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

The Dean Martin Show.

(from TV.com)

Originally on: NBC (60 min.)
Status: Ended Premiered: September 16, 1965 Last Aired: May 24, 1974
Show Categories: Variety Shows, Comedy

This long running comedy-musical variety series premiered September 16, 1965 on NBC. It remained on the network's schedule for 9 seasons.

Joining Dean as a regular was pianist Ken Lane.

Discuss.

 

Never seen this show, ever; however, I vividly remember this account of the appearance on the show of a TV actor named Milburn Stone. One of Stone's specialities was "spoonerisms". The dictionary definition of a spoonerism is: "A slip of the tonuge whereby initial or other sounds of words are accidentially transposed, as in 'our queer old dean' for 'our dear old Queen [Victoria]'--named after Rev. W. A. Spooner of Oxford, noted for such slips."

So Stone told Dean Martin the story of "Prinderella and the Cince".

Martin: "Oh, I'm just fairy about crazy tales."

Stone: "You see, Dean, Prinderella did all of the shirty dirk while her sisty uglers sat around on their fig bannies."

Martin: "That's a shirty dame."

Stone: "Then there appeared a magnificent colden goach made of pipe rellow yumpkin. All of a sudden there was a blinding flash of light--"

Martin: "NO ****!"

This is front of a live audience, no less. Martin was laughing so hard, he was in tears: "I'm sorry...I couldn't help myself."

This appeared in the final show, with the word just bleeped out.

 

Dead Ringers

(from TV.com)

Airs Next: BBC-2 at Monday 9:00 PM (30 min.)
Status: Returning Series Premiered: March 1, 2002
Show Categories: Comedy, Variety Shows
From radio to TV, Dead Ringers brings Doctor Who, Tony Blair, George Bush and many more to our screens in unexpected and extremly funney sketches and stunts.

With their own twist on programmes such as Restoration, How Clean is Your House, Dr Who and The Office, Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Kevin Connelly, Phil Cornwell and Mark Perry prove once again that nothing is sacred and no-one is safe.

Derren Brown, Paul Burrell, Simon Cowell and Kim and Aggie from 'How Clean Is Your House' had also better look out - they?re amongst the new characters to be given the Dead Ringers treatment, joining such favourites as Simon Schama, Sophie Raworth, Robert Winston, Gandalf and the Osbournes in this topical round-up of the year?s events. Christmas has never been so spicy.

Dead Ringers started life on BBC Radio Four. Listeners loved the witty way it lampooned the station's shows and personalities: newsreaders Brian Perkins and Charlotte Green were transformed into "The Daddy", and a sultry sex-kitten, respectively!

When the show made the leap to TV, a host of new targets walked into the line of fire including Ricky Gervais, Ozzy Osbourne, Fiona Bruce, Dirty Den and Kirsty Allsop (from Location Location Location).

All of these characters (and more) are brought to you by a cast of just four regulars (Kevin Connelly, Jon Culshaw, Mark Perry and Jan Ravens). And unlike some sketch-based comedies that have blighted British screens, a crack writing team means that there's zero padding in each episode.

Discuss.

 

I've never seen this show, but I have heard of it.

 

Hilarious stuff. Zaz, look up some stuff on Youtube for it. It really is amazing, espcially the skits on Blair/Bush, Doctor Who, James Blunt and Obi-Wan

 

Never thought of Youtube! I'll go look.

 

Donny and Marie.

Airs Next: ABC at Friday 8:00 PM (60 min.)
Status: Ended Premiered: January 23, 1976 Last Aired: January 12, 1979
Show Categories: Variety Shows, Comedy

The popular brother/sister act hosted this variety show which always opened up with "I'm a little bit country, I'm a little bit rock n' roll..."

Cast

Marie Osmond - Host Donny Osmond - Host (photos) Johnny Dark - Regular (1979) Larry Larsen - Regular Jim Connell - Regular Jimmy Osmond - Regular Alan Osmond - Regular Wayne Osmond - Regular Jay Osmond - Regular Merrill Osmond - Regular

Review

Donnie and Marie Osmond hosted this variety show for ABC. They were a brother/sister singing duo with great chemistry.

