This week, leading up to the 60th anniversary of James Dean’s death, I’ll be posting an article each day on a different facet of Dean’s life and legend. Today’s installment: a roundup of James Dean’s best television performances, available on YouTube right now!

In his excellent biography James Dean: The Mutant King, David Dalton reports having seen bags in Tokyo bearing Jimmy’s likeness alongside “worshipful inscriptions” such as “IT IS FACT JAMES DEAN PLAYED ROLES OF THREE.” Everyone always seems to say this in mourning James Dean, almost an incantation of sorts, as a way of marveling at the size of his legend in relation to the length of his too-short career. “He’s so famous… And he only ever appeared in three movies!”

While it’s true that James Dean only had three starring roles — in East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant — he was actually in a few other films, and he also starred in numerous teleplays, on such programs as General Electric Theater, The United States Steel Hour, Kraft Theater, and Lux Video Theatre.

Many of these anthology shows that aired weekly teleplays were sponsored by a specific brand, and they often served as glorified advertisements; they feature awkward product placement, strangely-filmed commercial breaks, and weird voiceovers pitching the brand’s deal of the week. They’re relics from a different age of TV — an age frequently referred to as The Golden Age of Television — and as such can seem a little strange to modern viewers. However, I think they’re rather interesting, and they’re a chance to see James Dean in roles beyond his classic appearances as Cal Trask, Jim Stark, and Jett Rink.

A lot of these shows aired live episodes every week for many years, producing hundreds and hundreds of teleplays. TV was considered disposable culture, not particularly worth preserving, so it’s a marvel that these performances have survived even as some of Dean’s TV work has been lost to time. Many programs chose to re-run their James Dean-starring episodes after his death, which is why many of the videos of these teleplays now online are not quite as they were originally broadcast. These rebroadcasts feature introductions, interviews, and roundtable discussions that attempt, contemporarily, to investigate their own importance as documents of Dean’s life and work, which I think makes them even more interesting.

So, without further ado: here are my five favorite James Dean teleplays (that you can watch on YouTube right now)!

1. ‘I’m A Fool’

General Electric Theatre — 1954

What It’s About: James Dean plays ‘The Boy,’ a youngster who leaves home to find his place in the world. He meets a helpful mentor who sets him on the right path, and soon he finds himself impersonating the son of a rich man who’s been sent to a racetrack to ensure there’s no fixing going on. At the racetrack he meets and falls in love with a pretty young girl, and before he knows it, his lie about his own identity spirals out of control...

Why It’s Worth a Watch: While the story itself amounts to little more than a morality play about the dangers of telling lies, James Dean brings something more to the role, something graver. Ronald Reagan, who hosted General Electric Theatre for years long before he was President, introduces the episode this way:

Those of us who worked with Jimmy Dean carry an image of his intense struggle for a goal beyond himself. Curiously enough, that’s the story of the boy he portrays tonight.

Also, the pretty young girl is played by none other than Natalie Wood, who less than a year later would find herself starring opposite Dean again as the Judy to his Jim in Rebel Without a Cause. Her role doesn’t give her much to work with here, but it’s fun to imagine that these characters are Judy and Jim meeting in another time, another universe. After all, I’m a Fool deals with many of the same themes as Rebel, foregrounding two adolescents struggling to forge a path for themselves in a world that seems to be conspiring to keep them down and out.

I’m a Fool also takes a very interesting approach to staging. The show was broadcast live; for a play that takes place largely in flashbacks that stretch over a wide span of time, the producers were forced to get creative. Its sets are obviously sets, which it uses to its advantage to heighten the dreamlike quality of the whole affair. More specifically, they employ techniques that combine theatrical set-building with cinematic special effects, and then reveal the artifice inherent in both. For example, check out this sequence where the boy and his mentor Burt are “riding in a wagon.”

In moving between flashback and narrator by emphasizing and undercutting the tricks used to stage and film the flashback, I’m a Fool suggests that cinema is memory, and memory is malleable. Not bad for a half-hour TV advertisement from 1954.

2. ‘Rex Newman’

The Big Story — 1953

What It’s About: Rex Newman is a reporter who happens to witness a robbery orchestrated by three children. Years later, he again runs into the thieves, who are now teenagers — and when other robberies start to happen, Rex tries to figure out what the dynamic of the trio is, and how he can disrupt it in order to ensure that justice is served.

