The Ed Sullivan Thread

[CharleyH]

If you are American, and of a certain age, you watched the Ed Sullivan Show.

I mean, you did. Everyone did.

And, if you're my age, you watched it, if for no other reason, than for the first American performance of the Beatles.

But there was more. Much more.

I'm too young to participate, so very, VERY sorry to say.

 

[Tzara]

I'm too young to participate, so very, VERY sorry to say.

A youth without Señor Wences and Topo Gigio must have been very hard. Almost Dickensian.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Let's not forget Elvis.

I'm showing my age with this, but I remember Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show from the fifties. Variety shows were very popular back then, I think in large part because my parent's generation viewed vaudeville with some nostaglia much like Hollywood taps into the same feelings among babyboomers with updated versions of characters we remember fondly.

BTW, Eddie wouldn't let the camera show Elvis's hips gyrating on stage during his premiere on the show; not sure about subsequent appearances.

Although it's more an abbreviated memoir in verse about the fifties in an Irish Catholic neighborhood than the Ed Sullivan Show, the following is a re-worked version of an earlier submission that's a personal favorite, and seeing how this is a poetry site and June is almost here, consider it a summer re-run:

Our Father

You swallowed the cottonmouth wonderbread
And late Sunday morning after mass thirsted
For Ebbets Field stout doubleheaders
Before your blue collar daybreak again.

But you sang a helluva pig latin song
On good Friday amateur nights after Lent:
"Oh, what an assy-chay on this fair assy-lay
And Sister Mary so Honoré
Creeping into the Knights of Columbus.”

“What about those ’55 Yanks and Bums?
Jaysuz! Had to go to confession, though;
Fill it up, Joe,” who gets one for himself
And sits down with the best of the parish
To watch another Ed Sullivan Show.

 

[CharleyH]

A youth without Señor Wences and Topo Gigio must have been very hard. Almost Dickensian.

Enh, I got along well with the Adventure people and Barbie better than paper dolls, ventriloquists and puppets. Strangely, my 12 year younger husband remembers falling asleep to Topo Gigio its early 80s incarnation. I don't remember it at all, but then I was a party girl at that time... I guess, lol.

 

[Tzara]

I'm showing my age with this, but I remember Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show from the fifties. Variety shows were very popular back then, I think in large part because my parent's generation viewed vaudeville with some nostaglia much like Hollywood taps into the same feelings among babyboomers with updated versions of characters we remember fondly.

BTW, Eddie wouldn't let the camera show Elvis's hips gyrating on stage during his premiere on the show; not sure about subsequent appearances.

Although it's more an abbreviated memoir in verse about the fifties in an Irish Catholic neighborhood than the Ed Sullivan Show, the following is a re-worked version of an earlier submission that's a personal favorite, and seeing how this is a poetry site and June is almost here, consider it a summer re-run:

Our Father

You swallowed the cottonmouth wonderbread
And late Sunday morning after mass thirsted
For Ebbets Field stout doubleheaders
Before your blue collar daybreak again.

But you sang a helluva pig latin song
On good Friday amateur nights after Lent:
"Oh, what an assy-chay on this fair assy-lay
And Sister Mary so Honoré
Creeping into the Knights of Columbus.”

“What about those ’55 Yanks and Bums?
Jaysuz! Had to go to confession, though;
Fill it up, Joe,” who gets one for himself
And sits down with the best of the parish
To watch another Ed Sullivan Show.

Well, GM, I guess you actually are a bit older than me, since I was three years old when Elvis debuted on Ed Sullivan.

If I caught the broadcast, I don't remember it.

I really like that poem, though. Makes me think of Damon Runyon crossed with Pound, or something.

 

[Tzara]

Enh, I got along well with the Adventure people and Barbie better than paper dolls, ventriloquists and puppets. Strangely, my 12 year younger husband remembers falling asleep to Topo Gigio its early 80s incarnation. I don't remember it at all, but then I was a party girl at that time... I guess, lol.

Topo Gigio put everyone to sleep. It's what in the sixties was called "entertainment."

