June 20, 1948 - May 30, 1971
ED SULLIVAN SHOW, THE, (TOAST OF THE TOWN)
Television's longest running variety series. Originally, titled, TOAST OF THE TOWN, the name of the series changed on September 18, 1955 to THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW. Most remembered for introducing many stand-up comedians, and musical acts, including The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, The Beatles.
Most of the 1,087 broadcasts, encompassing 10,000 performers, have been archived. The major exceptions are the first half-year of shows circa 1948 of which a few kinescope excerpts survive.
The ED SULLIVAN SHOW was a spectacular show-case that for twenty-three years entertained the American family. In its prime, more than thirty million viewers, young and old, tuned in at the same time to view popular culture.
Ed's guest is President Kennedy impersonator Vaughn Meader.
NOTE: After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Vaughn Meader's career faded over night. He made three appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show impersonating JFK and one last appearance May 3, 1964 attempting a new routine. His fate was doomed and this would be one of his last television appearances before leaving the business.
It's probably very safe to say that no performer within memory ever became a has-been as quickly as the man born Abbott Vaughn Meader. After toiling away on the small-club circuit for several years, his spot-on impersonation of then-President John F. Kennedy got him noticed by writer/performer/producer Earle Doud, who decided to build a comedy album around the nation's highly popular Presidential family. Built up of a series of satiric audio sketches about the Kennedys, and surrounding Meader with a supporting cast of top New York-based character actors, "The First Family" (Cadence: 1962) became an unprecedented success when it was released around Thanksgiving time in 1962. Its sales were so phenomenal that copies had to be rationed, it occupied several weeks at Number One on the Billboard Album charts, and was one of only two comedy albums ever to be awarded the Grammy for Album of the Year. A follow-up, "The First Family, Part Two" (Cadence: 1963), released the following summer, did almost as well. Both a third album and a TV special were in the works. Kennedy himself was a fan of the album, his biggest criticism being that he felt Meader sounded more like Robert F. Kennedy than himself.
Then, on November 22, 1963, the unthinkable happened. John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas. Literally within hours of the shooting, all of Meader's engagements were canceled. Meader, who admired Kennedy and was as much in shock as everybody else, was at a loss. His Kennedy impersonation, which comprised a small portion of his club act, could have been easily cut. But, as he himself later put it, "literally overnight, nobody wanted to know from me. As far as they were concerned, I was as dead as the President."