Category Archives: Video Links

Our pal Shelly Goldstein found this. It's from The Dinah Shore Show on NBC in 1963. Dinah and her guests Barbra Streisand, Georgia Brown, Sam Fletcher and The Chad Mitchell Trio sing the big closing song from the then-current Broadway hit, "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Someone said this aired the same night that The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show…

Perry Como (that's right: Perry Como) sings "Love in a Home," a song from the original Broadway production of one of my favorite shows, Li'l Abner. Mr. Como made a record of this tune that was released shortly before the musical opened in New York. It was a hit and that contributed to the show being a hit…but it was cut from the show during its post-Broadway tour and not included in the movie. Apparently, once the heat from Como's record died down, the producers decided it was expendable…

It was a brief and shining moment for some but there was a time of peace and love in this country; of young people rejecting materialism for spiritual understanding and greed for selflessness. Some called it the "hippie" era and at the time, it was too often characterized by its worst, most freakish elements. But at its core, it was a reawakening of the human spirit and a celebration of compassion and caring.

For those of you too young to recall this era, Peter Lawford shows you exactly what it was like…

Someplace else on this blog, I'm sure I've raved about one of my favorite close-up magicians, Johnny Ace Palmer. Here's an abbreviated version of his act which won the 1988 World Championship title at the World Congress of Magic held by the International Federation of Magic Societies. He was the first performer to ever win this for close-up and I believe he's still the only one.

Anyway, he had just brought home the gold when he appeared on a series called Live! Dick Clark Presents on October 15, 1988…

From an old episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, I give you the great Señor Wences…

I woefully neglected to link to Mark Rylance's acceptance speech a few weeks ago when he won his second Tony Award. I've never seen Mr. Rylance in a play but I've already decided he's the best actor on Broadway because of speeches like the one from his previous win and this one…

Here from a mid-sixties syndicated special, Allan Sherman sings about his new diet…

About ten of you sent me a link to this in the last eighteen hours. In 1951 when he was among their top recording artists, Mel Blanc starred in this promotional film for Capitol Records.The whole film was around 35 minutes and this video only has the first 30…but it's too good to wait for someone to post the remainder, as I assume someone will.

It's great because of Mel and also because of a few other folks who are in it.There's Yogi Yorgesson, who was really a radio comic named Harry Stewart and who developed this silly Swedish character who had a number of hit novelty records.There's cowboy singer Jimmy Wakely. And the big dumb guy who hangs with Mel is played by Billy May, who was one of the greatest arrangers and bandleaders of all time. Billy is the guy who did most of the music for Stan Freberg's records.That is when he wasn't making guys like Sinatra and Crosby sound good.

The video will also give you a nice look at 1951 Hollywood and at Wallichs Music City, the record store I wrote about in this posting. When I went there in the sixties, it looked exactly like it does in this film…

This amuses the heck outta me. It's the "Drop That Name" number from the movie of Bells Are Ringing starring Judy Holliday. And it's not the number itself that amuses me.

About two-thirds of the way through, the action moves onto a stairway where various folks sing different lines. Two of the men are dubbed for one line each by Paul Frees and one of the women is dubbed for one line by June Foray. Or to look at it another way, there's a man dubbed by Inspector Fenwick, then a woman dubbed by Natasha Fatale, then a man dubbed by Boris Badenov. (Paul and June are heard all throughout the movie doing off-camera voices, as is another actor who did a lot of cartoon voiceover work, Shepard Menken.)

It's also odd that the actor dubbed by Inspector Fenwick has dialogue at the very beginning of this clip and speaks in his real, entirely different voice. Some of us notice these things.

