"Toast of the Town" Episode #23.22 (1970)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

John Moffitt

TV Series:

"Toast of the Town" (1948)

Original Air Date:

22 February 1970 (Season 23, Episode 22)

Genre:

Comedy | Family | Music

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Variety | Audience Participation | Non Fiction

Cast

Duke Ellington and His Orchestra	...	Themselves
Duke Ellington	...	Himself - Band Leader
Peter Gennaro	...	Himself - Dancer (as The Peter Gennaro Dancers)
Eydie Gormé	...	Herself - Singer (as Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme)
George Harrison	...	Himself - Singer (archive footage) (as The Beatles)
Steve Lawrence	...	Himself - Singer (as Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme)
Peggy Lee	...	Herself - Singer
John Lennon	...	Himself - Singer (archive footage) (as The Beatles)
Paul McCartney	...	Himself - Singer (archive footage) (as The Beatles)
The Muppets	...	Themselves
Ringo Starr	...	Himself - Singer (archive footage) (as The Beatles)
Ed Sullivan	...	Himself - Host
Edward Villella	...	Himself
Dionne Warwick	...	Herself - Singer

Series Cast

These people are regular cast members. Were they in this episode?

Ralph Paul

...

Announcer

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Ed Sullivan Theatre - 1697 Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Sullivan Productions

Sullivan's Beatles tribute with no Beatles.

Ed Sullivan and the Beatles had enjoyed a mutually profitable relationship ever since the Fab Four made their Stateside debut on Sullivan's TV show. Gradually, the Beatles tapered off their participation in Sullivan's shows, diminishing from live appearances to taped appearances to mere archive footage.

This IMDb review is specifically for episode #23.22 of Ed Sullivan's show, which represents his attempt at one more bite of the cherry (or Apple), and one more attempt to squeeze some magic out of the Beatles name. This was a special "Beatles tribute" episode of Sullivan's show, but in fact the Beatles had no direct participation at all, and are seen merely in some archive concert footage. The acts that do appear in person here are pretty much Ed's usual bunch of cronies and favourites, doing Beatle-themed material.

Peter Gennaro and a couple of dancers do a comedy dance routine to "Sergeant Pepper", wearing band uniforms and fooling about with props such as a detonator. A more classical dance is provided by Edward Villella, doing a solo ballet routine to an instrumental version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". If you watched this with the volume turned down, you'd never guess it was Beatles material: Villella's in excellent form, but he's doing just the usual classical ballet manoeuvres, with lots of athletically high leaps and entrechats. He makes no attempt to offer tribute to rock music here.

The Muppets do a routine that's allegedly underwater, with one Muppet (voiced by Jim Henson) attempting to sing "In an Octopus's Garden" while a Muppet marionette (voiced by Frank Oz) keeps swimming past (on strings) to interrupt him with underwater puns such as "Are you a friend or anemone?". Finally, the Henson Muppet loses all patience and asks his tormentor: "Why are you doing this?", prompting the Oz Muppet to reply: "Oh, just for the halibut." Boom-boom! I was amazed that a pun on the word "hell" would make it onto Ed Sullivan's strait-laced show.

Weirdest of all is Peggy Lee's turn. She stands stock-still onstage, speak-singing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". Onto the stage in sidelong gait come a pair of Peter Gennaro's dancers, covered in weird metallic canisters. When Miss Piggy ... I mean, Miss Peggy Lee gets to the chorus, these two dancers whack themselves in their respective heads with little ball-pean hammers to get the "clang, clang!" effect. Truly weird.

Along come Steve and Eydie to do a medley of the very softest and most mainstream Beatles songs, with a couple of Vegas gags thrown in. While they're warbling "Michelle, Ma Belle", Steve gets all Gallic on the French lyric, then he goes fortissimo on the line "I love you, I love you" so that Eydie can change the third "I love you" into "I HEARD you!" and get a laugh from the studio audience. The problem is that, as performed here, this sounds like just one more Steve and Eydie easy listenin' duet that would go over just fine in Vegas.

In fact, all the performers here seem to be basically following their own blisses, rather than trying to bend their own talents to the unique sound of the Beatles. Which proves, I suppose, the universal appeal of the Fab Four. Or something. I wanna hold, you're bland ... yeah yeah yeah.