November 20, 1955: Bo Diddley Defies "The Ed Sullivan Show"

November 20, 1955: Bo Diddley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the 1st time. There would not be a 2nd.

He was born Ellas Otha Bates on December 30, 1928 in McComb, Mississippi. He was raised by a cousin, Gussie McDaniel, and he became Ellas McDaniel. She moved him to the South Side of Chicago in 1934. America's largest black neighborhood, it has more black people than Harlem or any other neighborhood in New York City.

And it became home to many blues legends, including Muddy Waters (real name McKinley Morganfield), Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett), Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker and Koko Taylor. Taylor was from Memphis, Tennessee, on the State Line with Mississippi. The others were all from Mississippi, just like Ellas.

By the time he was 18, Ellas had learned to play the violin, and was invited to join a church orchestra. But he loved the guitar more, and for the rest of his life, he played guitars that he built himself. He formed a band with Jerome Green, who played maracas.

That was Ellas' idea: He wanted a percussion sound, but drums were too big and bulky to carry around. He said, "I taught Jerome how to play those maracas... They gave... the unique sound, that jungle-type rhythm feel." On what would become the classic Bo Diddley recordings, Bo and Jerome would often trade lyrics, and even good-natured insults.

There are several theories as to origin of the stage name "Bo Diddley," including potential sources that Bo probably couldn't have known about by 1955. There was a story by Zora Neale Hurston that wasn't published in her lifetime, about a "Beau Diddley" who gets brought down by vengeful magic. Bo probably would have liked that, had he known.

In 1951, he landed a regular spot at the 708 Club, on Chicago's South Side, with a repertoire influenced by Waters, Hooker, and R&B pioneer Louis Jordan. In late 1954, he signed with Chess Records. At their already-famous studio at 2120 South Michigan Avenue, Bo Diddley the man, and his band, recorded "Bo Diddley" the song on March 2, 1955.

Otis Spann, who had played piano on Waters' records, played on this one as well. Billy Boy Arnold played the harmonica. Jerome Green, of course, played the maracas. Now needing a drummer, company owner Leonard Chess -- one of several white Jewish men who aided in the rise of black pioneers of rock and roll -- assigned Frank Kirkland.

The song tells of Bo and his unnamed girlfriend, including the diamond ring he's bought her, a story resembling the lullaby "Hush, Little Baby." (Which would be converted into another R&B song, "Mockingbird," in 1963, by Inez & Charlie Foxx.) Its "dum-da-da-dum-dum, dum-dum" rhythm, similar to "Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits," was copied on countless records, and became known as "The Bo Diddley Beat."

Although it did not reach Billboard magazine's top 100 popular songs, it did hold the Number 1 spot on their R&B chart for 2 weeks, and was one of the Top 10 best-selling records of calendar year 1955.

This earned him a slot on The Ed Sullivan Show for the night of November 20, 1955. But somebody -- probably the show's very uptight producer, Bob Precht, who was also Ed's son-in-law -- thought "Bo Diddley" the song was too black for mainstream CBS audiences of the Ike Age.

So he told Bo to sing another big hit at the time, "Sixteen Tons." Bo said he didn't know that song. That was an obvious lie: Tennessee Ernie Ford's version was then the Number 1 song in the country, and everybody knew it. So it was written on cue cards.

Bo played his own song, anyway, claiming that's what he saw on the cards. He was banned from the show, and never appeared on it again. This was 12 years before Jim Morrison of The Doors defied Precht's order to not sing the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher." Bo's thought on that was not recorded.

Bo would have several more R&B hits, including "I'm a Man," famously covered by The Spencer Davis Group; and "Who Do You Love?" famously covered by Ronnie Hawkins, the singer who gave the band known as The Band their start.

He had one song that made Billboard's famous Top 40: "Say Man," which hit Number 20 in 1959. There's no singing on it: Basically, it's just the band jamming, while Bo and Jerome Green trade brags and insults, cut down to 3 minutes and 9 seconds for brevity, and, as Bo put it, "Of course, they cut out all the dirty parts." Some rock historians call it "the first rap record." It's closer to "The Dozens" than to a rap battle, since they make no attempt to make their zingers, both for themselves and against each other, rhyme.

In 1960, with Western movies and TV shows at their peak, he released an album titled Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger, which included his version of "Sixteen Tons." In 1962, going with the biggest dance craze of all time, the Twist, he released Bo Diddley's a Twister.

In 1963, with surf rock as the new big thing, he released Surfin' with Bo Diddley. Several songs had nautical themes, including his version of "Old Man River." He also covered the old dance tune "The Hucklebuck" and Ray Charles' "What'd I Say." But it didn't work, mainly because it didn't really sound like surf rock, and it was hard for white record-buyers to imagine a black man surfing. As rock historian Dave Marsh put it, "Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger made sense on the South Side of Chicago, but where was he going to surf? Lake Michigan?" (Well, the Great Lakes do have tides.)

Bo had 2 women in his band as rhythm guitarists. From 1957 to 1961, it was Peggy Jones, a.k.a. Peggy Malone, a.k.a. Lady Bo. In spite of that nickname, she was married not to Bo, but to Bo's bass player, Wally Malone. It was a mixed marriage: Peggy was black, and Wally was white. Peggy may have been the very first woman who ever played guitar in a prominent rock and roll band. (All-female bands were rare then, and none made it big until the 1970s.) She later played with James Brown and Sam & Dave.

When Peggy left, she recruited her own replacement, Norma-Jean Wofford, a.k.a. The Duchess. As with Peggy, it was initially presumed that she was Bo's girl, and he denied it by saying she was really his sister. He said, "Norma-Jean was my first sidekick... We did everything together. She was like family, which was why I told everyone she was my sister." The Duchess stayed with Bo's band until 1966.

Jerome Green had also played on some of Chuck Berry's hits, including his 1st, "Maybellene." He left Bo's band in 1964, to get married. After that, history loses track of him. Record-keeping being what it was in the black South in the 1930s, no one is quite sure when he was born, most likely 1934; and, as a tangential figure in rock and roll history, no one is quite sure when or how he died, although most sources say it was in New York in 1973, which would have made him only 38 years old. Frank Kirkland also died that year. Otis Spann was already dead, from liver cancer in 1970.

