TV Variety Shows: Now Disc. The 2009 CMT Music Awards

I asked to host a thread on TV Variety Shows. I will be posting shows from the beginning during the late 40's and early 50's to the current variety shows still on TV today. I will start off with Ed Sullivan, who had one of the longest running variety shows, "The Ed Sullivan Show".

The Ed Sullivan Show

The link above goes to a review by Ron Simon.

Anyone who watched television in America between 1948 and 1971 saw Ed Sullivan. At a time when America was recovering from the second World War, America needed comedy. Even if viewers did not watch his Sunday night variety show regularly, chances are they tuned in occasionally to see a favorite singer or comedian. Sullivan was considered to be Mr. Sunday Night. Sullivan exposed a generation of Americans to virtually everything the culture had to offer in the field of art and entertainment. Originally, the show was called "The Toast of the Town" when it debuted in 1948. In 1955, the title was changed to "The Ed Sullivan Show".

Ed Sullivan outlasted Milton Berle despite the fact that he had almost no personality. In fact, because he merely introduced the acts and kept off to the side, he was able to showcase breakout artists. He captured the baby boom generation with rock and roll music acts such as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Janis Joplin, and Marvin Gaye.

He also embraced Borscht Belt comics including Alan King (37 times); Myron Cohen (47 times); and Jack Carter (49 times). When his son-in-law, Bob Precht, took over as producer in 1960, a new generation of comedians was introduced to the American audience, led by Mort Sahl, Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin.

The comic act that appeared most on the Sullivan show was the Canadian team of Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster (58 times); the parodic sketches of Wayne and Shuster assured Sullivan a sizable audience north of the border.

Unfortunately, by 1971, his show was no longer popular. It was cancelled at a time when the Vietnam War still was being waged.

CBS showed the show at the following times during the years below:
June 1948 Sunday 9:00-10:00
July 1948-August 1948 Sunday 9:30-10:30
August 1948-March 1949 Sunday 9:00-10:00
March 1949-June 1971 Sunday 8:00-9:00

Discuss.

 

The only part of this show most of the people here have seen are the appearances of Elvis Presley (notoriously, they would only show him from the waist up) and the Beatles, who had their first North American gig on it.

Sullivan looked and acted like a short Lurch.

But the sort of exposure his show gave acts was incredible. Nothing like it today.

 

He's a legend and he had his ups (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis) and his downs (Senor. Freaking. Wences.)

Best bit I ever heard was a Red Skelton joke, predicting events of the new year.

"In New York, during an average show, Ed Sullivan will suddenly uncross his arms.

And his chest will fall off."

 

This week I will discuss a current performer in the late night variety show. Since I discussed Ed Sullivan first, I will discuss the current performer who still performs in the Ed Sullivan Theater.

Late Show With David Letterman

As it states on the bio on the Late Show with David Letterman site, David Letterman has been performing for 21 years now. First he had a show after the Tonight Show which was Late Night with David Letterman. Now, Conan O'Brien hosts it as Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Of course, Letterman was passed over as heir apparent to the great Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show which has Jay Leno as host. Dave feuded with Leno consistently after losing out to Leno as the man who replaced Carson.

Discuss.

 

I have never much liked David Letterman, because he is much too much pleased with himself. He can be funny, but a lot of the schtick he does is worn out, folks.

 

I happen to like Letterman, at least over anyone else that is on the air. I did like criag kilborn while he was on. I like Letterman because he's zany and weird. His stand-up doesn't last very long, which is great because he's not that good at it. I love Rupert the deli man, and Know your cuts of meat, and all the other weird things he does. I mean dropping a hundred ping-pong balls off his roof? The top ten list is always amusing. And i love how he picks on Dr. Phil and Regis, even though those are like his friends. Anyways, thats just my opinion.

 

I enjoy David Letterman every now and then but I find a lot of their skits and jokes to be mean spirited.

 

I don't mind mean-spiritedness--well, not as much as I should--but the top ten is not always funny. In fact, it's rarely funny. New schtick needed.

I prefer Conan.

 

This week I will talk about Milton Berle.

Milton Berle

The link above goes to the imdb.com biography of the great Milton Berle. Performing in numerous tv shows, movies, and even a music video (Ratt's "Round and Round"), he is considered one of the greatest performers ever.

Milton Berle Show
Texaco Star Theater
Buick-Berle Show
Milton Berle Starring in the Kraft Music Hall

Milton Berle


6/8/1948 - 1/6/1967 NBC/ABC
Black and White - 60 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes
June 1948 - June 1956 NBC Tues. 8:00 9:00
Oct. 1958 - May 1959 NBC Wed. 9:00 - 9:30
Sept. 1966 - Jan 1967 ABC Fri. 9:00 - 10:00


Call him Mr. Television or Uncle Miltie. In television's infancy, Tuesday belonged to Milton Berle.

The Texaco Star Theater opened with these guys dressed like service station attendants singing "Oh, we're the men from Texaco, we work from Maine to Mexico."

Out would come Berle dressed in some wacky costume, often in drag. Although there were all manner of guests and skits, Berle was the star attraction.

The show switched sponsors over the years and formats, but Milton Berle reigned supreme throughout the Fifties. When they tried to bring him back in the mid-Sixties, however, the times had changed and Berle's brand of vaudevillian comedy was no longer popular.

