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Entertainers with semi-regular specials

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installLSC

While thumbing through Brooks and Marsh, I noticed an odd entry about Perry Como. For much of the 60s, instead of having a regular show or doing a special once a year, he would regularly host specials every five or six weeks. That brought up two questions:
--What other entertainers had multiple specials in a a year for any stretch of time?
--Why not just host a regular series if you're going to be airing that many specials?
 
Bob Hope immediately comes to mind. He did several specials per year on NBC from 1950 to 1996, ending only when his eyesight had degraded to the point where he could not read the cue cards. Still, 46 years? That's gotta be some kinda record, I tell ya.

Hope had done a weekly radio show from 1937 until the 1950s, and it is possible, since he started doing the NBC specials during the final years on the radio, that he saw a weekly series on TV as too much of a grind. He also, of course, had his USO tours taking up much of his time, and the occasional movie ... likely, he didn't want to give up either to make the time for a weekly TV series.
 
Bob did at least 5 specials a year-and more frequently, six, plus the 'birthday' shows where he did little more than sit and watch the stars honor him-all the way up until 1991, when he cut back to four shows.
Jack Benny and Bing Crosby had similar schedules during the '60s and early '70s; Jack finally cut down to one show a year, airing around his Valentine's Day birthday. His 'First Farewell Special' ran in 1973, followed by the 'Second Farewell' the following year. Jack was too ill to record the 'Third Farewell before he died in the last week of 1974(his final TV appearence ended up being on a Dean Martin roast of Lucille Ball, which aired about a month after Benny's death.
Speaking of Dean, following the end of his weekly series, Martin did a half-dozen 'Celebrity Roasts each season from 1974-75 through '77-78; only two aired during '78-79, as Dean presumably had a falling-out with Fred Silverman, and didn't return to NBC until 1984, with a couple more specials.
Paul Lynde had a few years in the '70s where he was doing a handful of shows per season for ABC.
I thought Mitzi Gaynor would be on this list, but she 'only did 8 in a 10-year stretch (1968-78 on NBC and CBS).
 
I loved those Dean Martin "roasts" but it was often times difficult to understand the dais mix.
 
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