In the Yuletide landscape of network television, one of the truly anticipated, Holiday traditions is the incomparable Darlene Love's annual performance of CHRISTMAS ( BABY, PLEASE COME HOME) on CBS-TV'sLATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN.
It is one of most vibrant and electrifying moments of video that you can enjoy, all year long.
Love has performed the Christmas standard on the Letterman show since 1986, when he was hostingLATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN on NBC. When a writers strike prevented her from performing on the show in 2007, an earlier version was aired.
(Darlene Love at Ed Sullivan Theater-2012)
The emotionally charged song was written in 1963 by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector ( who is a whole other, less sentimental story, all onto himself). Love's vivid and intense rendition was released as part of a compilation album of Holiday tunes.
It has been part of the soundtrack of the Christmas season in America , ever since.
Here, from the 525WIREMANYOU TUBE site, under the meticulous musical direction of Paul Shaffer. is Darlene Love's 2012 , LIVE performance of CHRISTMAS ( BABY, PLEASE COME HOME).
Enjoy and Happy Holidays from KINESCOPEHD!!!
CHRISTMAS BONUS!!!!!!
Here from the CHRISTMASjoy365 YOU TUBE site is Darlene Love's first performance of CHRISTMAS (BABY,PLEASE COME HOME) on NBC'sLATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN in 1986. ENJOY!!!!
It was hazy and monochromatic with heavy static at the dawn of network television.
Television.
It was new , dangerous , addictive and available to the public at only a few places in 1951.
The demand outweighed the supply.
The price was off the charts.
Watch once and you never want to see the end of the broadcast day.
When a video viewer wanted a heavy dose of dramatized police procedure, they called Sgt.Joe Friday.
Friday was working the Prime Time Watch at NBC in Los Angeles.
He carried a badge.
With apologies to, and admiration for, pioneering video visionary and one of the original TV hyphenates, actor-director-producer-writer Jack Webb, we pay tribute to NBC'sDRAGNET.
It was, by all accounts, television's first , hit crime drama.
DRAGNET was high caliber TV , in every sense of the term.
One of many successful series that transitioned from radio to television, the story telling was fast paced with clipped dialog. With images framed in tight close-up to compensate for the small screens of early,home receivers, it was photographed in a documentary style, that evoked film noir cinema.
Jack Webb's world weary Detective Friday was a heroic everyman who lived with his Mother. The laconic bachelor confronted the daily tedium of police administrative protocol, that was, once in every episode, punctuated by staccato bursts of danger.
In the pilot outing, Barton Yarborough ( who passed away early in the run of the series ) played Friday's partner, Sgt.Ben Romero, and TV icon Raymond Burr portrayed the LA Police Department's, real-life Chief of Detectives, Thad Brown.
DRAGNET would run until 1959 and Webb would successfully revive the taught, but sometimes preachy, drama in LIVING COLOR for a second series on NBC-TV from 1966 to 1970, with the versatile, veteran character actor Harry Morgan as Friday's eccentric partner, Bill Gannon.
Here, from the PUBLICDOMAIN101 YOU TUBE site, is the debut episode of DRAGNET, entitled THE HUMAN BOMB.
Chicago-born Benjamin Kubelsky was a violin virtuoso , a master comedian and a television pioneer.
I know.
Benjamin who, you ask?
You know, too.
Jack Benny was his stage name.
He was a celebrated and beloved comic presence in radio, vaudeville, films, nightclubs,theater , concert halls and, ultimately, on television.
If you read KINESCOPE HD,I will assume that you know enough to require only the cliff notes on the meticulous genius who cultivated loads of laughter from small, but sumptuous portions of nuanced comedy.
Jack Benny had timing that made the cesium clock at the US Naval Observatory jealous...on an hourly basis.
According to those who knew him, and have written long and well about him, Benny's on-stage persona of a vain, parsimonious, self-styled bon vivant and confiremd bachelor belied the warm, generous philanthropist and accomplished performer who loved music, comedy and the audience in almost equal measure.
Benny had the most popular radio program in America, in the late 1940's, when CBS Scion William Paley wrested him away from NBC.
