Shark Bytes

I always thought it weird to understand that Sullivan wouldn't let The Rolling Stones or The Doors sing their hits' lyrics exactly as they were...but the very next year, he allowed Diana Ross & The Supremes to perform the blatently-titled "Love Child" on his show in 1968 -- barefooted, no less! (And then they came back a few months later to reprise the song live.) He must've had a soft spot for The Supremes because they were on his show so much.

The last five years were a little weird...an aging Ed Sullivan with long sideburns (!) introducing younger and younger acts (Janis Joplin, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, pre-disco Bee Gees, Tina Turner, Jefferson Airplane etc.etc. talk about different eras!!).
Also, the original background curtain gave way to some very 1960's art deco walls! And poor Ed, like a high school principal, telling those screaming teenagers to "calm down"!
Even so, a shark jump this does not make...fun if weird T.V. moments.

Does anyone remember "The Great Santa Claus Switch"? It was really The Ed Sullivan Show from December 20, 1970,
but it was an hour long story starring Jim Henson's Muppets... Ed was the narrator. This was one of the Muppet's first prime time hour showcases, I remember it well! Been looking for this one forever...given the holiday, not to mention historic value, why is this not out on DVD?
Or, is it?

I remember the night--February 9, 1964--as if it was yesterday. My parents & I, huddled around the old Zenith in the family room eating dinner. Suddenly, Ed Sullivan introduced the Beatles. My parents looked like someone had just kicked them in the teeth--boys who looked like GIRLS!!! Their world did a flip-flop that night. Little did they know, that was just the beginning....

The production values of this show look pretty lame by today's standards, but who cares? This was the show that introduced the Beatles to America in what is still the single most electric(pardon the pun) event in television history. We'll never see a variety show like this again, it's time has passed. What a shame!

I guess the JTS moment would be the Beatles appearing on the show, how are you going to top that? I remember my 3 older sisters screaming and one of them falling off of the couch.

The Who appeared on The Smother Brother's Hour, and that is where Pete Townsend lost his hearing.

I will admit that I was born LONG after the Ed Sullivan Show's demise. Still, you have to look back with nostalgia at a time when almost every demographic segment of the population actually sat down and watched the same show. That will never happen again (sorry, "American Idol" doesn't count).

Never ever jumped! I remember hearing it wasn't coming back in '71 (and I was only 13), and thinking tv would never be the same. I was right.

Ed Sullivan never totally jumped: as an earlier poster noted, he signed off with the same vaudeville format he started with. True, the ratings weakened some in the late '60's. Ed's older viewers, who fondly remembered the clean cut, polite comedians, rock and rollers, et al. from the fifties, were probably now turned off by those "wild and crazy kids" in the sixties. At the same time, the younger viewers could now easily watch their favorite performers on other network variety shows, without tolerating those plate spinners or Topo Gigio. They were walking the tight rope of public opinion those last few years and still did well, but it couldn't go on forever. Still, to the end, a "really big shew"! An unforgettable moment was Sly and the Family Stone performing on stage, and while singing, going out and greeting the audience members. Some of the audience members were older, and looked somewhat confused or aghast, as Sly and the others went up to them!! The shows from 1969 onward, with some exceptions, were beginning to be recorded "live on tape" ( when Ed grew those sideburns!! ) which would explain the lack of energy usually present in any live broadcast! Still, thank goodness Ed would not allow for canned applause or laughter. Even on tape, the acts still had to "wow" the audience, and would still "hit or miss" depending on audience reaction.

This show was arguably the most important in TV history. (Fans of All in the Family may wish to debate this point.) However, the shows made after 1969 seemed to lack excitement. There is a palpable lack of energy to them. This happened about the same time Ed decided to get "with it" and grew sideburns. So, quite facetiously, I'll blame Ed's facial hair.

The above posts insightfully indicate that the show tried to be all things to all people. When he started putting British Invasion rock bands on the show he immediately infused his ratings with a mega dose of Teen audience participation. Before the Beatles, I felt like the show was mildly entertaining fodder for my parents and grandmother. I wish you could have seen the look on my dad's face the night Steppenwolf was on the show. The base player was obviously stoned out of his gourd, and the key board player had an afro that was about three feet in diameter! The announcement of next week's rock acts kept me and my classmates in high school buzzing about the upcoming band, and quite often it was worth wading through all of the Cycling Russian Bears and Borscht Belt comics to see the latest psychedelic rock group thumb their noses at the "establishment" which was on the way out but being temporarily propped up by the teen audience who wanted more rock and roll, but had very limited access except through the unlikely vaudevillian host named Ed Sullivan.

Anyone who lived through the era knows just how important the Ed Sullivan Show was. Every important musical and comedy act of the time was on his show. And if that wasn't enough there was that guy spinning all those plates on poles. To top it off there was Ed himself. He was a very powerful man who seemed to be hopelessly out of it. Later, it came out that he was that he may have been affected by medications he was taking for ulcers.

THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW was a true classic that I grew up on in the 1960's. The first real variety show, followed shortly by THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE and THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW, it changed the television landscape forever by introducing the world to a lot of show business legends for the first time. Ed's show was where I first saw The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Doors, George Carlin, Joan Rivers, Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Rodney Dangerfield, Alan King, and many many more. I still remember the big controversy over the Doors' appearance and Ed wanting Jim Morrison to change the lyric in "Light my Fire" but Jim did it the way it was written and the doors were never invited back to the show. It was so funny watching Ed introduce new musical acts or unknown comics because it always looked like he didn't have a clue who a lot of these people were or what their impact on show business would be. I think he must have had talent coordinators who told him who was hot and who was not and he just went along with it. Whether or not this is the case, who knows? All I know is the formula worked and I made it a point to watch the show every Sunday night until it went off the air in 1971. Ed's show was a classic that changed TV forever and NEVER jumped the shark.

The Ed Sullivan Show never jumped, it just stayed at the party too long in a radically changing America. This show was vaudeville's last gasp. Ed's motto was "Something for everyone" and in that he succeeded admirably. The plate spinner would always be accompanied by "The Saber Dance" music. There was the cloyingly awful Topo Gigio "for the kiddies" which I hated even when I was a kid! Bizarre Senor Wences and his talking hand (S'all right? S'all right!) always cracked me up. Like everyone else og my generation, I tuned in to see THE BEATLES, not to mention every other "British Invasion" band that made it to Ed's show. RIP Ed Sullivan.

I had to write in as i read these posts. What memories ! It was probably one of the only times i can remember everyone watching TV , especially those long cozy sunday nights together. They were short lived in my home as my parents divorced when i was young. What i find interesting about entertainment then as opposed to now is that as kids we knew who our parents liked, why they liked them, what movies they were in etc.... and while we certainly had OUR groups, our entertainers , theirs were ours too in a way. Both my parents were into all the groups of the sixties simply because they weren't all that old then either. and yet, steve and edie were still all right by them too lol.... god how awful.... i loved that Ed had plenty of acts , so you could grit your teeth through family trapeze artists, until your favorite came on, then you'd tell everyone they couldn't talk ... and jose jimenez??? does anyone remember this guy? for some odd reason as a little girl he used to make me sad.. this is a pleasant respite on the site. Not that i don't enjoy all the other comments, but the average age here seems to be late twenties early thirties and its so nice when people have the same memories as you do.