And a really big hand for...

[bpatrick]

The 65th anniversary of "The Ed Sullivan Show," which debuted
June 20, 1948 and featured the hottest comedy team of the day,
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, on that first broadcast. Milton Berle
beat Sullivan to the air by twelve days but who left the largest
imprint? Is anyone in your area showing "The Best Of The Ed Sullivan
Show" now? It would be a great day to.

 

[BD Sullivan]

Sullivan obviously lasted longer (until 1971), but Berle's nickname of "Mr. Television" wasn't by accident. The popularity of his show helped to (reportedly) sell thousands of TV's, and gave a huge imprint to this burgeoning media. In short, both were huge in television history, but I'm not sure you can really rank either one above the other.

 

[onairb]

This thread is two months early, if it was meant to be on the anniversary date...but then, Ed made mistakes, too ('Help stamp out TV!');D

 

[cd637299]

Now that I think about it, Sullivan's voice & mannerisms have been lampooned over and over for 50 years now or more; but how often was Mr. B. imitated? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery----I read that somewhere!

(About Sullivan as Ed Sullystone on "The Flintstones": ) "He's 'really big' on those 'really bigs'!" ---Wilma

Did Berle have a "Will Jordan" lookalike?

cd

 

[landtuna]

Comparisons between Sullivan and Berle are very difficult to make since each was totally different than the other.

Berle was a comedian - not necessarily a good one but he fit in with other silly comedians of the day including Jerry Lewis. His show was very popular because of him.

Sullivan was perhaps the most wooden and uninspiring host that has ever graced stage or TV. He was anything but a comedian and not much of a host either. A lot of his popularity came from his gossip column roots in Noo Yawk and, of course, his guests.

That they shared a spot in the Golden Age of TV was perhaps their only common fault.

 

[cd637299]

^ Yah I understand that....it hit me after I posted that. One would think, though, that Mr B, being more of an entertainer, would garner more imitators, but Sullivan's schtick was so unintentionally hilarious AND mocked.

cd

 

[bpatrick]

Yeah, my bad about the date; I've had a lot on my mind lately,
but still it is coming up, as is the 65th anniversary of Berle's debut.
I agree that Berle made an impact if only because he was responsible
for the purchase of the first TV set in millions of homes, but I feel that
in the long run Sullivan made the greater impact because most of his
shows are still available whereas Berle's are not, and thus we see a
number of acts--many of them African-American--who may have appeared
with Berle first but had those appearances destroyed by somebody at NBC;
to give a prime example, few remember now that Elvis appeared twice with
Berle before his first appearance with Sullivan. Also, Berle's style of comedy
was already on the way out by 1951, the last time he was number one in the
ratings, even if his Tuesday-night show did last until 1956, and his subsequent
comeback attempts ("Kraft Music Hall" in 1958, "Jackpot Bowling" in 1960, and
"The Milton Berle Show" in 1966) were all failures.

Don't get me wrong; I've always enjoyed Uncle Miltie. But I just think so much
of what he did has been forgotten.

 

[landtuna]

^ Yah I understand that....it hit me after I posted that. One would think, though, that Mr B, being more of an entertainer, would garner more imitators, but Sullivan's schtick was so unintentionally hilarious AND mocked.

cd

It's been years and years since the last Berle show I ever watched but I'm going to opine that Sullivan was a lot easier to imitate because he had those very unusual personal "ticks" that almost no one else had. He was sort of in the same vein as Jack Benny with that soulful look and exasperated "WELL!".

Berle was a many of many characters. I can't remember if he, himself, had any artifacts that others would copy.