The audience followed him around the radio dial.
Benny and his acclaimed writers are credited by many as having perfected the situation comedy format.
Every Sunday night, Americans tuned in as the self-involved cheapskate was assaulted by a comic cadre of eccentrics,who leveled a fusilade of foolishness upon him.
The versatile cast included naive singer, Dennis Day, con-artist butler, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, effervescent announcer Don Wilson, psuedo-alcoholic bandleader Phil Harris and Jack's wry, wisecracking, love interest, Mary Livingstone ( Benny's real-life wife ).
Plus a guest star of cosmic proportions joined Benny, each week, to add fuel to the funny.
He was among the first of the great radio performers to attempt television.
In 1950, Benny,seeing the value in video, agreed to do a regularly scheduled, television series on the Tiffany Network.
THE JACK BENNY PROGRAMwas born.
The genteel performer wanted to appear only on a bi-weekly basis, guarding his surgically-honed material and concerned about blatant over-exposure, since he was still on radio , appearing in clubs and making feature films.
The revered performer was a mainstay of the CBS schedule from 1950 until 1964, when CBS cancelled him in cavalier fashion.
Benny went home to NBC for the 1964-65 season, sandwiched between his old friend,Bob Hope, and the volatile Jack Paar on Friday nights.
While the show was cancelled in one season, NBCexecutives ,wisely, knew the value of having Jack Benny on their air and signed him to do a few specials each season.
Jack Benny's place in the pantheon of television's greatest performers and as one of comedy's greatest practitioners is , in my estimation, unequivocal.
Here from THE GENERALARCHIVES YOU TUBE site, in LIVING COLOR and six parts is the December 1, 1966 JACK BENNY HOUR.
Guests include Phyllis Diller, Trini Lopez, The Smothers Brothers, ten beauty pageant contestants and the 1967 American Motors line-up.
Once upon a Yuletide ,Johnny Carson,the now departed King of Late Night Television, once joked on NBC's TONIGHT SHOW, that you can tell it's Christmas-time in Hollywood, because the stars are all trying to get custody of their kids, so they can tape their Holiday Specials.
Funny and in some cases, true.
In the 1960's three musical stars collected their respective families,and produced December specials that shone brightly in network, prime time, each year :
Bing Crosby, Perry Como and Andy Williams.
All three verstile and iconic performers hold an honored place in the video vault as Television legends.
But with the unfortunate passing of Andy Williams, some months back, there is likely to be a renewed interest in his vintage, holiday offerings.
THE ANDY WILLIAMS CHRISTMAS SPECIALS were vibrant,energetic, upbeat and nostalgic. A family favorite that showcased new arrangements of favorite tunes, wrapped in a snow-coated vision of Christmas-past.
Produced in vivid, LIVING COLOR at NBC's cavernous Burbank Stages, with intricate musical numbers, dynamic choreography and ,often,complex , studio-based,ice skating sequences, they were a welcome gift from the Peacock network to the Yuletide audience.
These classic episodes meet the test of time,garnering significant audience as a part of PBS pledge week programming, growing in DVD sales and warmly recalled as a television tradition.
Here, from the MUSICGUY64 YOU TUBE site, is a Holiday sampler from Andy Williams and company.
( Cartoonist Drew Friedman's vision of the crew of the U.S.S KIWI for TV GUIDE, FALL 1965)
For the Greatest Generation and their Baby-Boomer progeny, it would appear that WORLD WAR TWO was the last, funny global conflict.
Ask Lt. Commander Quinton McHale or Col. Robert Hogan or the crew of the U.S.S. KIWI.
It must be a matter of perspective.
The mind compassionately dulls memories of muddy foxholes and vicous firefights after two decades, but the lights of a Brisbane street on a weekend pass must have burned bright in the recollection of veterans, some 20 years after the armistice.
In the Fall of 1965, NBC, then America's second place network, was about to launch a strategic battle plan designed to overpower its arch nemesis, CBS-TV.
This was the LIVING COLOR OFFENSIVE, and the tactics were impressive. The PEACOCK NETWORK would air all of it's Prime Time schedule with tinted video.