Among those bandmembers not yet mentioned: Norma-Jean Wofford died in 2005, Clifton James in 2006, Lester Davenport in 2009, and Peggy Jones in 2015. As of November 20, 2022, Billy Boy Arnold is the last surviving musician to have played on the original recording of "Bo Diddley." Wally Malone, who joined Bo after that, is also still alive.

Bo married and divorced 4 times. He had 4 daughters: Evelyn Kelly, Pamela Jacobs, Terri Lynn McDaniel-Hines and Tammi D. McDaniel; and 2 sons: Ellas A. McDaniel and Steven Jones. He lived to see 18 grandchildren, 15 great-great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren.

In 1971, Bo moved to Los Lunas, New Mexico, where he bought and donated 3 cars to the Valencia County Sheriff's Department, and was named an honorary Deputy Sheriff. For the rest of his life, he divided his time between Albuquerque, New Mexico and Archer, Florida, a farming community near Gainesville, in a custom-built log cabin that he and his friends built by hand.

In 1983, wearing the hat that, along with his self-made rectangular guitars, had become his trademark, he played a pawnbroker in the film Trading Places, telling Dan Aykroyd that, in Philadelphia, his fancy Swiss watch was worth fifty bucks. In 1987, he was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1989, Bo Diddley filmed a Nike commercial with baseball and football player Vincent "Bo" Jackson, showing that, while that younger Bo knows baseball, Bo knows football, and Bo seems to know every other sport, he was not a good guitarist, and Diddley told Jackson, "Bo, you don't know diddley!"

That commercial was made for baseball's All-Star Game. For Super Bowl XXIV, they filmed a sequel: Starting with the onscreen words, "Six months later... " Jackson had apparently learned from the master, who said, "Bo, I guess you do know Diddley!"

After years of living with diabetes, and suffering from the effects of strokes for about a year, Bo Diddley died on June 2, 2008, at the age of 79, at his home in Archer.

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November 20, 1955 was a Sunday. These NFL games were played:

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, 31-7 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Los Angeles Rams and the Baltimore Colts played to a tie, 17-17 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Cleveland Browns beat their arch-rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, 41-14 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions, 24-14 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Chicago Cardinals, 31-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* And the Green Bay Packers beat the San Francisco 49ers, 27-21 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

Baseball was out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 119-115 in overtime at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 84-80 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* And the Rochester Royals beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 104-96 at the Minneapolis Auditorium.

And the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action. The New York Rangers hosted the Montreal Canadiens, 1-1 at the old Madison Square Garden. The Boston Bruins hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Boston Garden. And the Chicago Black Hawks hosted the Detroit Red Wings at the Chicago Stadium. And the weird thing is, all 3 games ended in 1-1 ties.

October 28, 1956: Elvis Presley Gets the Polio Vaccine

October 28, 1956: Millions of young people's fears over getting the recently-approved polio vaccine are wiped out: Their hero got it, on the biggest show on TV.

Ed Sullivan initially said he wouldn't put Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show, because of his sexually suggestive onstage moves. But after Ed's competitor, Steve Allen, did, and got huge ratings, Ed could no longer ignore the appeal. As the title of one of his greatest hits albums said, Fifty Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong.

Ed would end up putting Elvis on his show 3 times. It was only on the 3rd one, on January 6, 1957, that he was famously shown only from the waist up. I have a separate entry for that post.

The polio virus had been ravaging America for years, and approximately 60,000 children were infected annually. In 1955, hope famously arrived in the form of Jonas Salk's vaccine. But despite the literally crippling effects of the virus, and the promising results of the vaccination, many Americans simply weren't getting vaccinated. In fact, when Elvis first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, immunization levels among American teens were at an abysmal 0.6 percent.

You might think that the threats of death and paralysis would be enough to motivate people to get vaccinated. Yet, convincing people to get a vaccine is a challenging endeavor, as the 2020-21 COVID pandemic would later prove. Intuitively, it seems like it would be wise to have doctors and other health officials communicate the need to receive the vaccine. Or, failing that, we might just need to give people more information about the effectiveness of the vaccine itself.

Those aren't winning strategies today, and they weren't back in 1956. What did prove successful was Elvis getting the vaccine in front of millions. In fact, after he publicly did so, vaccination rates among American youth skyrocketed to 80 percent after just six months. Kids all over America were answering the vaccine with impressions of Elvis: "Well, uh, uh-huh!"

Contracting poliomyelitis as an adult, like Franklin Roosevelt did before becoming President, had been rare. But so many kids got it that it became known as "infantile paralysis." John F. Collins got it in 1955, just as the vaccine was first being released to the public, during a campaign for City Council in Boston. Having to use a wheelchair didn't stop him from being elected Mayor in 1959 and 1963.

Prominent Canadian politicians Paul Martin Sr. and Paul Martin Jr. got it separately, and survived it, the latter serving as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2006. His predecessor, Jean Chrétien (1993-2003), has physical challenges that suggest he may also be a polio survivor, although he has never claimed to be one, attributing them instead to Bell's palsy.

Jerome Felder, a polio survivor, wrote songs under the name Doc Pomus, including several of Elvis' hits. Bill Cullen, who, between serving as host and panelist, appeared on more TV game shows than anybody, was a polio survivor. Like Elvis in his 3rd Sullivan appearance, he was usually only shown from the waist up, because he was self-conscious about his limp. Wilma Rudolph recovered from childhood polio to win 3 Gold Medals in sprinting at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.

In a weird coincidence, Donald Sutherland, who played Hawkeye Pierce in the film version of M*A*S*H, and Alan Alda, who played the character on TV, were both polio survivors. Alda became a close friend of violinist Itzhak Perlman, who contracted the disease at age 4, and, through his television appearances, is, as of October 28, 2022, the living celebrity most visibly affected by the nearly-eradicated disease.

