Sock It to Me: A Brief History of Rock & Roll Variety Shows
When Neil Patrick Harris returns to TV next week, he won’t be cracking jokes in another sitcom. Best Time Ever With Neil Patrick Harris (debuting on September 15th on NBC) marks the return — overdue or not — of the variety show, that long-dormant format in which kooky skits, musical guests, and frenzied production numbers are jammed into an hour of family-friendly entertainment. “When you think of the variety shows we all grew upon — Sonny and Cher and Donny and Marie — those [programs] all said, ‘Sit on the couch, be entertained with a little song, a little dance and a little bit of funny,'” says Best Time Ever executive producer David Hurwitz. “There was a lot of spontaneity and fun in a show like Laugh-In. It’s organized chaos, a runaway train but with care and precision.”
The format dates back to the nascent days of television, when mainstream entertainers like Dinah Shore, Perry Como, and gnomish Ed Sullivan presided over such something-for-everyone series. But Harris’ show, which will have an initial eight-episode run and wrap up (for now) in November, promises to revive a subtradition: the hip, rock-influenced variety show, one that plays to a younger, more knowing audience. Similarly, Maya Rudolph, who starred in a one-shot special last year, may return with a variety series and a cohost, Martin Short, playing off their hilarious performance on Saturday Night Live‘s 40th anniversary special. (In another nod to the past, one of Stephen Colbert’s first guests on the new Late Show will be Carol Burnett.) Here’s the inspired, twisted and sometimes tragic history of the rock & roll variety shows that preceded Best Time Ever.
The Foundation
Back in the 1950s, nothing was less hip than the variety show, which catered to a largely adult crowd that didn’t relate to or understand rock & roll. The low point? Elvis Presley being forced to wail “Hound Dog” to … a dog wearing a hat, on The Steve Allen Show. The situation improved later — the Beatles and the Stones both historically rocked the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 — but it took two brothers who’d starred in a failed sitcom to take the rock-variety concept to the next level.
The siblings — short-haired, guitar-playing pretend-doofus Tom Smothers and his standup-bass-yielding brother Dick — looked more like substitute teachers than comics, but Tom in particular was politically conscious and musically adventurous, both aspects reflected in the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour that debuted in 1967. “They came to us and said, ‘Do you want to a variety show in this slot?'” Tom Smothers, now 78, recalls. “I said I didn’t want to do the standard bullshit. We wanted the sketches to be more relevant. You couldn’t help but reflect what was going on.”