The Colgate Comedy Hour
Encyclopedia
The Colgate Comedy Hour is an American comedy-musical variety series
that aired live on the NBC
network from 1950 to 1955. The show stars many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor
, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
, Fred Allen
, Donald O'Connor
, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello
, Bob Hope
, Jimmy Durante
, Ray Bolger
, Gordon MacRae
, Ben Blue
, Robert Paige
, Tony Curtis
, Burt Lancaster
, Broadway
dancer Wayne Lamb
and Spike Jones
and His City Slickers.
. The "running gag" sketches were dropped in favor of more performing acts. The weekly show was proposed to be hosted by four comedians in a four-week rotation to provide competition for Ed Sullivan
's Toast of the Town on CBS
.
The new format was heavily backed by its sponsor, Colgate-Palmolive
, to the tune of $3 million in the first year, and the 8:00 p.m. ET, Sunday evening format show was a spectacular success, particularly for Eddie Cantor and the Martin & Lewis and Abbott & Costello duos. In his autobiography, Jerry Lewis
wrote that the show premiered Sunday, September 17, 1950, with Martin & Lewis and was telecast from the Park Theatre off Columbus Circle in New York City. As theatres are known by different names over history, it is possible that this was the now-demolished International Theatre at 5 Columbus Circle, the broadcast location of another NBC
show of the era, Your Show of Shows
with Sid Caesar
and Imogene Coca
.
During the 1950-51 season, AT&T
put into regular service a coast-to-coast coaxial/microwave interconnection service which allowed live telecasts from both coasts. Two production units were quickly set up, one out of New York and the other out of Los Angeles. Martin & Lewis and Abbott & Costello anchored the West Coast, broadcasting from the El Capitan theater in Hollywood (now used by ABC
-TV's Jimmy Kimmel Live), while Eddie Cantor anchored from New York. This gave NBC a substantial edge over Ed Sullivan, since top-grade talent from motion pictures could also do network TV on the West Coast Colgate Comedy Hour, while Sullivan had to work with whomever happened to be in New York at the time that a particular episode aired.
During the 1952-53 season, Cantor suffered a heart attack immediately after a Colgate Comedy Hour show in September. Although he quickly recovered and returned in January 1953, he was reluctant to move with the show. By the fourth season, the sponsor was providing $6 million, but the performers were finding difficulty in offering fresh material and ratings began to decline. Cantor had become too ill to continue in the hosting role, and the travel was too stressful and painful for him. His final Colgate appearance was in May 1954. Vic Schoen
was hired as the musical director in 1954.
In 1954, Tony Martinez, later cast as the farmhand on The Real McCoys
, made his television debut on The Colgate Comedy Hour.
In June 1955, the show changed its name to the Colgate Variety Hour to reflect a move away from pure comedy. A number of the earlier hosts had left by the end of the 1953-54 season (with the exception of Martin & Lewis) as the show shifted toward mini-musicals, starring hosts such as Ethel Merman
and Frank Sinatra
, who paired together in a shortened version of Cole Porter
's "Anything Goes". The show was also performing on the road as well, unlike other seasons where the shows were transmitted from New York or Los Angeles at 8 p.m. Gordon MacRae
often served as host during this period.
However, ratings continued to slide while The Ed Sullivan Show
got stronger. The final show, emceed by the series' last continuing host Robert Paige
, aired as a Christmas special on December 25, 1955, with Fred Waring
and his Pennsylvanians choral ensemble. The Colgate Comedy Hour was replaced the following season with the NBC Comedy Hour, hosted by Leo Durocher
for the first three shows. After Durocher, the regular hosts changed, and after 18 broadcasts, the final show aired in June. Regular supporting casts always co-starred in each of the episodes. Jonathan Winters
was featured on the show.
On November 5, 1967, NBC broadcast a special Colgate Comedy Hour revival (pre-empting The Dean Martin Show
, which Colgate sponsored at the time), with guests Nanette Fabray
, Kaye Ballard
, Edie Adams
, Carl Reiner
and Mel Brooks
[performing one of their "2000 Year Old Man
" routines], Phyllis Diller
, Bob Newhart
, Nipsey Russell
, and Dan Rowan & Dick Martin
. None of the performers who had performed in the original 1950-1956 shows appeared. The special also served as a television pilot
for a possible revival of the series, which never happened.
In the 1954-1955 season, Donald O'Connor left the show and starred in his own musical situation comedy
, The Donald O'Connor Show
, which aired on the NBC Saturday schedule alternating with The Jimmy Durante Show
.
, was the very first ever color television broadcast in the NTSC
color system (still used in the U.S. until the change to digital in June 2009). There were few other color broadcasts in the 1953-1954 season, and all of them were transmitted by NBC
. The series was also used earlier in the season to demonstrate the final form of RCA's "Compatible" color system to members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Two sets were in the room: an experimental color model and a standard black-and-white unit. Eddie Cantor hosted the program with guests including Frank Sinatra, Eddie Fisher, and Brian Donlevy
.
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
that aired live on the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
network from 1950 to 1955. The show stars many notable comedians and entertainers of the era, including Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...
, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
Martin and Lewis
Martin and Lewis were an American comedy team, comprising singer Dean Martin and comedian Jerry Lewis as the comedic "foil". The pair first met in 1945; their debut as a duo occurred at Atlantic City's 500 Club on July 24/25, 1946....
, Fred Allen
Fred Allen
Fred Allen was an American comedian whose absurdist, topically pointed radio show made him one of the most popular and forward-looking humorists in the so-called classic era of American radio.His best-remembered gag was his long-running mock feud with friend and fellow comedian Jack Benny, but it...
, Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello
Abbott and Costello
William "Bud" Abbott and Lou Costello performed together as Abbott and Costello, an American comedy duo whose work on stage, radio, film and television made them the most popular comedy team during the 1940s and 1950s...
, Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
, Ray Bolger
Ray Bolger
Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
, Gordon MacRae
Gordon MacRae
Gordon MacRae was an American actor and singer, best known for his appearances in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! and Carousel and films with Doris Day like Starlift.-Early life:Born Albert Gordon MacRae in East Orange, New Jersey, MacRae graduated from...
, Ben Blue
Ben Blue
Ben Blue , born Benjamin Bernstein, was a Canadian-American actor and comedian.Born to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, at the age of nine, Blue emigrated to Baltimore in the United States where he won a contest for the best impersonation of Charlie Chaplin...
, Robert Paige
Robert Paige
Robert Paige was a TV star and Universal Pictures leading man who made 65 films in his lifetime and was the only actor ever allowed to sing on film with Deanna Durbin...
, Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
, Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...
, Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
dancer Wayne Lamb
Wayne Lamb
Michael 'Wayne' Lamb was a Broadway dancer, choreographer, theatre director, and dance professor.-Study and military service:...
and Spike Jones
Spike Jones
Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, performed a drunken, hiccuping verse for 1942's "Clink! Clink! Another Drink"...
and His City Slickers.
Synopsis
The program evolved from NBC's first TV variety showcase, Four Star Revue, sponsored by MotorolaMotorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
. The "running gag" sketches were dropped in favor of more performing acts. The weekly show was proposed to be hosted by four comedians in a four-week rotation to provide competition for Ed Sullivan
Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S...
's Toast of the Town on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
.
The new format was heavily backed by its sponsor, Colgate-Palmolive
Colgate-Palmolive
Colgate-Palmolive Company is an American diversified multinational corporation focused on the production, distribution and provision of household, health care and personal products, such as soaps, detergents, and oral hygiene products . Under its "Hill's" brand, it is also a manufacturer of...
, to the tune of $3 million in the first year, and the 8:00 p.m. ET, Sunday evening format show was a spectacular success, particularly for Eddie Cantor and the Martin & Lewis and Abbott & Costello duos. In his autobiography, Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis is an American comedian, actor, singer, film producer, screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He was originally paired up with Dean Martin in 1946, forming the famed comedy team of Martin and Lewis...
wrote that the show premiered Sunday, September 17, 1950, with Martin & Lewis and was telecast from the Park Theatre off Columbus Circle in New York City. As theatres are known by different names over history, it is possible that this was the now-demolished International Theatre at 5 Columbus Circle, the broadcast location of another NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
show of the era, Your Show of Shows
Your Show of Shows
Your Show of Shows is a live 90-minute variety show that appeared weekly in the United States on NBC , from February 25, 1950, until June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca....
with Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
and Imogene Coca
Imogene Coca
Imogene Fernandez de Coca was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows....
.
During the 1950-51 season, AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
put into regular service a coast-to-coast coaxial/microwave interconnection service which allowed live telecasts from both coasts. Two production units were quickly set up, one out of New York and the other out of Los Angeles. Martin & Lewis and Abbott & Costello anchored the West Coast, broadcasting from the El Capitan theater in Hollywood (now used by ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
-TV's Jimmy Kimmel Live), while Eddie Cantor anchored from New York. This gave NBC a substantial edge over Ed Sullivan, since top-grade talent from motion pictures could also do network TV on the West Coast Colgate Comedy Hour, while Sullivan had to work with whomever happened to be in New York at the time that a particular episode aired.
During the 1952-53 season, Cantor suffered a heart attack immediately after a Colgate Comedy Hour show in September. Although he quickly recovered and returned in January 1953, he was reluctant to move with the show. By the fourth season, the sponsor was providing $6 million, but the performers were finding difficulty in offering fresh material and ratings began to decline. Cantor had become too ill to continue in the hosting role, and the travel was too stressful and painful for him. His final Colgate appearance was in May 1954. Vic Schoen
Vic Schoen
Victor "Vic" Schoen was an American bandleader, arranger, and composer whose career spanned from the 1930s until his death in 2000...
was hired as the musical director in 1954.
In 1954, Tony Martinez, later cast as the farmhand on The Real McCoys
The Real McCoys
The Real McCoys is an American situation comedy co-produced by Danny Thomas' "Marterto Productions", in association with Walter Brennan and Irving Pincus's "Westgate" company...
, made his television debut on The Colgate Comedy Hour.