Other celebrities, alive as of the abovementioned date, who survived polio as children include singers Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Donovan and Neil Young; actors Mia Farrow, Joe Bob Briggs, director Francis Ford Coppola and one of his Godfather actors, Gianni Russo; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; Olympic figure skating Gold Medalist Tenley Albright, golfer Jack Nicklaus, and Heisman Trophy winner and U.S. Army General Pete Dawkins.

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October 28, 1956 was a Sunday. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the infamously unstable President of Iran from 2005 to 2013, was born on this day.

These NFL games were played:

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, 20-3 at Yankee Stadium.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Green Bay Packers, 28-21 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat their arch-rivals, the Cleveland Browns, 24-16 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Chicago Cardinals, 17-14 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Los Angeles Rams, 16-7 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* And the Chicago Bears beat the San Francisco 49ers, 38-21 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.

Baseball season had ended 18 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 7 to win the World Series. There were 2 games played in the NBA. The Syracuse Nationals beat their arch-rivals, the Rochester Royals, 91-75 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York. And the Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 94-88 at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

And there were 2 games scheduled in the NHL. The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 1-1 at the old Madison Square Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Montreal Canadiens, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

October 18, 1964: Jackie Mason vs. Ed Sullivan

October 18, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson gives a speech from the Oval Office on this Sunday night, interrupting TV programming. He speaks on various topics: The Vietnam War, the coup the displaced Nikita Khrushchev from power in the Soviet Union, and China developing an atomic bomb. He manages to convince Americans that things aren't as bad as they look, and he helps his campaign for a term of his own.

One result of this speech is that, on CBS, The Ed Sullivan Show can't do a full hour. So, when a regular, comedian Jackie Mason, comes on, making his 13th appearance on the show, Ed, sitting off to the side on a stool as usual, and a stickler for time even under normal circumstances, holds up two fingers, to tell Jackie he's got only two minutes to do his act.

But Jackie doesn't know that this is what the two fingers means. And he runs long. Ed keeps showing Jackie two fingers. The studio audience can see this, and they're laughing at this, not at Jackie's jokes. The people watching at home can't see it. As Jackie explained years later, "They only know one thing: This Jew is dying!" At one point, Jackie says, "Huh? Anybody? I told 30 jokes so far, you could pick one!"

Finally, Jackie points offstage, and says, "He keeps showing me fingers, this guy!" Then he says, "Let me show you some of my fingers!" And he thumbs his nose at everyone. That, alone, might have gotten him in trouble. As he finishes his act, he starts pointing at various people, and appears to make some sort of gesture at Ed. The camera can't quite pick it up, but Jackie knows he's in trouble, and runs offstage, stage left. Ed, sitting stage right, gets off his stool, walks out, and is visibly furious.

During the commercial break, Ed accuses Jackie of giving him a middle finger, an obscene gesture, usually taken to mean, "Fuck you." To this day, when someone does it on TV, the image gets blurred out.

Jackie not only denies making the gesture in question, he insisted to the end of his life that, up until that moment, he had never heard of the gesture. He was 36 years old, Ed was 63, and both had grown up in New York: Who did Jackie think he was trying to fool?

Ed banned him from the show. For 2 years, Jackie couldn't get on TV anywhere. Finally, they met at an airport, and smoothed things over. On September 11, 1966, Jackie appeared on the show again, and eventually made 20 appearances.

But Jackie's career didn't get back to its previous prominence until 1986, when his one-man show The World According to Me! became a hit on Broadway. He remained an elder statesman of American comedy until his death in 2021.

*

October 18, 1964 was a Sunday. These NFL games were played:

* The New York Giants lost to their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, 23-17 at Yankee Stadium.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Green Bay Packers, 24-21 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Chicago Bears, 10-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Minnesota Vikings beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 30-10 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The football version of the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Washington Redskins 38-24 at the 1st Busch Stadium (formerly the last Sportsman's Park) in St. Louis.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Dallas Cowboys, 20-16 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

* And the Los Angeles Rams beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, 42-14 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

And in the American Football League:

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-22 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium

* The San Diego Chargers beat the Denver Broncos, 42-14 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego.

* The night before, Saturday, the New York Jets beat the Houston Oilers, 24-21 at Shea Stadium.

* And the night before that, Friday, the Boston Patriots and the Oakland Raiders played to a tie, 43-43 at Fenway Park in Boston. It remains the highest-scoring tie in pro football history.

Baseball season had ended 3 days earlier, when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the New York Yankees in Game 7 and won the World Series.

There was 1 game in the NBA: The Cincinnati Royals beat the San Francisco Warriors, 117-108 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Jack Twyman scored 31 points, and Oscar Robertson scored 21. For the Warriors, Tom Meschery scored 28, and Wilt Chamberlain was holding out at the start of the season, and did not play until October 31. The Warriors traded him to the Philadelphia 76ers the following January.

The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 3-3 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

September 17, 1967: Television Goes Psychedelic

The Doors on The Ed Sullivan Show, September 17, 1967.

Front: Jim Morrison. Behind him, left to right:

John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek

Note the actual doors suspended from the ceiling.

September 17, 1967: Television goes psychedelic, as CBS caps "the Summer of Love" with 2 explosive variety shows -- one figurative, one literal.

From 1948 to 1971, "The Tiffany Network" aired The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights at 8:00 Eastern Time. Ed was progressive in some ways, willing to air rock and roll acts, and black performers of all kinds, when most variety-show hosts wouldn't.

But there were, occasionally, issues. In 1956, he said he wouldn't have the hot newcomer of the moment, Elvis Presley, on his show, until rival Steve Allen brought him to his show on NBC. Ed saw Allen's ratings, too the hint, and had Elvis on his show 3 times, the last time showing him only from the waist up, to hide his gyrations.

In 1963, Bob Dylan was scheduled for the show. He wanted to sing his song "Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues." The censors, afraid that he would look like a Communist, told him after the 1st rehearsal to drop it. He refused. Ed backed him up. And Ed usually got what he wanted. This time, they overruled him. Dylan never appeared on the show, but he kept Ed's respect.