NBC Executives invested in lavish, opulent production values, that could grow audience while also helping to sell the Color television sets sold by NBC's parent company, RCA.
Each show selected for Fall debut had a rich and vibrant palate.
I SPY was shot in lush locations , like the streets of Hong Kong and the beaches of Acapulco, around the globe.FLIPPER cavorted in glistening blue,Florida waters. BONANZA captured sprawling,Western vistas with rich, movie-grade production values.
One of the shows that was supposed to play a key role in this armada of poly-chromatic programs was THE WACKIEST SHIP IN THE ARMY.
Based on a 1960 Jack Lemmon - Ricky Nelson movie of the same name, and produced for NBC-TV by the Screen Gems unit of Columbia Pictures, this hour-lonG "dram-edy" told the tale of the U.S.S. KIWI, a 70-year old schooner, pressed into military service in World War II as a spy-ship roaming the South Pacific. In the storyline,the decaying vessel was crewed by the Navy, but was actually an Army asset,hence the title. This premise, network and studio execs thought,would yield high adventure, light comedy and exotic locations.
The show had great DNA: Producer Harry Ackerman had shepparded the hit shows,BEWITCHED and HAZEL. Jack Warden, an accomplished and respected New York actor was the leading man, with affable support from TV perennial Gary Collins and the vastly talented Mike Kellin. The balance of the KIWI's crew was made-up of appealing young actors and even a few stand-up comedians.
But what appreared on NBC didn't live up to expectations.
The show was shot mostly on constrained, back-lot locations. The plotlines offered promise, but the execution was off-balance, so the mix of comedy and drama never really achieved an entertaining level of equilibrium.It appeared that comedy spots for the sailing stand-ups were peppered through the script with the subtlety of buckshot.
Like many war machines, THE WACKIEST SHIP IN THE ARMY, looked great on the drawing board, but it was a battlefield casualty, lasting only 29 episodes.
But, there is a lot to be said in behalf of this series.The show had an optimistic feeling and the players were appealing. It had an energetic pace and , of course, the acting was of high caliber, given the tasks facing the cast.
It has not been seen in syndication for decades.
Here from the COUNTRYBOY 24564 YOU TUBE site, here is Episode number 7, STOWAWAY, with guest star Ruta Lee, of THE WACKIEST SHIP IN THE ARMY.
Call it a a near-cosmic confluence of comic stars in the night.
On a December night in 1962, THE JACK PAAR SHOW,the presumed centerpiece of NBC-TV's Friday night,Prime Time Schedule was on the air, LIVE and in LIVING COLOR from 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
Erudite, affable and volatile Jack Paar had just abdicated his throne as the King of late night television, when he left THE TONIGHT SHOW to host a weekly comedy , variety and talk program for NBC.
In response the network installed a another career-broadcaster and stand-up comedian, Johnny Carson, as the new Prince of Post-Prime Time TV.
Paar reportedly relished the change.
A visceral performer who wore his thread-bare emotions on his well-tailored sleeves, Paar was tired of delivering five shows per week,over 12 months. He liked the idea of focusing on sixty minutes of high voltage, thought-provoking, laugh-inducing television, and to do it just 26 weeks a year.
Paar was able to introduce the most interesting people on the planet to his audience and along the way brought some of the funniest performers of the Camelot-era to his stage.
The incomparable Jonathan Winters improvised without limits. Tom Lehrer waxed satirically in song about the state of humanity.America was introduced to the wholesome,observational comedy of a young Temple University grad, Bill Cosby.
But on this night, an insecure intellectual, who was making a national name and his comic bones working some of the country's hippest nightspots, was making a belated appearance on the show.
Long before he was acclaimed by cinemaphiles as an auteur, Woody Allen was a stand-up comedian.
A guest shot on the JACK PAAR SHOW was a career aspiration for Allen.
As often happens on a LIVE show, the clock moves faster than the guests and the 27 year old, Allen had been bumped from the program three times in three weeks.
Paar, who exuded empathy, felt so bad that he yielded the minutes allocated for his weekly monologue to the hip, young comedian.