In June 1955, the show changed its name to the Colgate Variety Hour to reflect a move away from pure comedy. A number of the earlier hosts had left by the end of the 1953-54 season (with the exception of Martin & Lewis) as the show shifted toward mini-musicals, starring hosts such as Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman
Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...
and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, who paired together in a shortened version of Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
's "Anything Goes". The show was also performing on the road as well, unlike other seasons where the shows were transmitted from New York or Los Angeles at 8 p.m. Gordon MacRae
Gordon MacRae
Gordon MacRae was an American actor and singer, best known for his appearances in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! and Carousel and films with Doris Day like Starlift.-Early life:Born Albert Gordon MacRae in East Orange, New Jersey, MacRae graduated from...
often served as host during this period.
However, ratings continued to slide while The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan....
got stronger. The final show, emceed by the series' last continuing host Robert Paige
Robert Paige
Robert Paige was a TV star and Universal Pictures leading man who made 65 films in his lifetime and was the only actor ever allowed to sing on film with Deanna Durbin...
, aired as a Christmas special on December 25, 1955, with Fred Waring
Fred Waring
Fredrick Malcolm Waring was a popular musician, bandleader and radio-television personality, sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing." He was also a promoter, financial backer and namesake of the Waring Blendor, the first modern electric...
and his Pennsylvanians choral ensemble. The Colgate Comedy Hour was replaced the following season with the NBC Comedy Hour, hosted by Leo Durocher
Leo Durocher
Leo Ernest Durocher , nicknamed Leo the Lip, was an American infielder and manager in Major League Baseball. Upon his retirement, he ranked fifth all-time among managers with 2,009 career victories, second only to John McGraw in National League history. Durocher still ranks tenth in career wins by...
for the first three shows. After Durocher, the regular hosts changed, and after 18 broadcasts, the final show aired in June. Regular supporting casts always co-starred in each of the episodes. Jonathan Winters
Jonathan Winters
-Early life:Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, the son of Alice Kilgore , a radio personality, and Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an investment broker. He is a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio...
was featured on the show.
On November 5, 1967, NBC broadcast a special Colgate Comedy Hour revival (pre-empting The Dean Martin Show
The Dean Martin Show
The Dean Martin Show is a TV variety-comedy series that ran from 1965 to 1974 for 264 episodes. It was broadcast by NBC and hosted by crooner Dean Martin...
, which Colgate sponsored at the time), with guests Nanette Fabray
Nanette Fabray
Nanette Fabray is an American actress, comedienne, singer, dancer, and activist. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and then became a musical theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life...
, Kaye Ballard
Kaye Ballard
Kaye Ballard is an American musical theatre and television actress, comedienne, and singer.-Life and career:Ballard was born as Catherine Gloria Balotta in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Italian American family, the daughter of Lena and Vincent James Balotta.Ballard established herself as a musical...
, Edie Adams
Edie Adams
Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
, Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
and Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
[performing one of their "2000 Year Old Man
2000 Year Old Man
The 2000 Year Old Man is a persona in a comedy skit, originally created by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner in 1961.Mel Brooks played the oldest man in the world, interviewed by Carl Reiner in a series of comedy routines that appeared on television, as well as being made into a collection of records...
" routines], Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
, Bob Newhart
Bob Newhart
George Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
, Nipsey Russell
Nipsey Russell
Julius "Nipsey" Russell was an American comedian, best known today for his appearances as a guest panelist on game shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, especially Match Game, Password, Hollywood Squares, To Tell the Truth and Pyramid...
, and Dan Rowan & Dick Martin
Dick Martin (comedian)
Thomas Richard "Dick" Martin was an American comedian and director, best known for his role as the cohost of the sketch comedy program Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973.-Early life and career:...
. None of the performers who had performed in the original 1950-1956 shows appeared. The special also served as a television pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
for a possible revival of the series, which never happened.
In the 1954-1955 season, Donald O'Connor left the show and starred in his own musical situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
, The Donald O'Connor Show
The Donald O'Connor Show
The Donald O'Connor Show is an American musical situation comedy television series starring singer/dancer Donald O'Connor...
, which aired on the NBC Saturday schedule alternating with The Jimmy Durante Show
The Jimmy Durante Show
The Jimmy Durante Show is a 51-episode half-hour comedy/variety program presented live on NBC from October 2, 1954 to June 23, 1956.-Production background:...
.
Color
The episode broadcast on November 22, 1953, hosted by Donald O'ConnorDonald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
, was the very first ever color television broadcast in the NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
color system (still used in the U.S. until the change to digital in June 2009). There were few other color broadcasts in the 1953-1954 season, and all of them were transmitted by NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
. The series was also used earlier in the season to demonstrate the final form of RCA's "Compatible" color system to members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Two sets were in the room: an experimental color model and a standard black-and-white unit. Eddie Cantor hosted the program with guests including Frank Sinatra, Eddie Fisher, and Brian Donlevy
Brian Donlevy
Brian Donlevy was an Irish-born American film actor, noted for playing tough guys from the 1930s to the 1960s. He usually appeared in supporting roles. Among his best known films are Beau Geste and The Great McGinty...
.