In 1964, Ed booked The Beatles, and 73 million people watched. At the time, it was the biggest audience in U.S. TV history. That led to several other British bands being booked, one of them The Rolling Stones.

But on January 15, 1967, mere hours after Super Bowl I, the Stones wanted to sing their song "Let's Spend the Night Together." Trying to avoid a conflict with the censors, Ed's producer, and also his son-in-law, Bob Precht, suggested a slight change: "Let's Spend Some Time Together." The Stones did it that way, but their anger is obvious on the tape.

At that point, The Doors had just released their self-titled debut album, a groundbreaking opus that helped bring "psychedelic rock" into the mainstream, including the song "Light My Fire," which had hit Number 1. Ed booked them, but their biggest song contained the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher." You couldn't say the words "get high," or any variant, on prime-time U.S. TV in 1967, because it would be taken as a drug reference.

Ray Manzarek, the organist and spokesman for the group, told Precht, "We'll think of something." So they discussed it.

John Densmore, drummer: "What are we gonna do?"

Robbie Krieger, guitarist, who had written the lyrics: "It's my lyric, I don't care. Whatever you guys want to do, I'll do it."

Jim Morrison, lead singer, who usually wrote the lyrics, and sang them: "I'm not gonna change the lyric."

Manzarek: "Then let's not change the lyric." And, presuming they would get caught breaking the rules, they settled on their story.

Also on this show that day were comedians Jack Benny, Rodney Dangerfield and Flip Wilson; married singers Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme; the singing Kessler Sisters, Alice and Ellen; and actor Yul Brynner, who did a classical guitar routine. All of it live, coast-to-coast, from CBS Studio 50 at 1697 Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan. The building had recently been renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater.

The Doors opened the show with a song from their 2nd album, "People Are Strange." When it was over, there was a pause, as Ed's usually straitlaced audience wasn't sure what to make of them. Even the teenagers, usually put in the balcony of the theater to scream at the rock bands, didn't applaud at first. The applause that followed was tepid.

At the end of the show, The Doors played "Light My Fire." Jim didn't change the lyric. (Unlike in the 1991 film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer, Jim did not stick his face in the camera and make a point of it. He just sang it as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.) They played a short version, similar (but not identical) to the single version, rather than the album version, which has gone down in music history as "The Long Version."

As the song ends, the camera shifts to Ed, who looks mad. To hide this, the director quickly fades to black and goes to commercial.

Afterward, Precht walked up to the band, and rips them for saying, "higher."

Manzarek presented the story the band agreed on: "Sir, it's The Ed Sullivan Show, we were nervous, and we just did the song the way we've done it a thousand times, we didn't think about it, and we're sorry!"

Precht told them, "We were gonna book you for 6 more shows. But now, you'll never do The Ed Sullivan Show again!"

The members thought they'd blown it. But Morrison said, "Hey, man, we just did The Ed Sullivan Show."

True to his word, Precht made sure The Doors were never on the show again. The show last aired on June 6, 1971. Within a month, Jim Morrison was dead. Three years later, so was Ed Sullivan.

However, Precht inherited control of the Ed Sullivan Show recordings, and had no qualms about lending the performance of "Light My Fire" back to CBS for TV specials commemorating the show. The nostalgia network Decades now airs the show, and the September 17, 1967 episode is in regular rotation. (UPDATE: In 2024, Decades was "rebranded" as Catchy Comedy.)

One more note: On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1967, a little more than 3 months later, George Carlin was a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show. He did his Al Sleet, the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman routine. Referring to a symbol on his weather map, he said, "This is a Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high." It was his 4th appearance on the show. Since it was played for laughs, and Al Sleet was clearly not someone the average viewer would want to emulate, Carlin got away with it, eventually making 11 appearances.

*

The night was still young. On February 5, 1967, CBS debuted The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Tom and Dick Smothers had been a big comedy act for a while, and had been a hit on Ed Sullivan. They went for a hipper-than-thou vibe. And, apparently, it was Ed who had a problem with The Doors, not CBS: They appeared on "the Smos Bros" on December 15, 1968, singing "Wild Child" and "Touch Me." (Come to think of it, George Carlin was on that episode.)

On September 17, 1967, at 9:00 Eastern Time, while Ed Sullivan and Bob Precht were still steaming over "Girl, we couldn't get much higher," the Smothers Brothers went on the air, albeit on tape rather than live. In addition to show regulars, comedian Pat Paulsen and singer Jennifer Warnes, the show featured acting legends Bette Davis and Mickey Rooney.

And British rock band The Who.

Ed Sullivan was just short of his 66th birthday, making him old enough to be the grandfather of the eldest Door, Manzarek, 28. In contrast, Tommy Smothers was 30 years old, Dick was 27. So they were only a few years older than The Who: lead singer Roger Daltrey was 23, bass guitarist John Entwistle was about to turn 23, guitarist and main songwriter Pete Townshend was 22, and drummer Keith Moon was 21. The Brothers could relate to their guests a lot more easily than Sullivan could, and while the bandmembers were a bit more far-out than the Brothers were, the Brothers did handle things better.

The Who were already known for destroying their instruments onstage, having done so 3 months earlier at the Monterey Pop Festival in California. They were also known for destroying other things, like hotel rooms, and even cars: Moon had drunkenly driven one into a hotel pool.

The Who played their signature song, "My Generation," with Daltrey stuttering the lyrics because, as Townshend explained, the character is so hopped up on amphetamines (the drug of choice for British "Mods," as The Who's members had been). The key lyric seemed to be, "Things, they do look awful c-c-cold, I hope I die before I get old."

At the end of the performance, the members did wreck their instruments. This included Moon setting off an explosion in his bass drum. Unfortunately, Townshend got too close to it, and it wrecked his hearing. Now, like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, he was practically deaf in one ear.

Died before they got old: Jim Morrison, 1971, from a drug-induced heart attack, age 27; Keith Moon, 1978, from a drug-and-booze combination, 32; and John Entwistle, 2002, from a drug-induced heart attack, 57.