Why It’s Worth Watching: There’s a sequence toward the end involving a jailbreak that’s classic James Dean — even though no scene like it appears in any of his movies. Clad in a leather jacket — a quintessential Dean outfit in the popular imagination, even though he doesn’t wear one in his films — he and his girl try to break their friend out of jail, and as he’s holding a gun on the jail clerk, you can see every emotion that flickers across the face of his youthful face… bravado, uncertainty, rage, frustration, despair. There’s nothing in the script that necessarily indicates these emotions are necessary — it would be easy enough to play this juvenile delinquent how he’s written, as a violent non-character meant to scare adults — but Dean’s performance brings the thief to life, makes him a human being, a scared kid trying to figure out what honor and loyalty mean to him.

Also, this episode as it’s available on YouTube right now provides an interesting case study for the way that old media survives, mutates, and finds a new life in our current digital landscape. Count the different levels between us, now, in 2015, and the actual teleplay that James Dean filmed in 1953. First, there’s the fact that this is actually a re-airing of the original broadcast — The Big Story realized after his death that they had a James Dean episode in the archives, and so they rebroadcast his episode so his fans could watch it again. Even more interesting: the teleplay is introduced by Big Story host Ben Grauer as a story about James Dean, rather than as a tale of a reporter and a trio of thieves. He says:

Tonight, Big Story turns to its Features Page, in order to bring you one of the strangest and most talked about stories in the country. It’s a story about a movie star, an actor who receives more fan mail each week than anyone in Hollywood. Long after his death, James Dean still holds an iron grip on the minds of millions, many of whom refuse to believe he is dead. Here now is a film made by James Dean for The Big Story just a few short years ago. In it he plays a role that we believe will provide a clue to the tremendous fascination that James Dean holds for many of our youngsters today.

So, audiences are primed just after Dean’s death to watch this as one piece of the James Dean puzzle, a way to figure out what it was about Dean that mattered so much to them. But then, there’s another layer to this video — we’re actually seeing a re-rebroadcast, as this is actually taped from a mid-1990s TVLand special about James Dean’s television work. “This episode was considered lost for several decades,” says the host, “but thanks to the combined efforts of Nick at Nite’s TVLand, and the Museum of Television and Radio, and our joint preservation efforts, it has been rediscovered, and we are now delighted to present a truly historic television artifact.”

Just like the rebroadcast in the 1950s, this TVLand rebroadcast primes the audience to view this as an important, historically significant contribution to the mythology of James Dean, ensuring that viewers will be thinking about Dean’s legend (and, necessarily, his untimely death) as they watch.

And then there’s the fact that we’re not watching this on TVLand in the mid-90s; instead, it’s 2015, and it’s come to us on YouTube from user corradogirli under the word-jumble of a title “James Dean Rare TV Show The Big Story Rex Newman.” corradogirli is performing the same function that TVLand and The Big Story did in bringing the footage to a new generation, if perhaps not quite as eloquently. So, this particular video, in this particular form, is a great illustration of the enduring power of James Dean’s work — three different methods were used to bring it to a new audience, encouraging three successive generations to view it as a testament to the James Dean legend.

3. The Bells of Cockaigne

Armstrong Circle Theatre — 1953

What It’s About: James Dean plays “Joey,” a down-on-his-luck stock-boy who spends his days hauling boxes to earn money to take care of his sick child. Beloved character actor Gene Lockhart is “Pat,” an Irishman who tries to convince Joey to make good choices in order to ensure a future for his son, even as Pat himself gives in to the temptation of chance.

Why It’s Worth Watching: Joey is an unusual role for James Dean; it’s the only one I could find where his primary motivation is caring for a wife and child. But… it’s not his best work, if I’m being honest. His down-to-earth “realistic” Method acting is almost completely out of place with Lockhart’s over-the-top theatrical style, and it makes for an awkward couple of scenes where Dean’s stuttering and mumbling contrast horribly with Lockhart’s precisely-delivered Irish brogue.