Another fun variety show from the 70's. They had a wide variety of guests from all areas of show business. They also did this cute little production each week of "I'm a little bit country, I'm a little bit rock n' roll..." where Marie would be the country singer and Donnie the rock n' roll singer. Alan Osmond, Jay Osmond, Merrill Osmond, Jimmy Osmond, Jim Connell, Johnny Dark and Larry Larsen were all regulars on the show. The show brought them so much success that they were able to build their own recording studio in Utah where they lived.

It may seems strange to say, but straight-laced Donny and Marie had one of the hippest variety shows ever on television. The break-out stars of the enormous Osmond clan, Donny and Marie have an unbelievable chemistry and their voices were made to blend together. This popular show featured the brother-sister interacting with fabulous guests, doing hilarious comedy skits, and singing the hearts out solo, as a duet, and often with the other Osmonds.

Discuss.

 

I can't say I've ever seen this show, but I have happy memories of the Mad Magazine satire of it, which included "Manchild Breeding Farms"...

 

The Electric Company.

(from TV.com)

Originally on: PBS (30 min.)
Status: Ended Premiered: October 25, 1971 Last Aired: April 15, 1977
Show Categories: Children, Variety Shows

The Electric Company

On the heels of its fabulously successful Sesame Street, the Children's Television Workshop (CTW) created The Electric Company. With its roots in Motown Sound, Broadway and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, The Electric Company drew attention for six years as the most popular instructional television show. It would win an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Series, and its soundtrack album earned a Grammy.

Targeting children ages 6 through 10, The Electric Company aimed to teach basic reading and grammar skills to the young viewers. The show's cast of skit players helped teach these concepts through the use of skits, songs, cartoon and blackout segments and regular features; all of them revolved around sound clusters (e.g., sh-, -ly, -oo-), contractions, punctuation marks, etc. The series provided material for elementary schools, as CTW published a biweekly TEC Teacher's Guide detailing program contents.

Quickly, the cast members began to establish themselves with various personas:

? Skip Hinnant (who had played Schroeder in the off-Broadway production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown) had one of the best known characters: Fargo North, Decoder. Early in the run, this Peter Sellers knock-off interpreted messages that people gave to him when they couldn't understand what had been written.

? The show also made Morgan Freeman. He created Easy Reader, the cool dude who loved reading anything he could get his hands on. Freeman also played radio disc jockey Mel Mounds, who usually introduced The Short Circus tunes (see below).

? Rita Moreno created her tagline, "Hey You Guys!", while playing Millie, the Milkman's helper. She put the same fire into playing Otto the Director, who fumed as her actors didn't read their lines properly.

? Judy Graubart, alumnus of The Second City in Chicago, became Jennifer of the Jungle, teaching bits of phonetics to her friend Paul the Gorilla.

? And who can forget J. Arthur Crank? Jimmy Boyd (B. 1939) created the character, strictly as a voice on a telephone during the first season. In all future years, Crank was seen as that bad-tempered loud dresser.

Complimenting the adults in the cast was The Short Circus, a group of five teenaged performers usually involved in songs or dances. Members of The Short Circus drew names from a hat to determine what would be their character name. While the Short Circus changed its talents from one season to the next, they did keep one member constant: June Angela.

The show also set itself apart with the cloud sets by Nat Mongioi (which members of the cast called "Limbo Land"), cool music by the late Joe Raposo and others, unique sound effects Dick Maitland pinned to punctuation marks, and the high-tech computer animation. The logo above can only suggest these elements, which seemed to represent the New Era back in the 1970s.

Among the most popular of the regular features was Spiderman, a live-action segment added during the series' fourth season. The Spiderman segments (for which there were about two dozen or so made) featured The Electric Company cast as various characters.

Beginning in 1972, there was also The Adventures of Letterman cartoon series. The evil Spell Binder would cause trouble by using his magic wand, replacing key letters to make the worse of situations (e.g.: Train into Rain). Then Letterman would take the letter(s) off his varsity sweater and correct the hazard.