Lived to be old: Ed Sullivan, 1974, from cancer, 73; Ray Manzarek, 2013, from cancer, 74; and the following, all still alive at this writing: Tom Smothers, 85; Dick Smothers, 83; Roger Daltrey, 78; Pete Townshend, 77; John Densmore, 77; and Robbie Krieger, 76. (UPDATE: Tom Smothers died on December 26, 2023, at 86.)

*

September 17, 1967 was a Sunday. This was also the day of the Kayseri Atatürk Stadium Disaster in Turkey. I have a separate entry for that event.

A full slate of Major League Baseball games was played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Cleveland Indians, 4-2 at the old Yankee Stadium. Luis Tiant outpitched Mel Stottlemyre. Mickey Mantle went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-1 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. This was a bit of a blow in the Sox' 4-way dogfight for the American League Pennant with Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota. The Birds got home runs from Boog Powell (not surprising), Paul Blair (a little surprising) and Andy Etchebarren (very surprising).

Both pitchers of record would pitch for the Seattle Pilots in 1969, and feature in fellow pitcher Jim Bouton's published diary Ball Four: The winning pitcher for the O's was Gene Brabender, and the losing pitcher for the Sox was Gary Bell.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-4 at Forbes Field, in Pittsburgh. For the Pirates, Roberto Clemente went 3-for-5 with a solo home run. For the Giants, Jim Ray Hart hit a home run, but Willie Mays only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and didn't get a hit.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati.

* The Washington Senators beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-0 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-0 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Gary Peters pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Atlanta Braves, 5-3 at Atlanta Stadium. (It would be renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1974.) For the Cubs, Billy Williams hit a home run, and Ernie Banks went 2-for-4. For the Braves, the only home run was hit by Charlie Lau, the light-hitting catcher who would go on to become one of the sport's most admired hitting instructors; Hank Aaron went 1-for-4 with a double; and Joe Torre went 0-for-4.

* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Astros, 4-3 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The California Angels beat the Kansas City Athletics, 3-2 at Anaheim Stadium in the Los Angeles suburb of Anaheim, California. (The ballpark is now named Angel Stadium of Anaheim.) This would be the last month for the A's as a Kansas City team: They moved to Oakland the next season.

And, being a Sunday, there was pro football, both the NFL and the AFL. For the senior league, it was the opening game of the season:

* The New York Giants beat the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals, 37-20 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Redskins, 35-24 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Atlanta Falcons, 38-31 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Chicago Bears, 41-13 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Dallas Cowboys beat the Cleveland Browns, 21-14 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions played to a tie, 17-17 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

* The San Francisco 49ers beat the Minnesota Vikings, 27-21 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the New Orleans Saints, 27-13 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. The Saints were an expansion team, and this was the 1st regular-season game they ever played. They lost their 1st 7 games before finally beating the Eagles on November 5 at Tulane.

And in the AFL:

* The Houston Oilers beat the Buffalo Bills, 20-3 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo.

* The Miami Dolphins beat the Denver Broncos, 35-21 at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the Boston Patriots, 35-7 at the Oakland Coliseum.

* And the New York Jets, the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Diego Chargers all had a bye week. In 1966, the Dolphins were an AFL expansion team. Another, the Cincinnati Bengals, was added in 1968. So in 1966 and 1967, the AFL had 9 teams, and there was a bye every week to at least one team. 

June 20, 1948: "The Ed Sullivan Show" Premieres

June 20, 1948: Toast of the Town premieres on CBS. The host is Ed Sullivan, Broadway columnist for the New York Daily News. The first guests are the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein, and the comedy team of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis (both of whom also sang). In 1955, the program was renamed The Ed Sullivan Show.

In 1947, the Daily News hosted a dance competition titled The Harvest Moon Ball, and had it broadcast on local television. Sullivan was asked to host it. CBS founder and Chairman William S. Paley was looking for a host for a Sunday night variety show, and thought Sullivan would be a good choice.

Paley turned out to be right: As Sullivan's old friend, comedian Jack Benny, once said, "You don't sing, you can't dance, you don't tell jokes, you merely introduce the acts." But he also served as his own talent scout. Ed was progressive in some ways, willing to air rock and roll acts, and black performers of all kinds, when most variety-show hosts wouldn't.

All of it live, coast-to-coast, from CBS Studio 50 at 1697 Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan. In 1967, the building was renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater.

Ed grew up watching vaudeville, and would have vaudeville-style acts, including every comedian in the business, from old-timers like Jimmy Durante and George Burns, to the top ones of the time like Alan King and Henny Youngman, to edgy new ones: George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers and Robert Klein.

He had jugglers, acrobats, circus performers. Wenceslao Moreno, a Spanish ventriloquist known professionally as Señor Wences, was a frequent guest. "Easy for you," his doll "Johnny" would say, "For me, is difficult!" And he would speak to a box, and ask, "Okay?" And open it, and "Pedro," a disembodied head, would say, "'S all right!" 

Erich Brenn had a talent for "plate spinning," and performed his act on Ed's show many times, to the tune of Aram Khatchaturian's Sabre Dance. Señor Wences liked Brenn's act so much, he copied it, and did it himself on a 1962 show.

He also liked impressionists, and some would even do impressions of him, including Will Jordan, who, from 1954 until his death in 2018, essentially "played Ed Sullivan" longer than Ed did. He noticed that Ed used phrases like, "here on this stage," "on this great stage," and "big show," and rolled his R's. So the centerpiece of his impression became, "Tonight, we've got a rrrreally big shew." Not "show," "shew," which Ed never actually said, except, occasionally, in self-deprecation.

He played Ed in the original 1960 Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie, and in the films I Want to Hold Your Hand and The Buddy Holly Story in 1978, The Doors in 1991, and Mr. Saturday Night in 1992.

But there were, occasionally, issues. In 1956, he said he wouldn't have the hot newcomer of the moment, Elvis Presley, on his show, until rival Steve Allen brought him to his show on NBC. Ed saw Allen's ratings, took the hint, and had Elvis on his show 3 times, the last time showing him only from the waist up, to hide his gyrations. But, at the end of that January 6, 1957 show, Ed told the audience, "This is a real, decent, fine boy." Elvis took it was one of the greatest compliments of his career.