 

[BD Sullivan]

Yeah, my bad about the date; I've had a lot on my mind lately,
but still it is coming up, as is the 65th anniversary of Berle's debut.
I agree that Berle made an impact if only because he was responsible
for the purchase of the first TV set in millions of homes, but I feel that
in the long run Sullivan made the greater impact because most of his
shows are still available whereas Berle's are not, and thus we see a
number of acts--many of them African-American--who may have appeared
with Berle first but had those appearances destroyed by somebody at NBC;
to give a prime example, few remember now that Elvis appeared twice with
Berle before his first appearance with Sullivan. Also, Berle's style of comedy
was already on the way out by 1951, the last time he was number one in the
ratings, even if his Tuesday-night show did last until 1956, and his subsequent
comeback attempts ("Kraft Music Hall" in 1958, "Jackpot Bowling" in 1960, and
"The Milton Berle Show" in 1966) were all failures.

Don't get me wrong; I've always enjoyed Uncle Miltie. But I just think so much
of what he did has been forgotten.

Sadly, Berle was still under the assumption he was Mr. Television in 1979, when he hosted Saturday Night Live. Throughout the course of the week, he did his best to irritate virtually everyone connected to the show with this attitude. The end result was that Berle's appearance was the only one not included in the syndicated package of that first incarnation of SNL.

 

[trusty]

There are many factors that determine who is watched and remembered. For instance, when I was a kid (the first time), we watched Sullivan - not Berle. Why?

Our home was very near the towers for both the CBS and NBC stations. The CBS station came in perfect, but the NBC station always had multiple "ghosts" - even with an outdoor antenna - and very hard on the eyes. As a result, our family treated most of the NBC shows as radio programs.

(We were not the only ones with the ghost problem. The mountain on which the stations were located was loaded with iron ore, and it's been said the metal didn't like the frequency of the NBC station.) ???

At least that's what was said...

 

[cspotrun]

i think Ed's life had to be somewhat easier than Berle's... Ed didn't have to do skits, tell jokes and be Funny every week...all Ed had to do is Book acts to fill an hour show.. (he did seem to have the ability to know what acts were good for the most part)

 

[bpatrick]

True, if you read the several biographies of Ed, he never even saw
the acts until Sunday-afternoon dress rehearsal and, once that was
over, he would rearrange the order of the show. But he was involved
all week; he booked Elvis the day after Steve Allen clobbered him with
Elvis on the show, and he and Brian Epstein met at Sullivan's apartment
to arrange the Beatles' appearances. Also, sometime during the week
Ed would have the comedians scheduled that week come in and do their
routines for him; he would then cut the weakest jokes (or those he thought
to be in questionable taste), a practice that led (I think) Alan King to joke,
"You're booked for twelve minutes, in meetings with Ed you're cut to eight,
in dress rehearsal to four. Then just before airtime Ed calls and says, 'Can
you stay in your hotel room and phone it in?'" And Ed and Sylvia went out
practically every night, to nightclubs, Broadway shows, etc., looking for
new acts; Ed also got a lot of feedback from people on the street about who
they did and didn't want to see. So while he might not have had to knock
himself out quite as hard as Berle, he did put everything he had into the show--
and wrote a syndicated column on top of that.

Sadly, it's my opinion that, while Ed's show had been off CBS for almost two
years and he was doing specials in 1973 when Sylvia died, he lost interest
in doing both television and the column after she passed away. (I know, because
I saw my grandfather completely lose interest in living after my grandmother passed
away at about the same time.) True, the cause of death in Ed's case was cancer,
but I have to wonder if the mental toll of losing his wife would have hastened his
passing anyway. Thoughts?

 

[onairb]

True, if you read the several biographies of Ed, he never even saw
the acts until Sunday-afternoon dress rehearsal and, once that was
over, he would rearrange the order of the show. But he was involved
all week; he booked Elvis the day after Steve Allen clobbered him with
Elvis on the show, and he and Brian Epstein met at Sullivan's apartment
to arrange the Beatles' appearances. Also, sometime during the week
Ed would have the comedians scheduled that week come in and do their
routines for him; he would then cut the weakest jokes (or those he thought
to be in questionable taste), a practice that led (I think) Alan King to joke,
"You're booked for twelve minutes, in meetings with Ed you're cut to eight,
in dress rehearsal to four. Then just before airtime Ed calls and says, 'Can
you stay in your hotel room and phone it in?'" And Ed and Sylvia went out
practically every night, to nightclubs, Broadway shows, etc., looking for
new acts; Ed also got a lot of feedback from people on the street about who
they did and didn't want to see. So while he might not have had to knock
himself out quite as hard as Berle, he did put everything he had into the show--
and wrote a syndicated column on top of that.