Oh — and the name of the star is Judy Holliday, a great performer who died way too soon. Ignore the way the person who posted this to YouTube thought her name was spelled…

When I was a young lad, one of my favorite comedians was a gentleman named Eddie Lawrence. Eddie is one of those performers who everyone from my generation heard and he was constantly being imitated and plagiarized…but few actually knew his name. He had several very popular records but he preferred to spend his time working on Broadway and on his drawing and painting. But I loved his records and I can recall quoting them and getting big laughs on the playground of Westwood Elementary School. I can also recall the sheer joy I felt many years later when I got to meet Eddie and hire him to do his famous routine on a couple episodes of Garfield and Friends. I sat there in my little director's chair, pretending I was actually directing his performance, all the time thinking, "Hey, that's Eddie Lawrence and he's doing lines I wrote." A very nice, clever man.

Today's video link is to a cut from one of his albums…but that's a prelude to sending you over to Kliph Nesteroff's site where you can read a recent interview with Eddie. I wish someone like Leno or Letterman or Jon Stewart would get the guy on TV again because boy, could we use him now…

Today, class, we're going to watch one of the best silent short comedies made by my two favorite performers in the history of performing, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.This one is called Big Business and it was released in April of 1929. Stan and Ollie play door-to-door Christmas tree sellers…and I believe the joke was supposed to be that they were doing this when it wasn't anywhere near Christmas, but this is not made clear.

As you'll see, much damage is done to a house in this film. Producer Hal Roach used to tell the story that he bought or rented a real home in Culver City for the occasion and its owner moved out or went out on vacation.The film crew came in and demolished the house…then found out that they'd gone to the wrong address and (oops, sorry) demolished someone else's abode. A cute story but it's not true. First off, they don't demolish the home in the film. Secondly, it was the right house…that of a Roach studio employee who was paid for the honor.The dwelling, by the way, is still standing on Dunleer Drive in Culver City and it still looks pretty much like the same place.

This film runs a little over eighteen minutes plus whatever time is added by the advertising that Hulu inserts. I don't know who did the musical score but it ain't bad. "Ain't bad," please note, is not a synonym for "good."

Just in case you haven't seen puppeteer Alex Jorgensen and his friend Barti, you need to see puppeteer Alex Jorgensen and his friend Barti…

Here's an upgrade — a better copy of a video I linked to here before. It's The Banana Man, a longtime novelty act in vaudeville and television who was kind of like the Gallagher of his day, only funny. The act has a long history that we went through before on this site but briefly: The routine was started by a man named A. Robins. He did it for a long time and he built all the amazing props.

At some point, he got too old and/or tired to go traipsing around the country so he passed the role and the props (there was apparently but one set) to other performers. No one has yet identified all the Banana Men but the one I knew and loved was a man named Sam Levine who did it for 15-17 years beginning in the mid-fifties. Levine died in '74, by which time the props were reportedly in such disrepair that he couldn't even do the act the last few years and couldn't pass it on to someone else.

I saw Levine on every non-animated kids' show and on most of the major variety shows including Ed Sullivan's. The whole act was apparently about fifteen minutes when he did it in a live performance and it took him two-and-a-half hours to prepare for one of those. On TV, he usually did a five minute chunk out of his fifteen — usually the same five minutes.

He was frequently seen on Captain Kangaroo's show, especially after it stopped being a live broadcast and went to tape. He had a big challenge when the show was live because the Good Captain did his program twice — two performances back-to-back for different time zones. The Banana Man had to scramble to reset his act in time to do it again an hour later. When the show went to tape, it was easier. In fact, since he always did the same act, they didn't even bother having him come in and do it each time. Captain Kangaroo would just introduce him and they'd roll the old tape.

But when the show went to color, they had to have him come back and do it again. That's what you'll see if you click below. Cap'n Kangaroo does an intro and then they roll the tape of The Banana Man doing his strange (and in some ways, wonderful) act. You may not enjoy it but it's a memorable image from my childhood…

A new production of My Fair Lady is running in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario as part of a George Bernard Shaw festival being held there. I won't be getting up there to see it and the chances are that you won't, either. So why don't we both take a look at a few minutes from it?

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I don't have a clip that's particularly appropriate to the holiday so let's spend seven minutes with one of the funniest women in the world, Andrea Martin…

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