In May 1963, Bob Dylan was scheduled for the show. He wanted to sing his song "Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues." The censors, afraid that he would look like a Communist, told him after the 1st rehearsal to drop it. He refused. Ed backed him up. And Ed usually got what he wanted. This time, they overruled him. Dylan never appeared on the show, but he kept Ed's respect.

For his February 9, 1964 show, Ed booked The Beatles, and 73 million people watched. At the time, it was the biggest audience in U.S. TV history. That led to several other British bands being booked, one of them The Rolling Stones.

On October 18, 1964, the show was partly preempted by President Lyndon Johnson delivering a speech from the Oval Office at the White House. So Ed, always conscious of time since the show was done live, had to shorten the show, meaning he had to shorten the acts.

Ed's technique on the show was to introduce the act, then walk to a spot just offstage where he would sit on a stool and watch. On this night, he introduced Jackie Mason, a regular comedian whose humor was based largely on his Jewish identity. Ed held up two fingers, to tell Jackie that he had 2 minutes to do his act.

But Jackie didn't know what the 2 fingers meant, and he went over. Ed kept holding up the fingers, and got madder and madder. The studio audience could see this, and laughed at that, not at Jackie's jokes. "The TV audience couldn't see it," Jackie said, decades later, after he had become a star all over again. "They only knew one thing: This Jew is dying!"

Finally, Jackie decides to use Ed's gestures to his advantage, pointing offstage, and saying, "He keeps showing me fingers, this guy!" Suddenly, the studio audience is laughing at him, and he closes by pointing fingers at everybody, and runs off the stage -- to the other side from Ed.

Ed collared Jackie after the show, and, as Jackie remembered, "I saw a man livid, with violent rage." Ed claimed that Jackie had given him the middle finger. Jackie denied it, saying he'd never even heard of the gesture. Jackie was 36 years old, and had grown up in New York: He knew exactly what it meant. But the surviving videotape is inconclusive: It's not clear that Jackie had made the gesture, or what his intentions were.

Ed banned him from the show. Jackie sued him for defamation of character. After 2 years, they made peace, and Jackie made 5 more appearances on the show. But the damage was done: For 20 years, he was all but unemployable in show business, until starring in a one-man show on Broadway that made him a star again in his 50s.

On January 15, 1967, The Rolling Stones were on, and wanted to sing their song "Let's Spend the Night Together." Trying to avoid a conflict with the censors, Ed's producer, and also his son-in-law, Bob Precht, suggested a slight change: "Let's Spend Some Time Together." The Stones did it that way, but their anger is obvious on the tape.

Eight months later, on September 17, The Doors were on, and were told by Robert Precht -- Ed's producer, and also his son-in-law, married to his daughter Betty -- that the line, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" from their Number 1 hit "Light My Fire" constituted an advocacy of drug use, and wouldn't be allowed, and they had to change it. They said they would.

They didn't: Lead singer Jim Morrison sang the lyrics exactly as lead guitarist Robbie Krieger had written them, and Precht told them, "We were going to book you for six more Ed Sullivan Shows, and you'll never do The Ed Sullivan Show again!" Morrison had the perfect comeback: "Hey, man, we just did The Ed Sullivan Show." He knew the difference between one and none was bigger than the difference between one and two, or even one and ten.

Ed would frequently get names wrong, especially if they were foreign. At some point, he must have pronounced singer Robert Goulet's name as "GOOL-ett" instead of the correct, French "Goo-LAY," because impressionist Rich Little worked that into his impression of Ed. A frequent guest was Italian opera singer Sergio Franchi (pronounced "FRONG-kee"), and, the 1st time he was on, Ed needed several tries to get his name right.

Ed's memory got worse in the show's later years, and Joan Rivers later suggested that he had developed Alzheimer's disease. Diana Ross recalled that he had trouble remembering the name of her group, The Supremes: "He called us 'the girls.'" After the show was taken off the air, former Beatle Paul McCartney recalled a visit to New York, and said that Ed didn't recognize him, even though The Beatles' appearance is now what the show is best remembered for.

CBS was in a transition in the early 1970s, as a lot of long-time fan-favorite shows were canceled, and a lot of new ones that turned out to be fan-favorites began. In 1971, with the show's ratings having dropped, CBS canceled the show. Ed found out by reading the newspaper. They didn't even have the decency to tell him face-to-face. Three more months of shows were scheduled, but he refused to do them.

The last new episode aired on March 28, 1971. The guests included singer Melanie Safka, impressionist David Frye, and opera singer Joanna Simon, whose sister Carly Simon was about to become a popular singer as well.

Ed Sullivan died of cancer on October 13, 1974, about a year after his wife Sylvia. Betty, his only child, lived until 2014. As of June 20, 2022, son-in-law Bob Precht is still alive, and still controls the show's footage through his company, Sofa Entertainment. (UPDATE: Precht died in 2023.)

*

June 20, 1948 was a Sunday. Frank Sinatra only appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show once, on June 28, 1964. But his daughter Tina Sinatra, later a TV producer, was born on the day that the show premiered.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees swept a doubleheader from the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. They won the opener, 4-2. Vic Raschi went the distance for the win, and was backed by a home run from Joe DiMaggio. They won the nightcap, 6-2. Red Embree went the distance, and got 2 homers from DiMaggio.

* A doubleheader was split at the Polo Grounds. The St. Louis Cardinals won the 1st game, 7-2. Stan Musial hit a home run. The New York Giants won the 2nd game, 6-4. The Giants hit 3 straight homers in the 8th inning, by Johnny Mize, Willard Marshall and Sid Gordon.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Chicago Cubs, 6-3 at Ebbets Field. Jackie Robinson went 1-for-4.

* The Boston Braves swept a doubleheader from the Cincinnati Reds, 5-4 and 4-1 at Braves Field in Boston. And the eventual National League Champions did it without either of their aces, Warren Spahn or Johnny Sain: Red Barrett won the 1st game, and Vern Bickford outpitched former double-no-hitter hero Johnny Vander Meer in the 2nd game.