Sadly, it's my opinion that, while Ed's show had been off CBS for almost two
years and he was doing specials in 1973 when Sylvia died, he lost interest
in doing both television and the column after she passed away. (I know, because
I saw my grandfather completely lose interest in living after my grandmother passed
away at about the same time.) True, the cause of death in Ed's case was cancer,
but I have to wonder if the mental toll of losing his wife would have hastened his
passing anyway. Thoughts?

Sullivan's family kept the cancer diagnosis from him, so he thought he just had an ulcer.

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

^^^ (Reply 12)-- Thanks to the visuals of TV, Berle's burlesque/vaudville style didn't transition to TV as successfully as Benny's & Burns & Allen's. Fred Allen (no relation to Gracie) suffered the same fate, as did comedian Frank Faye.

TV sometimes made Berle look obnoxious. Fred Allen was a nice man by most accounts, but he looked gruff on TV. Faye, though a brilliant monologist, was regarded in professional circles as a pompous, egotistical and self-consumed B******, qualities he got away with on the vaudville stage, and even on radio, but could not squelch on TV. I myself would rate Berle as the most likable of these entertainers, although, as mentioned in the post referencing his SNL gig, he could be very irritating.

About Sullivan's family concealing the cancer diagnosis, I never knew that. Benny's family did the same thing with Jack's pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

 

[onairb]

Sullivan was diagnosed with cancer of the espohagus a little over a month before he died. Since he'd had ulcers for years (and perhaps thoughtthe trouble in his throat was what we'd now call acid reflux disease), his children decided not to tell him how little time he had left.

 

[bpatrick]

I've heard a story that one time Frank Fay was testifying in court,
and when asked after he took the stand to state his name and occupation,
answered, "Frank Fay, the world's greatest comedian." Asked later why he
said that he answered, "I had to. I was under oath."

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Maybe one reason "The Ed Sullivan Show" lasted 23 years was that Sullivan was simply a host who introduced acts instead of being a performing comic emcee in the Bob Hope/Milton Berle/Carol Burnett mold or a singing emcee in the Perry Como/Dinah Shore/Sonny and Cher vein.

But the biggest reason for the show's long-term success had to be the wide range of guests. I suspect that there were very few people who were famous in American entertainment between 1948 and 1971 who didn't grace Sullivan's stage at least once.

His was "A Really Big Shoe", all right!

 

[BD Sullivan]

I've heard a story that one time Frank Fay was testifying in court,
and when asked after he took the stand to state his name and occupation,
answered, "Frank Fay, the world's greatest comedian." Asked later why he
said that he answered, "I had to. I was under oath."

One indication of how big Fay was during the Vaudeville era: he was making what now would be about $225,000 A WEEK.

 

[KeithE4]

I've heard a story that one time Frank Fay was testifying in court, and when asked after he took the stand to state his name and occupation, answered, "Frank Fay, the world's greatest comedian." Asked later why he said that he answered, "I had to. I was under oath."

One indication of how big Fay was during the Vaudeville era: he was making what now would be about $225,000 A WEEK.

Wow! That's almost 20% of what A-Rod makes. ;D

 

[cd637299]

I've heard a story that one time Frank Fay was testifying in court, and when asked after he took the stand to state his name and occupation, answered, "Frank Fay, the world's greatest comedian." Asked later why he said that he answered, "I had to. I was under oath."

One indication of how big Fay was during the Vaudeville era: he was making what now would be about $225,000 A WEEK.

Wow! That's almost 20% of what A-Rod makes. ;D

And no home runs!

cd