| The Steve Allen Show | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Variety |
| Presented by | Steve Allen |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 167 |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 47–51 minutes |
| Production companies | Bellmeadow Enterprises (1956-1961) NBC Television Network (1956–1960) Westinghouse Broadcasting Company (1962–1964) |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC (1956–1960) ABC (1961) Syndication (1962–1964) |
| Release | June 24, 1956 (1956-06-24) – July 6, 1964 (1964-07-06)[citation needed] |
| Related | |
| Tonight Starring Steve Allen | |
The Steve Allen Show is an Americanvariety show hosted bySteve Allen from June 1956 to June 1960 onNBC, from September 1961 to December 1961 onABC,[1] and in first-runsyndication from 1962 to 1964.
The first three seasons aired on Sunday nights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, directly oppositeThe Ed Sullivan Show. It moved to Mondays at 10:00 p.m. Eastern in the 1959–60 season under the nameThe Steve Allen Plymouth Show (sponsored byPlymouth automobile). After a season's absence, the series briefly returned on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. Eastern.
The syndicated version aired mostly in late nights. The program, between September 1957 and June 1960, became one of the first programs to be telecast in "compatible color".Kinescopes of the NBC version were later edited into 104 half-hour episodes and rerun on the "HA!" channel andComedy Central in the early 1990s, with new introductions by Allen.[2]
The Steve Allen Show was the first in a series of prime time spin-offs fromThe Tonight Show, all of which were named after the host:Jack Paar (1962 to 1965) andJay Leno (2009 to 2010) would follow in Allen's footsteps.
The show launched the careers of cast membersDon Knotts,Tom Poston,Louis Nye,Pat Harrington Jr.,Tim Conway,Bill Dana,[1] and, near the end of its run,Jim Nabors.[3] The show's most popular sketch was the "Man on the street" which featured Knotts as the nervous Mr. Morrison (whose mannerisms Knotts would later use forBarney Fife onThe Andy Griffith Show), Poston as the man who could not remember his own name, Harrington as Italian golf player Guido Panzini, Nye as the smug Gordon Hathaway, and Dana asJosé Jiménez.[1] Hathaway's greeting of "Hi Ho Steverino!" became acatchphrase[1][4] as did Jimenez's "My name José Jiménez."[5]Dayton Allen also appeared in the sketch and spawned the catchphrase "Whyyyyy not?"[6]Gabe Dell, previously a member ofThe Bowery Boys, was also a cast member.Gene Rayburn was the show's announcer andSkitch Henderson was the bandleader.[1]
The Steve Allen Show also helped foster the careers of many musicians. Although Allen himself did not have much affection forrock and roll,[7] the show featured numerous rock and roll artists in their earliest TV appearances. The show presentedElvis Presley,Fats Domino,Jerry Lee Lewis,Louis Jordan & TheTympany Five,The Treniers,The Collins Kids, andThe Three Stooges. However, the rock 'n' roll stars often did not appear on the show as most fans would have desired. For instance, Allen presented Elvis Presley with a top hat and the white tie and tails of a "high class" musician while singing "Hound Dog" to an actualBasset Hound, who was similarly attired.[8] Some have erroneously suggested that the "Hound Dog" performance was intentionally disrespectful, and emblematic of Allen's disdain for rock 'n' roll.[9] In reality, Allen took a risk booking the controversial Presley, and the bit was orchestrated both for comedic effect, and to mitigate potential controversy.[10] Indeed, Presley's label,RCA Victor (co-owned with NBC at the time), chose an image from a rehearsal of this performance to adorn the picture sleeve of the 45 rpm single of "Hound Dog", which had not yet been released at the time of the Allen appearance. That show drew the largest audience in the history ofThe Steve Allen Show, an estimated 40 million viewers garnering for NBC a 20.2 rating (against CBS's Sullivan's 14.8) as well as a 55.3% share versus Ed Sullivan's 39.7%.
After being cancelled by NBC in 1960, the show returned in the fall of 1961 on ABC. Nye, Poston, Harrington, Dell, and Dayton Allen returned. New cast members wereJoey Forman,Buck Henry, and newcomersTim Conway (then known as Tom Conway) andThe Smothers Brothers. Allen's wife,Jayne Meadows also joined the cast. The new version was cancelled after 14 episodes.[1]
In 1967, after trying his hand at asyndicated talk show several years earlier, Allen briefly returned on CBS with most of his old regulars forThe Steve Allen Comedy Hour, an eight-week summer replacement series on Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. Eastern (replacing the cancelledDanny Kaye Show). Twenty-one minutes of the premiere episode featured one of Allen's favorite sketches, "The Prickly Heat Telethon", which Allen ran on film in its entirety at his 1973Carnegie Hall concert. The series featured the debuts ofRob Reiner,Richard Dreyfuss, andJohn Byner, and featuredRuth Buzzi, who would become famous soon after as a regular onRowan & Martin's Laugh-In.
A syndicated version ofThe Steve Allen Show, known informally as theWestinghouse Show, ran, throughWestinghouse Broadcasting, from June 1962 to October 1964. It was taped at what would later become known asThe Steve Allen Playhouse inHollywood.[11] He competed against newTonight hostJohnny Carson. Original announcerGene Rayburn and bandleaderSkitch Henderson did not return to this version (Rayburn was by this time hostingThe Match Game on NBC and Henderson opted to rejoinTonight under Carson), instead being replaced byJohnny Jacobs as announcer andDonn Trenner as bandleader, respectively (in early 1964,Bill Daily succeeded Jacobs as Steve's announcer). Following a dispute with Westinghouse over creative control, Allen left the show in 1964 to take over hosting duties onI've Got a Secret, andRegis Philbin (who had worked for Allen dating back to Philbin's time as anNBC Page onTonight in 1955[12]) briefly took over the reins in its final weeks. The Trenner orchestra included some of the finest West Coast jazz musicians, among them guitaristHerb Ellis, trombonist-scat vocalistFrank Rosolino and saxophonist-trombonistBob Enevoldsen.
The AllenWestinghouse Show is considered a classic of American late-night talk shows today, given its professed influence on a number of comedy greats includingDavid Letterman,Robin Williams,Steve Martin,Harry Shearer and others impressed by its wild, anarchic style, complete with outdoor stunts staged near the Hollywood Ranch Market, not far from the studio. The show's guests included such Southern California eccentrics as health food enthusiastGypsy Boots, popular TV physics professorJulius Sumner Miller,Miles Davis and his group (1964),Lenny Bruce,Peter Sellers,Jackie Vernon (in his first television appearance),[13] and a youngFrank Zappa, who appeared as a "musicalbicyclist." A 1964 episode featured a roundtable discussion with historical figures in costume; this served as ademonstration episode for a new series Allen was proposing,Meeting of Minds, which would eventually go to series in 1977.
In April 1968, a year afterI've Got a Secret ended its run, Allen returned to syndicated nightly variety-talk with another new series, this one distributed byFilmways. Although more conversational in tone than his previous entry, it did feature the same wacky stunts that would influenceDavid Letterman in later years, including becoming a humanhood ornament; jumping into vats ofoatmeal andcottage cheese; and being slathered withdog food, allowing dogs backstage to feast on the free food. Allen also introducedAlbert Brooks and Steve Martin for the first time to a national audience on the Filmways series, which ran until November 1969. After a hiatus of about 14 months, starting in early 1971, a mustachioed Allen returned to syndication for a short run.
The Steve Allen Show won aPeabody Award in 1958 for its "genuine humor and frank experiments"during a year when most shows were "conspicuously lacking" such elements.[14]
