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From the Archives
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Looking at Some of Jonathan Winters' Earliest TV Appearances

by | May 10th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 150,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down).

Improv on TV is a mixed bag. Whose Line is it Anyway? did short form improv (and will again in the future) for years successfully, but is generally scoffed at by those who study long form improv. The Upright Citizens Brigade tried to turn their weekly improvised show, ASSSSCAT into a show for Bravo in 2005, but didn't get beyond a one-hour special. As we learned in an earlier column, even Woody Allen tried to get in the mix with a sitcom pilot that was made in 1962 about a struggling New York improv troupe. Recently, the comedy world lost one of the pioneers of improvisational comedy with the passing of Jonathan Winters. Today we look at two of his early television appearances and examine the magic of his particular brand of comedy. READ MORE

From the Archives
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Garry Shandling Gives You a Tour of Las Vegas in His First Standup Special

by | May 3rd, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 150,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down).

Today, Garry Shandling is probably best known for being the creator of two of the most important television shows in modern TV comedy: It's Garry Shandling's Show and The Larry Sanders Show. Each series broke new ground in very different ways, whether it was Garry Shandling's way of breaking the fourth wall and having character's openly acknowledge the fact that they were on a TV show, or Larry Sanders' method of finding humor in painfully awkward scenarios that inspired such shows as Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Office. READ MORE

From the Archives
4

Steve Allen Tries it Again in 1980 with Steve Martin's Brother Billy

by | April 26th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

When we last saw Steve Allen on From the Archives, it was 1964 and he was broadcasting the an audience-less version of his long running Steve Allen Show for the last time. The father of NBC's Tonight Show, and perhaps the biggest television comedian since Sid Caesar and Milton Berle, Steve Allen was a powerhouse of comedy, but the time had come for him to stand aside for a little bit. While he never completely disappeared from television, appearing on a wide variety of programs such as Get Smart, The Jerry Lewis Show, and Love, American Style, his days of hosting a regular program seemed to be over.

However, all of that changed at the end of 1980 when NBC decided to go back to their original star, Steve Allen and launch The Steve Allen Comedy Hour: a weekly variety program. The program premiered on October 18th of 1980, when the Carter/Reagan campaigns were in full swing. The easiest way to describe the format of show would be to call it The Tonight Show without the interviews or music. Steve does sketches, a couple of stand-ups perform, and Steve carries over a few of his classic Tonight Show bits such as his classic "Man On the Street" interviews, and the thing where he would turn the cameras on outside and make fun of the people on the sidewalk (I don't think there's a catchy title for that bit). The unfortunate truth is that the fact that this feels like a Steve Allen Tonight Show episode, minus music and interviews, means that it feels like it's 30 years out of date. READ MORE

From the Archives
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Jerry Seinfeld on Jean Shepherd, the Voice Behind 'A Christmas Story'

by | April 19th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

You may not recognize the name Jean Shepherd, but I'd bet that if you were growing up at some time during the last twenty years, you'd recognize his voice in a heartbeat. Despite the fact that you might not be recognizing his name right now, through the course of his long career which spanned from 1951 until his death in 1999, he deeply influenced the face of modern comedy and made an impact on a generation of comedians. Today, though, he's known as the guy who narrated A Christmas Story, but in actuality he was so much more than that.

Jean Shepherd first came into prominence on a medium that doesn't launch too many stars any more: radio. While rarely referred to as a comedian, the terms that do get attributed to him are in a similar vein: most commonly "storyteller," "raconteur," and the often loaded term "humorist." Working the overnight shift on New York's WOR, Shepherd would address his loyal group of fans and tell long, detailed stories that made mountains out of the tiny and insignificant and painted portraits of the experiences of growing up in America. He worked without a script, preferring to improvise his stories, embellishing details and weaving his narratives like a jazz musician. He never reached the prominence of the comedians of his day like Bob Newhart, Lenny Bruce or Mort Sahl and according to the author of the book Excelsior, You Fathead, Eugene Bergmann, this aggravated him greatly, but still his unique storytelling style and his ability to examine life through his specific lens affected much of the comedy that we enjoy today.

One such comedian who was influenced by Shepherd is a man by the name of Jerry Seinfeld, and on January 23, 2012 he appeared at the Paley Center in New York to speak with New York Times reporter and author Bill Carter to discuss just what sort of impact Jean had. One of the great things about Jerry is not just the fact that he knows comedy, and can craft a solid joke, but he also can talk about comedy, and analyze the nuts and bolts of how a pause improves a joke, or how trimming a word here or there can enhance a punchline. He is a true student of comedy, and has cracked the code, so to speak, and as such is able to specifically discuss the impact Jean had on his comedy, and what made him different from the other humorists of his time. READ MORE

From the Archives
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Watching 'Not Necessarily Television' Skewer 1985's Pop Culture

by | April 12th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

Not long ago on the site, writer Nell Scovell wrote about her early experiences in "the greatest Writer's Room you've never heard of," working with Conan O'Brien and Greg Daniels on a short-lived program known as The Wilton North Report. The show was a nightly, hour-long topical comedy show and collected a pretty impressive roster of writers from a number of prestigious houses of satirical comedy of the time period. These included writers from Spy Magazine, The Realist, and of course Conan and Greg from HBO's Not Necessarily the News.