I don't know the Adventure People (they seem to have debuted about the time I was graduating from university), but I snuck in some clandestine rendezvous with Barbie when I was young, usually at one or another cousin's house. We spent some quality time away from Ken, poor clueless bastard.

 

[Angeline]

Topo Gigio put everyone to sleep. It's what in the sixties was called "entertainment."

I don't know the Adventure People (they seem to have debuted about the time I was graduating from university), but I snuck in some clandestine rendezvous with Barbie when I was young, usually at one or another cousin's house. We spent some quality time away from Ken, poor clueless bastard.

Say W, remember how Ed always talked up Topo Gigio as something special for the children? And then Topo would come on and chat with "Eddie" and be pretty much of a snooze? At least that's how I remember it. Otoh Senor Wences always cracked me up.

 

[Tzara]

Say W, remember how Ed always talked up Topo Gigio as something special for the children? And then Topo would come on and chat with "Eddie" and be pretty much of a snooze? At least that's how I remember it. Otoh Senor Wences always cracked me up.

I hated both of them with a passion.

Well, maybe not that much. My mother would bribe me with popcorn, served in these brightly colored aluminum bowls (quite shocking shades of green, gold, bronze). It's odd how strongly I remember the bowls. I think the only time we used them was for popcorn, which we got for the annual showing of The Wizard of Oz and occasionally for Ed.

I did like the spinning plate guys, though. Didn't make me want to grow up to be one of them, though.




And, um, it's "B," dear. "W" is a character. Or a wish.

 

[Angeline]

I hated both of them with a passion.

Well, maybe not that much. My mother would bribe me with popcorn, served in these brightly colored aluminum bowls (quite shocking shades of green, gold, bronze). It's odd how strongly I remember the bowls. I think the only time we used them was for popcorn, which we got for the annual showing of The Wizard of Oz and occasionally for Ed.

I did like the spinning plate guys, though. Didn't make me want to grow up to be one of them, though.




And, um, it's "B," dear. "W" is a character. Or a wish.

Sorry, it was either a typo or a wish. Mebbe both.

Anyway I did enjoy Senor Wences, but I have to admit nowhere near as much fun as Earnie Kovacs (who's from my hometown), who must have been on Sullivan because he was popular then, but I don't remember if he was.

But my absolute favorite humorist then was Jean Shepherd. And I still adore him. Ever read Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters? It is a classic and just hilarious. Still.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Well, GM, I guess you actually are a bit older than me, since I was three years old when Elvis debuted on Ed Sullivan.

If I caught the broadcast, I don't remember it.

I really like that poem, though. Makes me think of Damon Runyon crossed with Pound, or something.

And I was twice your age then, but again likely wouldn't remember much if I had seen it.
Don't really have a whole lot of Elvis listening in my past. Kinda went from Classical to hard rock. In my high school days my friends and I would hang out in my basement, playing bridge, chess and ping-pong. Must of had a 33 down there by then, we listened to Bill Cosby, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and the like. Would hear folk music (Pete Seeger, Joan Baez) on WFMT's Midnight Special.

 

[sassynyc]

All of this predates me by decades, but at least 40% of my music collection is older than I am, so I have a great affinity for this stuff.
Makes me want to dig out my Richard Pryor and J5 box sets, and watch a Streisand movie marathon. Very cool thread.

How did you find that?! I looked and looked last night and I found every high school and church production's video of Bye Bye Birdie, but not the film. And I wanted to link to the soundtrack because as you noted it's all about Paul Lynde. He was just perfect in that role.

And btw Bye Bye Birdie was my high school's senior musical. Yes, I was in it. I was Albert's mother. "Albert I'm sticking my head in the oven now." Typecasting? Uh huh.

Some great Sullivan moments:

Richard Pryor

Flip Wilson

The Hippy Dippy Weatherman

and not to forget music:

The Four Seasons

The Young Rascals

The Jackson Five (with Michael's talent all but bursting through your tv screen)

Edith Piaf

La Streisand

Great thread T-zed. Fanks for the memories.