What I watched: A 1949 episode of Toast of the Town, the program that would eventually become The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan hosted, with guests including Harry Armstrong, W. C. Handy, Maude Nugent, George Kirby, Bill Tabbett, and Lenny Kent. It aired on December 18, at 8:00 on CBS, and is available to watch on YouTube.
What happened: Sullivan is introduced by a chorus of dancing girls, and an announcer who describes him as a “nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist.” Ed looks like he hasn’t slept in about four days, and immediately launches into a pre-taped ad for the 1950 Lincoln Mercury. We then go on a “trip down memory lane” to 1896, when “Sweet Adeline” was first written by Harry Armstrong. Armstrong himself is in a barbershop set to sing it! He looks healthier than Sullivan, to be honest.
The musical segments continue, with blues legend W. C. Handy performing “St. Louis Blues” on his trumpet. Maude Nugent, another performer whose biggest hit was in 1896, performs the waltz standard she composed “Rosie O’Grady.” She even does a little bit of septugenarian tap-dancing. This is followed by a dance segment performed by a bit younger folks.
After this pitch to the silver-hair brigade, we go to “something for the younger folk”, a puppet show. You might be overcorrecting there, Ed. An Irish puppet (I think the name was Tommy Cress) harasses one of his neighbours until he comes up to the roof and then slaps him into unconsciousness. The puppeteer sticks his head out once and gets a whack too. Tommy then gets his comeuppance when a skunk sprays him in the face, and an Ollie-looking dragon tries to eat him.
Sullivan welcomes a number of people in the audience, including a Native American tribe and an eight-year-old girl who does imitations of Judy Garland. Ed makes a WEIRD joke about them getting married. She does some pretty good lip-syncing. Sadly, she was born decades before The Great Lip-Sync Battle begun. This is followed by a routine where a young woman dances with her reflection, which is swiftly interrupted by another Lincoln ad.
After the ad, there’s an acrobatics number by Wanda and Howard Zell. It involves a plank-and-wheel contraption that looks like the first, insanely dangerous, prototype for the skateboard. In one segment, Wanda balances on Howard’s head with purely her neck strength. (27:00) That must have hurt a lot.
The next act is George Kirby, who was apparently bumped from a previous show. He does something that sounds a bit like beat poetry, and then descends into a series of impressions of radio announcers and characters, including the Digger O’Dell character from Life of Riley, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Lou Costello, and an Amos and Andy routine. There’s a lot to unpack there. He concludes with an imitation of Joe Louis, who bumped him the first time and is apparently watching tonight.
Bill Tabbett, a Marine sergeant and apparently a recurring guest, comes out. He either served in the South Pacific or appeared in the musical South Pacific, I’m not sure which. He’s hear to support Lee Benedict, a Chicago native who apparently won a contest to be on the show. She sings “Fool That I Am”, which doesn’t quite fit the presentation of her as a young ingenue, but is well-performed nevertheless. Bill then sings one of the worst Christmas songs I’ve ever heard.
The show concludes with a stand-up comedy performance by Lenny Kent. He does some jokes about Latin American culture which probably wouldn’t play very well these days. He then recaps the whole show in the fast-talking style that Sid Caesar was perfecting on another network. Finally, the show wraps up with another Mercury plug.
What I thought: Before I had ever heard of Milton Berle or Sid Caesar, I knew about Ed Sullivan. I heard the stories of his role in exposing America to rock and roll from my mother and my eighth-grade music teacher, stories that made him sound like a larger-than-life icon. So I was surprised to watch Talk of the Town and be rather unimpressed by Sullivan himself.
Now, this was very early in his TV career, and it’s likely that Ed developed more screen presence later. But in this episode he doesn’t look like a TV star. Middle-aged and tired-looking, Sullivan barely tells jokes. But then, his role on the show is mainly to briefly introduce acts. Of all the variety shows I’ve watched from this year, Toast of the Town is the one that relies on its host’s personality the least, with no opening monologue or extended skits involving Sullivan.
And why not rely on the guests? This episode alone features Broadway stars, physics-defining acrobatics, and genuine musical legends. Toast of the Town fully embodies the concept of a variety show, with acts ranging from a puppet show to stand-up comedy, providing something for parent, child, and grandparent.
I was especially interested in the opening musical segment, featuring star composers of yesteryear, including W. C. Handey, the man who popularized the blues on a national level. The 1940s had their own form of nostalgia, specifically focused on the “gay” 1890s. After all, that decade was the origin of so much of early TV, from vaudeville to Tin Pan Alley. Even so, it’s hard to imagine a contemporary program bringing such visibly old musicians on for a live performance. Then again, Paul Simon was on SNL last year…
There was one segment that had the cultural-studies scholar in me spinning, and that was George Kirby’s imitation routine. Among the celebrities he imitates are Amos ‘n’ Andy, the ministrel-y popular radio characters. There’s a lot to be written about Amos ‘n’ Andy (and I likely will in the future, as they had a TV show), but it’s hard to know what to make of a black entertainer imitating two white people imitating working-class black people. It’s a real Get Out situation. It was certainly the bit that got the largest audience reaction: to the mostly white Toast of the Town audience, this impression seemed right.
Does Kirby’s impression give an “authentic” seal of approval to the buffoonish radio characters, or does it subtly reveal their phoniness? Or is Kirby arguing for a trans-racial continuum of entertainment? As we’ve encountered before, blackface acts were generally seen as wholesome and uncontroversial entertainment, and it’s not impossible that Kirby could have genuinely envisioned them the same way. Certainly, as a white Canadian born almost fifty years after this broadcast, I’m probably not the person to demand a particular reading of this moment.
However you read it, Kirby’s routine was clearly successful, and he would become a staple guest for Ed Sullivan over the years. As for Ed, his lack of screen polish obviously didn’t hurt his longevity. Unfortunately, there aren’t many surviving shows from these early years, but this episode gives us at least some idea of how Sullivan eventually became a baby-boomer cultural icon.
Coming up next: Another group of puppets get prepared for the holidays.
The Eternal Couch Potato 