Muppet characters from Sesame Street (including Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and Grover) also visited on occasion through the years.

A total of 780 episodes of The Electric Company aired from 1971 to 1977 on PBS; reruns of the final two seasons aired through the fall of 1985. Programs always ended with one of its cast members stating:

The Electric

 

Never seen this one at all, though I've heard of it.

 

Entertainment Tonight.

(from TV.com)

Airs Next: Syndicated at Weekdays 7:30 PM (30 min.)
Status: Returning Series Premiered: September 14, 1981
Show Categories: Talk Shows, Variety Shows

ET is a daily, half-hour, nationally syndicated entertainment newsmagazine, reporting on breaking news events, exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes first looks, and Hollywood's hottest stories from the worlds of film, television, fashion, literature and interactive media.

Entertainment Tonight is now also on MTV and VH1 daily.

In the U.K., ET is on weekdays at 2:35PM & 2:40AM on Sky One and at 12:45PM on Sky Mix. A British version airs Friday at 8:00PM on Sky One.

In the Philippines, ET is on Tuesday to Saturday at 10:00 PM on 2nd Avenue.

A Canadian version ET Canada began in the fall of 2005 on Global TV a Canadian network.

Discuss.

 

I loathe shows like ET, Inside Edition, etc. There was a time when ET retained some semblance of class because it didn't have any competition. It attempted to discuss entertainment news in a somewhat professional way. But with the rush of copycat shows, the only way they can seem to compete is to oversensationlize everything now. It's like paparazzi on TV. And then they also attempt to report real news that really has no link to entertainment and that crossing the line is really not a good idea.

And just on a weird tangent, is reporting on entertainment that much better than being a sports reporter? I see guys like Pat O'Brien and Kevin Frazier who used to be reputable sports guy switch over to entertainment shows and wonder why. Maybe the parties are a lot better.

 

You are so right. This show is on right after the local news, so I generally have to endure the headlines before I switch to something watchable. Literally 159,000 stories on Anna Nicole Smith. And what does she have to do with entertainment? Literally.

 

Anna Nicole is the perfect example of what is wrong with these types of shows. It used to be ET was about reporting on famous people. Now it seems they think their job is to make people famous regardless of who or what they are.

 

I agree that ET use to be a show about real entertainment news but its become nothing but tabloid television. I can remember back seven, eight years ago when they seem to have a daily news report about JFK Jr., Jackie O, or "Camelot" despite the fact the Kennedys have nothing to do with the entertainment industry. I stopped watching years ago so luckily I haven't had to endure Paris Hilton, or Anna Nicole Smith "news" reports.

ET stands for Entirely Trash.

Leonard Maltin abandon ship!

 

The Flip Wilson Show.

(from TV.com)

Airs Next: NBC at Thursday 7:30 PM (60 min.)
Status: Ended Premiered: September 17, 1970 Last Aired: October 25, 1975
Show Categories: Variety Shows, Comedy

Comic Flip Wilson was the first black performer to achieve major popularity as host of his own variety hour. The Flip Wilson Show was an enormous hit, during it's first two seasons. Although music and guests were an important part of the format, Flip's comedy was the real focus point of the series. Flip's best-known expression was a wide-eyed "The Devil made me do it". The Series Won Two Emmy Awards in 1970 for Best Variety Series and Writing in a Variety Series. Flip also won a Golden Globe in 1971 for Best TV Actor.

'The Flip Wilson Show' was the only prime-time series where you could find musical guests like Issac Hayes, James Brown and The Temptations.

Flip got his unique nickname because he 'flipped' people out with his stories. He was a very well known stand-up comedian and frequently made appearances on 'Tonight Show.' Flip was discovered by the King of late night himself Johnny Carson, and fellow comedian Redd Foxx. NBC was quick to make him the host of what would become one of, if not the most popular variety shows ever.

This show garnered the number two spot (ratings wise) coming in behind All in the Family. "The Flip Wilson Show" would keep these ratings for a solid 2 years, and was in the top 20 when it went off air in 1974.

