The second year, they began to film maybe every second or third episode (as a "made-for-television-movie"), then, in the last two years began videotaping many of the episodes. The tape technique was harder to spot because the broadcasts still appeared live, but there are at least partial tapes (of excellent, pristine quality) in the CBS vaults of episodes "Days of Wine and Roses", "The Old Man", "Judgment At Nuremberg", "Alas, Babylon", and "In The Prescence of Mine Enemies". Clips of these tapes were featured in the 2002 CBS special "50 Years of Television City in Hollywood".
The color broadcast of "The Nutcracker" was this show's only color telecast, and CBS's only live color broadcast of 1958.
TV Guide named Playhouse 90 the best drama of the '50s. It set the standard for anthologies being ambitious, classy, and for its first season, entirely live.