* And a doubleheader was split at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Phillies won the 1st game, 9-0. Dutch Leonard pitched a 4-hit shutout, and Richie Ashburn went 4-for-5. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the 2nd game, 7-5. Ralph Kiner hit 2 home runs.

* The Cleveland Indians swept a doubleheader from the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-3 and 10-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Bob Feller won the 1st game, and Bob Lemon pitched a 4-hit shutout in the 2nd game.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 8-3 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Ted Williams went 2-for-4.

* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Chicago White Sox won the 1st game, 8-5. The Washington Senators won the 2nd game, 4-1.

May 2, 1932: “The Jack Benny Program” Premieres

May 2, 1932: The Jack Benny Program -- always officially titled a "Program," not a "Show" -- first airs on NBC radio. It would remain on NBC until 1948, before switching to CBS and running until 1955. The television version ran on CBS from 1949 to 1965.

He was born on February 14, 1894, as Benjamin Kubelsky, in Chicago, and grew up in nearby Waukegan, Illinois. He learned to play the violin, and one of his teachers was Otto Graham Sr., father of future quarterbacking legend Otto Graham. At 17, he was playing his violin in Chicago's vaudeville theaters, where he met and became lifelong friends with the Marx Brothers.

As he became better-known, an established violinist with a similar name, Jan Kubelik, told him to change his name. He became Ben K. Benny, and then Jack Benny. In 1922, at a Passover seder in Vancouver, Zeppo Marx introduced her to Sadie Marks (no relation), and they were married in 1926. Sadie became an actress, taking the stage named Mary Livingstone.

Jack made his 1st film appearance in 1929. In 1932, he was a guest on a radio show hosted by the Broadway columnist for the New York Daily News, Ed Sullivan. He introduced himself by saying, "This is Jack Benny talking. There will be a slight pause while you say, 'Who cares?'" He was a hit, and NBC signed him to do a radio show, which eventually led to a television show.

In real life, Jack was very generous. In 1954, after Marilyn Monroe appeared on his show, and mentioned to him (offstage) that she wanted to get a new Cadillac convertible, he bought one for her. But, in character, Jack's defining feature was cheapness. He wouldn't pay for a new car for himself, continually making reference to his established car, a 1932 Maxwell. His most famous moment was when a mugger told him, "Your money or your life!" Dead silence for about 5 seconds. The mugger said, "Didn't you hear me? I said, 'Your money or your life!'" And Jack said, "I'm thinking it over!"

Indeed, 40 years before the TV show Seinfeld, Jack Benny played an alternate version of himself as a famous comedian, very alternate: Not just cheap, but vain (always claiming to be 39 years old, which he hadn't been since February 1934), arrogant (describing himself as "star of stage, screen and radio"), and mean. Despite being a celebrity within the world of the show, he was largely disliked by most of the other stars in Hollywood, notably his next-door neighbors, actors Ronald and Bonita Colman. He was easily annoyed, did not suffer fools gladly, and was unsuccessful with women: While Mary was married to him in real life, on the show, she was one of several girlfriends, but the only one that kept coming back to him. He played down his violin skills, often playing very badly on the air.

Aside from Mary and the Colemans, there were other regular guest stars. Bandleader Phil Harris was the music director for the show, and he, his wife, actress Alice Faye, and singer Dennis Day played friends of Jack's. Phil left the show in 1952, and was replaced as bandleader by Bob Crosby, Bing's brother.

Eddie Anderson, a black actor, played his butler, Rochester, who would call him "Boss" but could get away with saying things to him that most black men of the time could not get away with saying to a white man. (If Anderson ever got hate mail for this, it has never been publicly revealed.) As Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden would later do with Art Carney's Ed Norton on The Honeymooners, Jack sometimes involved Rochester in get-rich-quick schemes that always failed to comedic effect.

Frank Nelson, introduced to Jack by the Marx Brothers, was a frequent guest star. He never played the same character, but always the same type of character. Jack would need help with something at a store, or at a restaurant, and say, "Excuse me, buddy," and Frank would turn around and say, "Ee-yes?" dragging out the E and the S. And they would banter back and forth, sometimes about the price of an item. But Nelson's character would always be polite with every other character, further frustrating Jack.

Also a frequent guest star was Mel Blanc, proving himself a master of funny voices before he became known as the voice of cartoon character Bugs Bunny. Mel had gotten his start with Spike Jones & His City Slickers, and continued to work with Spike while working with Jack and playing Bugs. A familiar bit was Mel playing a Mexican, and answering, "Si." When Jack asked him his name, he said, "Sy." Sy? "Si." Do you have a girlfriend? "Si." What's her name? "Sue." Sue? "Si."

Jack tried to keep up with the times. He often had singers on his show, never rock-and-rollers, but he would have folksingers: He had The Smothers Brothers, and he had Peter, Paul & Mary, who sang "Blowin' in the Wind," which Jack recognized was "a very important song."

The program was cancelled in 1965, due to a dispute over money -- not between Jack and the network, but between Jack and the advertisers, as he charged twice as much as most programs.

Jack died in 1974, Eddie Anderson in 1977, Mary Livingstone in 1983, Frank Nelson in 1986, Dennis Day in 1988, Mel Blanc in 1989, Bob Crosby in 1993, Phil Harris in 1995, and Alice Faye in 1998.

Jack and Mary didn't have any natural children. In 1934, they adopted a newborn girl named Joanie. Joan Benny appeared on her parent's show a few times, but not as their daughter, as the Jack and Mary characters never got married. Joan became a panelist on TV game shows like I've Got a Secret and Password, wrote a biography of her father, and lived until 2021.