"The Flip Wilson Show" had a strong stable of writers. Couple that with Wilson's tremendous talent and likability; you get a show that destroyed everything the other networks threw against it. Wilson himself wrote about a third of the show, and edited much of the rest.

The series stuck to five day rehearsal and shooting schedules; which was the most of any other variety show, but Flip was focused on making his series a cut above. "Occasionally it takes some time to hit off because we have to find the right approach," Wilson said in 1972, "But once that happens, we're smokin'."

If he was driven, it was because of tough times in the past, and a hard struggle through the black nightclubs of the fifties. "With all the trouble black people have", he once stated, "they try to forget on weekends. You've got to be good to make them laugh."

Flip's laws of comedy: "Be sudden, be neat. Be unimpassioned, and if you're serious about something, leave it out."

It was Flip's Geraldine character that made the phrase "What you see is what you get" famous. That was Wilson's philosophy as well: "My show is my statement", he told Time magazine in 1972, "What I have to say is on the screen. My life is my own. I don't want to talk about my private self. Why should I?"

THE NEILSEN RATINGS FOR THE FLIP WILSON SHOW (Top 25):

October 1970 - April 1971: #2

October 1971 - April 1972: #2

October 1972 - April 1973: #12

NBC Broadcast History

September 1970-June 1971----7:30-8:30

September 1971-June 1974----8:00-9:00

Flip's Various Characters included:

Geraldine - the wise-cracking, smart mouth woman with an unseen boyfriend named, "Killer"

Reverend Leroy - the flamboyant pastor of the Church Of What's Happenin' Now

Sonny - the White House janitor

Freddie Johnson - Quite the ladies man

Discuss.

 

I've seen clips from this only, usually of Geraldine or the minister, both very funny--you can see why it was a hit, especially back in the day.

 

Foxworthy's Big Night Out.

Airs Next: CMT at Friday 8:30 PM (30 min.)
Status: New Series Premiered: September 1, 2006
Show Categories: Comedy, Variety Shows

Official Site: Foxworthy's Big Night Out @ CMT.com

Jeff Foxworthy's new comedy series features comedic sketches, a new group of improv comedians and live musical performances by guest stars from the Country/Western genre. Along with the traditional TV monologue, there will also be audience participation and the redneck word of the day.

Discuss.

 

This one I haven't seen.

 

Friday Night Videos.

Airs Next: NBC at Friday 1:30 AM (90 min.)
Status: Ended Premiered: July 29, 1983 Last Aired: May 24, 2002
Show Category: Variety Shows

Following "Late Night with David Letterman," NBC presented music videos in "Friday Night Videos," for all the night owls who didn't have MTV.

Remember watching this some, but mainly watched MTV and then later VH1. Pretty amazing that this show lasted ten years.

Discuss.

 

Never saw this.

 

The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.

(from TV.com)

Airs Next: CBS at Wednesday 7:30 PM (60 min.)
Status: Ended Premiered: January 22, 1969 Last Aired: June 13, 1972
Show Category: Variety Shows

Glen Campbell received quite a following during his stint on "The Smothers Brothers Show". With his easy manner and popular music, Glen won quite a TV following leading to his own CBS series, "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour". Glen had two hit songs on the charts when he got the series, they were "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston". The series was filled with comedy, solos, and a very easy-going down-home friendly manner which endeared him to the masses. Composer-singer John Hartford wrote the theme song for the series, which was "Gentle On My Mind" and made frequent appearances throughout the show's run.

Last episode: March 21, 1972
Glen's guests for the series finale are Dom DeLuise, Anne Murray, Jerry Reed and Glen's parents.

Musical Highlights: Glen sings "Hello Young Lovers" & "Help Me Make It Through the Night". Anne Murray sings "Night Owl". Jerry Reed performs "Take It Easy in Your Mind". Glen and his parents sing "In the Shadow of the Pines". Comedy Sketches: Dom plays a nearsighted optometrist and as an aging Superman.

Discuss.