Here, from the STANDAPARTCOMEDY YOU TUBE site, is Woody Allen's debut on THE JACK PAAR SHOW.
1960's, conventional television wisdom said that hero detectives were never vulnerable, they worked alone and they rolled up to a crime scene in a hot, new convertible, not a paisley-patterned wheelchair.
But, 1967 was a time of change in society and in network television.
Conventional wisdom on the home screen was quickly being replaced by creative upheaval.
IRONSIDE, the smart and engrossing mystery series that Universal Television produced for NBC-TV proved to be an instant hit, that ran for 8 seasons.
The fast-paced hour helped to blaze new paths in storytelling and in production technique. It was as close as commercial television got to Cinema Verite in style with an occasional pinch of psychedelic, editing sensibility.
The ironic drama broke a lot of rules, and in doing so , it made for fun and fascinating television.
In a season when the Prime Time Schedule had more spies than the back streets of East Berlin, NBC rolled the dice on a cop show.A genre that was believed to be on the decline. CBS and Desilu Studios did the same that year with MANNIX.
Both networks made a smart call.
The bold, but gritty graphic look made a statement about innovation. If television had a New Wave, Thursday night at 8:30pm on NBC would be the beachhead.
In a high velocity opening scene, the irascible Robert T. Ironside, Chief of Detectives for the San Francisco Police Department, is gunned down during a solitary,drunken weekend at his weekend gataway...a chicken ranch... just scant minutes after the Peacock unfurled his plumage.
The vibrant, pulsating theme by Quincy Jones ( later used in the Kill Bill Films ) set the scene for an arcane tour of 1960's , Haight-Ashbury, Hippie culture as Ironside pulls together a team, comprised of a cynical,veteran detective, an heiress with a conscience who became a cop and a young driver ,with no love for police authority who, himself, will carry a badge before the series ends, which spends the balance of this two hour , NBC World Premiere Movie searching for the would be assassin.
The lead character doesn't live in a swinging bachelor-pad, like most TV detectives or super spies of the era.The S.F.P.D. Commissioner gives Ironside a store-room at police headquarters, that could be viewed as a a primitive attempt at providing an accessible living space for the physically challenged.
The former Chief, now head of a special, crime-busting unit of the department, travels in a rebuilt police van that has sophisticated ( by mid-sixties definition ) electronic devices to aid in crime solving.
Along the way , star Raymond Burr, who lept from the epic run of PERRY MASON on CBS-TV, into this pilot film, offers an impassioned , if sardonic,examination of the challenges faced by a stubborn,independent, vital man who is suddenly confined to a wheelchair.
Many viewers and critics were surprised by Burr's emotional and even comedic,range after the years of playing the suave but restrained Barrister Mason on the Tiffany Network.
The creative DNA behind the show and behind the scenes was impressive.
Producer Frank Price would go on to run Universal Television and to head film studios. Savant series producer , Stephen Bochco, wrote many episodes of IRONSIDE.
NBC brought IRONSIDE back as a movie for television in 1993, starring Burr and much of the original cast.
The Peacock Network had already revived PERRY MASON, as a mini-series, of sorts. with Burr in the lead.
It was Raymond Burr's death that closed the file on both of these incomparable , crime fighting characters.
Here , posted below, from the SALE GUY You Tube site, is Episode 3 from Season 1 of IRONSIDE. ENJOY!!!!!!
My name is Paul Gluck ( aka PAGEONE ) and while I have been working in Television for over 30 years, I have watched Television for my entire life.From the very first, monochrome images of Dave Garroway on the TODAY SHOW that I saw flickering across the screen of my parents 21",blond wood, Zenith console TV, to the vibrant video of SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL blazing across the LCD flat panel in my living room, I have always loved television. I have worked as a production assistant,a writer, an assignment editor, a producer,an executive producer, an executive editor,a news director and a station manager. My fascination with the medium , the programs we create and the people who produce that content, grows with each & every day. KINESCOPE HD is a site dedicated to classic television, creative content production and vintage performances on video. I hope you share my love of television.If you do, share your thoughts on the programs we post.Enjoy!!!!!
