Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
What's My Line with mystery guest Danny Kaye (1957)
To keep this site from being overwhelmed by the sudden glut of What's My Line mystery guest spots flooding YouTube, I will only be embedding those featuring famous comedians or full episodes when they appear.
Wheel of Fortune (1976)
The sound ain't great but it's interesting to see an episode of Wheel of Fortune from 1976 hosted by a young Chuck Woolery (who looks like a Jack Burns character). I don't blame you if can't sit through the whole thing. I didn't.
Monday, August 4, 2008
What's My Line with panelist Groucho Marx (1959)
Groucho spars a bit with Bennett Cerf's failed attempts at humor and laborious rambling (as did Henry Morgan every now and then). By the way this is the 1000th post on Classic Television Showbiz and probably the 500th with questionable grammar.
The Doris Day Show featuring Rose Marie and McLean Stevenson (1968)
I can't believe they let Doris on national television with such an awful tan. This is a two-parter, but you'll have to wait a little bit to see the next installment of this episode as simultaneous Guba embeds really fack with the formatting of this blog for some reason.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1965)
A rare color episode of Ozzie and Harriet - and although the colors bleed - it isn't a colorized episode. This was near the end of the show's run.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Suspense starring Bob Hope (1949)
Paul Frees announces that Bob Hope stars in this week's episode of that greatest of radio dramas: Suspense. The episode Death has a Shadow. Bob plays it straight and intense like... for one of the few times in his career. Listen.
The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971)
Generally I rely on YouTube and occasionally Guba, Veoh, GoogleVideo and Dailymotion for the videos posted on Classic Television Showbiz. I've avoided popular sites like AOLvideo and Hulu because they are not available in Canada - and i'm not about to embed something that I myself can't even watch. However, I recently discovered a way around that and if you are using a computer outside the United States like me then you'll want to go here and figure out what you need to do to watch these videos. It's remarkably simple. After you've done that you'll not only be able to watch this episode of The New Dick Van Dyke Show, you'll also be able to watch several full - mostly high quality - episodes of Adam 12, Dragnet '68, Chico and the Man, The Dick Van Dyke Show, McHale's Navy, The Barney Miller Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Partridge Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant, Starsky and Hutch , F Troop, Lost in Space and several others on AOL and Hulu. Unfortunately you do have to sit through a preliminary thirty second advertisement and the odd middle thirty second ad when watching them - so make sure you have your computer's mute button close at hand. Also, once you install the AnchorFree software it'll prompt you to "choose a sponsor" but it's fairly harmless, it will just create a small ad box at the top of your page that you can easily close by clicking on the 'x'.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
What's My Line with guest one of the guys who played Bozo the Clown (not Larry Harmon) (1969)
I posted the first half of this here before but now game show YouTuber AdamNedeff has posted the second half and it's interesting. It features the guy who just appeared as Bozo the Clown without his make-up. Not sure if this is the only episode of What's My Line in which the exact same guest appeared as the challenger in two consecutive installments.
Friday, July 25, 2008
What's My Line with mystery guests Robert Mitchum, Rhonda Flemming, Charlton Heston, Van Johnson, Fred Astaire, Eva Gabor, Mamie Van Doren etc.
I know it has kinda been the What's My Line/Hollywood Palace hour here at the site of late, but I'm kinda at the mercy of what appears on the internet in a given week and this just what's been popping up. I wish the YouTubers would just post the entire episodes of What's My Line as I don't get GSN, and even if I did, I have a lot of trouble sitting through their endless commercials.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Shelley Berman (1984)
Berman is almost unrecognizable in one of his rare times doing stand-up on eighties TV.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
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* Interview outtakes with Woody Allen, David Frye, Eddie Fisher, Paul Hornung, Robert Morse, Nancy Ames, and Jerry Stiller & Anne Meara.
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Diary of a Musician featuring Jack Carter and Fraser Macpherson (1967)
A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary chronicling the life of a band leader at Vancouver's then premiere supper club The Cave. Once upon a time Vancouver was a cool showbiz mecca of sorts, the testing ground for the new acts of crooners and comics before they opened in Vegas. Sadly the town is a mere shell of its former self these days.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Away We Go with George Carlin (1967) - Footage Offline - 10/12/10
Here are three different segments from the 1967 summer replacement Away We Go featuring George Carlin. Away We Go was named after Jackie Gleason's catch phrase as the program was the summer replacement for The Jackie Gleason Show. It was Carlin's first full time television job and he worked as a featured performer and staff writer. When the Gleason program returned in the fall, Carlin was set up easily to make a pair of stand-up performances.