 

I think this was the show on which "Dueling Banjos" was first performed...

 

The Honeymooners.

(from TV.com)

Airs Next: CBS at Saturday 8:00 PM (30 min.)
Status: Ended Premiered: September 20, 1952 Last Aired: December 10, 1978
Show Categories: Comedy, Variety Shows

328 Chauncey Street, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York is where the apartment residences of the Kramdens and the Nortons stand.

These four people, fifteen years after the depression are still struggling to make ends meet.

Ralph Kramden and Alice Gibson married following his acquiring employment as a bus driver with the Gotham Bus Company.

Edward Lillywhite Norton, a sewer worker, and his wife, Thelma 'Trixie', live above the Kramdens.

The stories depict the sincere attempts of two men attempting to better their lives, and the ensuing frustrations when their schemes to strike it rich inevitably backfire.

Although "The Honeymooners" is one of the best remembered comedy highlights of TV's golden age, it was seen for most of its history as a segment within other programs.

In 1951, "The Honeymooners" was first seen as a sketch within DuMont's "Cavalcade of Stars", with Pert Kelton originating the role of Alice and with Art Carney's first appearance as a cop. (See season 12 - Special: Really Lost Debut Episodes).

In 1952, Jackie moved his show to CBS as "The Jackie Gleason Show" (see seasons 1-3), Audrey Meadows assumed the role of Alice.

On 3/30/1952 Jackie Gleason and Art Carney perform a "Honeymooners" sketch on "The Ed Sullivan Show". This sketch can be found on rare "Best of Ed Sullivan" VHS's that float around the internet.

In 1955 Gleason wanted a respite from the full-hour live weekly variety show. Thus the "Classic 39" were born (see season 4). It was decided to film a full season of half-hour Honeymooners shows.

In 1956, after the less-than-anticipated response to the filmed "Honeymooners", Gleason returned to a regular variety format for 1 additional season (see season 5).

In 1957 as part of the final season of "The Jackie Gleason Show", Jackie brought aboard Jerry Bresler & Lyn Duddy to create what is now known as the 1957 - Trip To Europe musical episodes.

On 1/26/1958 Audrey Meadows, Jack Benny and Dennis Day perform a "Honeymooners" sketch on "The Jack Benny Program". Jack Benny portrays Ralph & Dennis Day portrays Ed. This sketch can be found on very scarce "Best of Jack Benny" VHS's that float around the internet.

In 1962, after a 5 year hiatus from Television, Jackie returned to TV with "Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine" (see season 6). From 1962 to 1964 this show was from New York. Only 2 "Honeymooners" sketches were performed with Sue Ann Langdon taking on the role of Alice and Patricia Wilson as Trixie.

In 1964 Jackie moved his "Americn Scene Magazine" from NY to Miami. To move the entire crew and staff Jackie chartered a train of 14 cars for over 100 passengers and dubbed it "The Great Gleason Express". This would be where the remaining "Honeymooners" would be filmed, though still set in Bensonhurst.

In 1966, Audrey Meadows returned for 1 special episode, "The Adoption", a classic Jerry Bresler & Lyn Duddy musical episode featuring Ralph & Alice's attempt to adopt a baby. This would be the last episode filmed in black & white and is a precursor to what is now known as the "Color Honeymooners" over the next 4 seasons.

From 1966 to 1970, the majority of these episdoes were Jerry Bresler & Lyn Duddy mini-musicals, now known as the "Color Honeymooners". Sheila MacRea would portray Alice and Jane Kean as Trixie. These episodes can be seen on the "American Life TV Network" with the first 9 episodes on DVD with more sets to come.

On 1/7/1967 Audrey Meadows & Ray Bolger portray Alice & Ralph Kramden in a "Honeymooners" sketch on "The Hollywood Palace".

On 9/30/1968 Jackie appears uncredited as Ralph Kramden in one of the funniest episodes of "Here's Lucy" titled "Lucy Visits Jack Benny". Jack Benny appears as himself. This episode as well as 23 other c

 

The eppies are funny, but I never thought that this was part of a variety show.