Here's an episode of The Red Skelton Hour for January 29, 1963 with Red's guests Mickey Rooney and the Paris Sisters. I vaguely recall watching this when I was eleven and it helping form my opinion that Mickey Rooney, who later could be found all over television praising folks like himself who had God-given talents, didn't get a lot of them. Or at least enough of them to carry him past the time he'd outgrown the role of Andy Hardy. When he taped this appearance with Skelton, Mr. Rooney had recently wrapped filming on what would turn out to be my favorite movie.
I didn't think he was very good in it and I don't think he was very good in this hour with Red…although the long sketch is somewhat carried by Skelton's joy of performing and solid back-up support by character actors like Robert Strauss, Herb Vigran, Doris Singleton and a gent named Ray Kellogg, who was on almost as many episodes of Red Skelton's show as Red.
There's a musical number in there in which Mickey — surrounded as was inevitable by chorus girls taller than he was — does an awful job of dancing and lip-syncing to a pre-recorded voice that may have been that of a soundalike. If you're in my age bracket and the chosen song sounds familiar to you, here's where you know it from: It was used as theme song on The Bob Cummings Show. Watch a little of it if you can and catch some of the Silent Spot comedy bit at the end in which Skelton does a version of the hoary half-man/half-woman vaudeville routine that was otherwise extinct by 1963. The whole hour is an interesting glimpse into comedy-variety in the days of yore…