But, also… that’s exactly what makes this an interesting historical document. Along with his contemporary Marlon Brando, Dean’s style of acting sent a seismic shockwave through Hollywood; coinciding with the demise of the studio system, Dean signaled something new and exciting for filmmaking. This television episode, made several years before Dean’s peak (and final) year of 1955, is, in some ways, about the old guard of Hollywood — represented by Lockhart, who was so out of touch that he didn’t star in a sound film until 1934 — choosing to invest in a young kid with a bright future. You can really see Old vs. New in this episode, can really sense that things are changing.

Plus, historical concerns aside, “The Bells of Cockaigne” is just a simple, heartwarming tale. There are worse ways to spend 20 minutes.

4. ‘The Dark, Dark Hours’

General Electric Theater — 1954

(Part 2) (Part 3)

What It’s About: Ronald Reagan and his wife are woken late one night by someone at the door — it’s James Dean and a friend, and his friend has been shot, and he’s dying, and they need Ronald Reagan’s help… and they’re prepared to shoot Ronald Reagan if he doesn’t get him fixed up quick.

Why It’s Worth Watching: You read that correctly. A murderous James Dean invades the home of Ronald Reagan and threatens him at gunpoint. Do I really need to spell it out? I mean…

Here we are, years before either is famous, and James Dean — the embodiment of subversive, dangerous, rage-filled youth — is literally destabilizing the family structure of Ronald Reagan — who would come to represent all things Conservative. It’s incredible.

I, of course, root for James Dean the entire time, even if the episode itself clearly attempts to align us with Reagan. But, as in Rex Newman, it’s hard not to get swept up by Jimmy’s slang-filled performance as a troubled teenager trying to help out his friend, even if that means breaking ten or eleven laws. Lines like “Do the best you can, ya dig me?” and “frequent use of “cat” and “maaaaaaan” seem a bit outdated now, but at the time, they were a revelation to at least one man — filmmaker Steve Allen. In The Mutant King, Allen describes his reaction to Dean’s performance in an episode of television that I believe is likely “The Dark, Dark Hours” —

His use of the authentic hip language, his naturalness, were so impressive that I said, ‘I must find out who directed the show because he’s done something absolutely brilliant. No actor I know could speak that language as authentically as this kid. I think the director must actually have gotten some boy off the streets and somehow made him play himself.’

5. ‘A Long Time Til Dawn’

Kraft Television Theatre — 1953

What It’s About: James Dean plays another “Joey,” a young convict who’s just been released from jail. Distraught that his girl has left him for someone else, Joey tries and fails to tamp down his tendency toward violent rage.

Why It’s Worth Watching: This is Dean’s first television role, so it would be interesting enough for that reason, but also — it’s written by a young pre-Twilight Zone Rod Serling!

“Joey” is a prototypical James Dean character, every muscle in his body simmering with an inchoate rage that he would tap into again with his later characters in Eden and Rebel. I find Joey more disturbing than either Cal or especially Jim; here, there’s something about James Dean that seems truly insane.

Dalton’s The Mutant King reports that Dean’s friend Martin Landau was on set the day of the show for rehearsal. Landau says that Jimmy was upset and didn’t feel that he had a good grasp on the role; while they were catching a bite to eat in the hour before Jimmy was to perform the teleplay, Martin noticed Jimmy’s habit of chewing on his shirt collar nervously. “You do that all the time and it’s good. I know!” he said. “It’s your mother’s tit!”

Jimmy used that habit to characterize Joey, to ground his violent rage in a kind of twisted psychosexual regression to childhood. It’s terrifically effective.

Rod Serling said of the role:

We were trying in those days to make a legitimate composite figure of the youth… There was a post-war mystification of the young, a gradual erosion of confidence in their elders, in the so-called truths, in the whole litany of moral codes. They just didn’t believe in this anymore. …[he was] a terribly upset, psyched-out kid, a precursor to the hooked generation of the sixties, the type that became part of the drug/rock culture.

A “legitimate composite figure of the youth.” That was James Dean, alright — the sum total of American youth in the postwar years, full of restless angst, misdirected and muddled sexuality, fear of the future, and confusion about their own morality. Taken together, these television performances are just a part of the James Dean mythos, distinct moments that help us get a handle on what was so special about him… helping to lay the groundwork for his three starring roles in film — which, thanks to his early death, would in turn lay the groundwork for the entire countercultural revolution to come.