The Elvis Presley Shows...
Elvis Presley appeared twice. On April 3, 1956 and again on June 5.
Buy these shows - The Best Of Milton Berle VHS


Passings

Milton Berle died in 2002 of colon cancer. He was 93.

Discuss.

 

Nice write up of Milton Berle there but unfortunately I haven't seen enough of him to really rank him along side some of my other favorites like Abbott and Costello, Bob Hope, and Jack Benny.

 

Milton Berle was an old vaudeville comic with a reputation for stealing other comics' material.

I can't say I've ever seen the show; I think because they didn't tape it, though I couldn't say for sure.

 

I know there's some kinescopes of Berle's shows, how many I'm not sure. A lot of TV stars didn't have their live shows filmed with a kinescope so those episodes have been lost forever.

 

I've never found Milton Berle funny. Bill Murray told a story about how Berle hosted SNL and a lot of his ad libs were anything but. During rehearsals Berle wanted a stagehand to drop something to make a loud noise backstage & Berle would have a bunch of remarks ready to appear quick on his feet. The entire cast was sick of him upstaging and constant mugging so when they aired & the "accident" happened, Berle went off with his lines & Bill Murray just walked up & put his face in the camera making it impossible to see Berle. Berle was banned from the show & the episode is unavailable for rebroadcast.

 

This time I will discuss the possible replacement for Jay Leno on The Tonight Show.

Conan O'Brien

Conan O'Brien now hosts David Letterman's old show, now called Late Night with Conan O'Brien. He grew up in a large, Irish Catholic family in Massachusetts. Early on in his childhood, he goofed off and began his love of comedy. He pulled lots of pranks during his time at Harvard University, and even became the president of the Harvard Humor Magazine, the Harvard Lampoon.

Once he left Harvard, he got a job writing for television in L.A. He wrote for "Saturday Night Live" (1975), "The Simpsons" (1979), and after SNL Executive Producer Lorne Michaels offered the job of producing Late Night, Conan became the host after a futile search for Letterman's replacement. He has been the host of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" since 1993.

His ongoing gag now is his amazing resemblence to the Finnish President Tarja Halonen.

Giving support to her re-election was the American talk show host Conan O'Brien. After discovering that he was very popular in Finland, he attributed it to the fact that he looks like Tarja Halonen. When he found out that she was up for reelection, he wanted her to win because "I like looking like the president of a country, even if it is a woman". He went as far as producing mock campaign ads, and attack ads against her opponents. It is uncertain how much effect this had on the election. But she won the re-election with 51.8% of the vote against Mr. Niinistö's 48.2%.

Discuss.

 

I saw the bit about the Finnish President, and it's funny and so is he. If he takes over for Leno? Good.

 

He's taking over in 2009. It can't come soon enough. Not that I don't like Leno, because I do. He's fairly funny and seems like a genuinely nice guy (a huge contrast to Letterman), but I don't want to have to stay up so late for Conan anymore

Conan is my absolute favourite comedian on the planet. He manages to make anything funny, even jokes that suck, because he's great at mocking them. He's incredibly smart, a nerd at heart, and completely random. Unlike that ***** Letterman, he's self-effacing. And gangly. What's not to love about Consey?

 

Funniest man on television. Maybe funniest man alive.

What I love about the guy is his ability to take stupid material and just make it sing. I recall seeing terrible sketches (college football mascots, for example) and he just mocks the sketches mercilessly ("To those of you who thought that went on a little long . . ." "They said they'd fix that in rehearsal!").

He's off the wall, raw energy and just pure crazy.

Love him. Love him.

 

The best thing about Conan is the amount of actual comedy they pack into a one hour show. They have more sketches and characters then any of the other late night talk shows. Jay Leno, who I also really enjoy, use to do sketches and characters but not anymore, now they just bring out somebody else and play a tape. On Conan he's involved with every sketch.

One negative side effect is that it leaves little time for interviews although Conan makes the most of them. Another negative aspect is that the show can get raunchy at times. I love Triumph The Insult Comic Dog mocking people but I dislike seeing him hump another dog and referring to other sex acts.

 

I`ll second Rouge, the man has so much energy you can`t help but laugh. I`d say he's the best talk show variety host the small screen has ever seen.

 

God, Triumph in line with the Star Wars nerds was maybe the finest five minutes of television comedy ever.

Love the band too; best band on a comedy/variety show. La Bamba cracks me up and Weinberg, and you'd never have known this from his career with Springsteen, has an incredible gift for low key comedy.

 

One night instead of a musical guest I just like to hear Max and the band play. It's too bad we only get to here them when they go to or come back from commercials.

 

I actually have a mug with the Late Night logo on it that I got at NBC studios (didn't get to see the show, sadly). Great show, the best on late television.

 

Conan has just been announced as the host of the upcoming Emmy Awards.

 

Conan has the best supporting characters/bits: Triumph, Pimpbot, Masturbating Bear, In The Year 2000, If They Made It, the interviews where they insert that guy's mouth in a static pic of a celeb like Ahnold, The More You Know, etc. And his band shouldn't be overlooked. Max, Jimmy Vivino, La Bamba, they're household names now. They play good tunes and they always sound present; you can hear the instruments instead of one big mush. They're the best band in late night by far. And, of course, the character of Conan himself is great.