*

May 2, 1932 was a Monday. When the Program went to TV, it was famously on Sunday nights at 7:00, followed at 8:00 by The Ed Sullivan Show. Joan Benny titled her book about her father Sunday Nights at Seven.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Washington Senators, 10-3 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Carl Fisher outpitched Lefty Gomez. Joe Cronin hit a home run, and would become the Senators' manager the next season, taking them to the American League Pennant. All of the Yankees' runs came on a home run by Lou Gehrig. Babe Ruth went 0-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, 3-1 at the Polo Grounds. Dazzy Vance outpitched Carl Hubbell. Bill Terry went 1-for-4, and Mel Ott went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Boston Red Sox, 3-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. Jimmie Foxx won the game with a home run in the top of the 11th inning. Lefty Grove pitched the last 2 innings to get the win.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Boston Braves, 7-2 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 2-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Steve Swetonic pitched a 3-hit shutout. Paul Waner went 2-for-4, and Lloyd Waner went 1-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the St. Louis Browns, 6-5 at League Park in Cleveland.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* And the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

March 28, 1971: The Last "Ed Sullivan Show" Airs On CBS

Ed and Melanie

March 28, 1971: The last new episode of The Ed Sullivan Show airs on CBS. The guests included singer Melanie Safka (who recorded under just her first name), impressionist David Frye, and opera singer Joanna Simon, whose sister Carly Simon was about to become a popular singer as well.

Ed Sullivan, formerly the Broadway columnist for the New York Daily News, had hosted a Sunday night variety show live on "The Tiffany Network" since 1948. Up until 1955, it was titled Toast of the Town, then was renamed for him.

As Sullivan's old friend, comedian Jack Benny, once said, "You don't sing, you can't dance, you don't tell jokes, you merely introduce the acts." But he also served as his own talent scout. Ed was progressive in some ways, willing to air rock and roll acts, and black performers of all kinds, when most variety-show hosts wouldn't.

All of it live, coast-to-coast, from CBS Studio 50 at 1697 Broadway, between 53rd and 54th Street in Midtown Manhattan. In 1967, the building was renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater.

Ed grew up watching vaudeville, and would have vaudeville-style acts, including every comedian in the business, from old-timers like Jimmy Durante and George Burns, to the top ones of the time like Alan King and Henny Youngman, to edgy new ones: George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers and Robert Klein.

He had jugglers, acrobats, circus performers. Wenceslao Moreno, a Spanish ventriloquist known professionally as Señor Wences, was a frequent guest. "Easy for you," his doll "Johnny" would say, "For me, is difficult!" And he would speak to a box, and ask, "Okay?" And open it, and "Pedro," a disembodied head, would say, "'S all right!" 

Erich Brenn had a talent for "plate spinning," and performed his act on Ed's show many times, to the tune of Aram Khatchaturian's Sabre Dance. Señor Wences liked Brenn's act so much, he copied it, and did it himself on a 1962 show.

Ed also liked impressionists, and some would even do impressions of him, including Will Jordan, who, from 1954 until his death in 2018, essentially "played Ed Sullivan" longer than Ed did. He noticed that Ed used phrases like, "here on this stage," "on this great stage," and "big show," and rolled his R's. So the centerpiece of his impression became, "Tonight, we've got a rrrreally big shew." Not "show," "shew," which Ed never actually said, except, occasionally, in self-deprecation.

Jordan played Ed in the original 1960 Broadway production of Bye Bye Birdie, and in the films I Want to Hold Your Hand and The Buddy Holly Story in 1978, The Doors in 1991, and Mr. Saturday Night in 1992.

The biggest solo act of the era was Elvis Presley, and the biggest music group of the era was The Beatles. Sullivan had Elvis on his show on September 9 and October 28, 1956, and January 6, 1957. The Beatles appeared live on February 9, 16 and 23, 1964; and September 12, 1965, with "promotional clips" (what would later be called "music videos") shown on later occasions.

Ed would frequently get names wrong, especially if they were foreign. At some point, he must have pronounced singer Robert Goulet's name as "GOOL-ett" instead of the correct, French "Goo-LAY," because impressionist Rich Little worked that into his impression of Ed. A frequent guest was Italian opera singer Sergio Franchi (pronounced "FRONG-kee"), and, the 1st time he was on, Ed needed several tries to get his name right.

Ed's memory got worse in the show's later years, and Joan Rivers later suggested that he had developed Alzheimer's disease. Diana Ross recalled that he had trouble remembering the name of her group, The Supremes: "He called us 'the girls.'" After the show was taken off the air, former Beatle Paul McCartney recalled a visit to New York, and said that Ed didn't recognize him, even though The Beatles' appearance is now what the show is best remembered for.

CBS was in a transition in the early 1970s, as a lot of long-time fan-favorite shows were canceled, and a lot of new ones that turned out to be fan-favorites began. In 1971, with The Ed Sullivan Show's ratings having dropped, CBS canceled it. Ed found out by reading the newspaper. They didn't even have the decency to tell him face-to-face. Three more months of shows were scheduled, but he refused to do them.

Ed Sullivan died of cancer on October 13, 1974, about a year after his wife Sylvia. Betty, his only child, lived until 2014. Her husband, Robert Precht, was the show's director from 1958 onward, and its producer from 1960 onward. They had 5 children together. As of March 28, 2022, Precht is still alive, and still controls the show's footage through his company, Sofa Entertainment. (UPDATE: Precht died in 2023.)

*

March 28, 1971 was a Sunday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 110-95 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum (now the McCamish Pavilion) in Atlanta.

* The Baltimore Bullets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 111-103 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Arena).

* And the Chicago Bulls beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 106-98 at the Chicago Stadium.

There were 5 games played in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Utah Stars, 133-120 at the Island Garden in West Hempstead, New York. Rick Barry scored 51 points for the Nets.

* The Virginia Squires beat the Texas Chaparrals, 141-131 at the Old Dominion University Fieldhouse in Norfolk, Virginia.

* The Miami Floridians beat the Pittsburgh Condors, 130-117 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

* The Carolina Cougars beat the Kentucky Colonels, 148-142 at Freedom Hall in Louisville. Dan Issel scored 51 points in defeat.

* And the Indiana Pacers beat the Denver Rockets, 146-126 at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis.

And there were 6 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Boston Bruins, 2-1 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-2 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-1 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the California Golden Seals, 11-5 at the Pacific Coliseum. Wayne Maki had 3 goals and 2 assists.

* And the St. Louis Blues and the Los Angeles Kings were not scheduled.