Friday, July 18, 2008
The Ed Sullivan Show with guest Senor Wences (1966) - Footage Offline - 09/10/10
Why is Senor Wences so funny? Who knows. Freud's book would never be able to explain it. But few acts can make me giggle non-stop.
The Hollywood Palace with host Martha Raye and guest George Carlin (1966)
Performing for a group of serviceman on their way to Vietnam.
The Mike Douglas Show with guests Gene Simmons and Totie Fields (1974)
Of all the Mike Douglas clips on YouTube, this one has traditionally been the most viewed. However, the clip has traditionally only appeared as a four minute chunk. This is new to the internets, and it is almost ten minutes.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Godfrey Cambridge Show: Live at the Hotel Aladdin (1968)
Godfrey Cambridge is a criminally neglected figure in stand-up history.
Listen to the whole Album - The Godfrey Cambridge Show
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
What's My Line with mystery guest Dustin Hoffman (1969)
What's My Line helps promote an X Rated movie. How bout that!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Robert Klein - Child of the 50s (1972)
Robert Klein was considered revolutionary in the seventies. He influenced countless comedians that flooded the onslaught of comedy clubs that started in the seventies and exploded in the eighties. However, Klein was a victim of his own influence. Much of this record sounds old hat now, featuring material that has since been done to death by others (shopping for condoms etc.), but Klein was the first. This record is also notable for being on the BRUT label - yes, the same people who made the cologne.Listen to the whole album - Robert Klein - Child of the 50s.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
What's My Line with mystery guest Eve Arden (1955)
Maybe the Game Show Network was being clever and running an OTR themed run of What's My Line. Then again, Eve Arden was a television star by this point, but to me, just like Herbert Marshall, she is radio star.
What's My Line with mystery guest Herbert Marshall (1954)
I don't recognize Herbert Marshall at all, mostly because I only know him from thousands of appearances on Old Time Radio, in particulary on that exciting theater of thrills, Suspense.
Treasure Hunt with host Jan Murray (1957)
I've never really understood the appeal of Jan Murray and watching this almost unbearable game show just cements the confusion. He seems like the kind of guy who was just in the right place at the right time, when networks needed a lot of bodies to fill the primitive airwaves and almost anybody with some stage experience/presence would do. I'm not sure if this episode bombed terribly or if it's just a sparsely populated studio audience, regardless I find Murray awfully obnoxious. He seemed to get slightly more bearable as he aged, but maybe that's just because he wasn't hosting his own show in the silver haired years. The best part of this thing is the Milton Delugg accordion peppered throughout the show (actually, when Murray is first introduced the music for a moment sounds strikingly similar to Delugg's opening for Broadway Open House with a man who should've been a far bigger star than Murray, one Jerry Lester).
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
It's Tough To Be White... The Wit of John Barbour (1965)
The first time I saw this LP, it was in the hands of a stranger who had just purchased it at a garage sale. I saw the title and was shocked - couldn't believe such an album existed and I was jealous I hadn't found it first.
A couple years later I found my own copy and it became immediately obvious that it was a satirical comedy album, the title in vain. Part of me was relieved and another part of me was disappointed.
World Pacific Records did not specialize in comedy. Alternately known as World Pacific and Pacific Jazz, the label cranked out great jazz LPs by the likes of The Jazz Crusaders, Les McCann, Gerry Mulligan and many more. They pressed under the World guise The Endless Summer soundtrack, plenty of Ravi Shankar stuff and a couple comedy albums.
Like their West Coast jazz rival Fantasy Records, they had a penchant for pressing things on lovely translucent red vinyl. Whereas Fantasy Records released comedy by hipster hero Lenny Bruce, World Pacific pressed five comedy albums by hipster hero, and Bruce's occasional rival, Lord Buckley.
Fantasy put out a rare non-Lenny Bruce comedy album, Orson Bean at the Hungry I. Likewise, one of World Pacific's only non-Lord Buckley comedy albums is today's showcase - It's Tough To Be White... The Wit of John Barbour.
Listen to the whole album - It's Tough to Be White...The Wit of John Barbour
Dick Gregory wrote the liner notes for his album... here they are:
Dear John:
I like you. I think you're one of the brightest, sharpest young comics around. I would like to say your album is dynamite, but I wouldn't want folks in Alabama to pick it up just to throw into churches!
You think you got it tough! You were born in Canada. I'm from Chicago. If things get too tough for you, you can always go farther north. Me - I can't go in either direction.
Your stuff touches the nerve ends, but it is funny. It could be a smash best seller, which makes me happy, 'cause if folks are inside laughing their heads off, they can't be outside blowing ours off!
Best of luck!
Dick Gregory
Monday, July 7, 2008
Where the Action Is with guests The Knickerbockers (1966)
I love this song - it enjoys heavy rotation on me turntable.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
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