Never heard of Not Necessarily the News? Unfortunately such is the fate of many topical comedy programs: they are true products of their times, and the more time that passes, the less relatable they become. (Ever watch a late night show's monologue, realize it's a rerun and feel a pang of disappointment? Multiply that by a few decades and you'll see why TV Land doesn't show reruns of That Was the Week that Was.) NNTN aired on HBO from 1982 to 1990 and launched the careers of SNLers Rich Hall, and Jan Hooks. The program was based on a British version known as Not Necessarily the Nine O'Clock News and often incorporated bits of actual news footage, overdubbed comically, as part of it's satire.

I say all of that in one giant infodump of a paragraph because we're not going to talk about NNTN today. Instead we're going to look at a one-off special that poked fun at television as a whole, called Not Necessarily Television. READ MORE

From the Archives
0

Don Rickles is Not Don Rickles in The Don Rickles Show

by | April 5th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

The tradition of the standup-helmed sitcom goes back a long ways, and for good reason: it often works. From Newhart to Seinfeld, from Welcome Back Kotter to Everybody Loves Raymond, the idea of taking a person who is very good at performing and being funny and building a show around them is the kind of decision that takes little to no thought. However, this doesn't work for everybody. For every massive hit staring a standup there are dozens that are cancelled halfway through its first season. And for some reason, insult comedian and comedic icon Don Rickles hasn't had much luck in this arena.

His biggest hit as the star of a TV show came in 1976 when he starred as the titular character on C.P.O. Sharkey, in which he played an officer in the US Navy, but that only lasted for two seasons. Most recently in 1993 there was Daddy Dearest, which lasted 13 episodes. In 1968 there was a variety show called The Don Rickles Show that was very quickly cancelled. Then there was the focus of today's article: another iteration of The Don Rickles Show, this time a straight-forward sitcom on CBS, which first aired on January 21, 1972, and would not live to see 1973. READ MORE

From the Archives
2

The Episode Where David Letterman Had 13 Cameras

by | March 29th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

As all of my surface dwelling readers are already aware, the winds of change are once again blowing around the gates of late night TV. The Tonight Show is looking towards Jimmy Fallon to take the reigns, pushing Jay Leno off into who knows where. Now, I know everyone idolized Carson, everyone wants to be on TV earlier than midnight, and everyone wants to join that really small club of people who hosted The Tonight Show, but in spite of all of those perfectly legitimate reasons, there are some really good reasons to stay on at 12:30, too. Actually, I can sum it all up in one reason: at 12:30 you can be ridiculous.

At 11:30, old people are awake. People who watch local TV news are watching. Those people aren’t interested in “Let Us Play With Your Look” or “Potato Judge” or the “Late Night Monkey Cam.” So today, to celebrate the ridiculousness of 12:30, I’m going to look back at an episode of Late Night with David Letterman from March 2, 1988, when it was Camera Night. READ MORE

From the Archives
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'Head of the Family': The Pilot for 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' Starring Carl Reiner

by | March 22nd, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

The Dick Van Dyke Show began in October of 1961 and ran for fives seasons before quickly entering the history books as one of the great American television classics, and launching the stars of Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. However, at many points through the process, history was nearly thwarted by outside circumstances. The biggest roadblock came at the end of Season One when CBS decided to cancel the show. Luckily their sponsor went to bat for them and the program lived on. But the first major struggle came even earlier, after the filming of the first episode, when The Dick Van Dyke Show was The Carl Reiner Show. Today we look at the original pilot, then known as Head of the Family, which featured the show's writer and creator as the star as well, with Carl Reiner as the original Rob Petrie, and compare it to the pilot episode of Dick Van Dyke's version of the character. READ MORE

From the Archives
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Watching a Comedic Voice Evolve: The Rare, Early Clips of The Muppets

by | March 15th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

When the late Jerry Nelson, the puppeteer who performed as Robin the frog, Sgt. Floyd Pepper of the Electric Mayhem, and Snuffleupagus, was asked a difficult question at the Paley Center about the loss of the human form in the digital landscape, he replied: "I would say first off, that art is an expression of life and life is an expression of art. It can go in both directions at the same time and probably will." He then revealed that he had no idea what that meant.

I imagine that when you think of The Muppets, you think of the movies, the show, or possibly even Sesame Street. While there is humor throughout all of these examples, it's easy to categorize it all as "kids' stuff." However, there's a deep, rich history to Jim Henson's Muppets that extends far beyond these classic kids shows. And through them all there is a thread of comedy that is purely adult, sophisticated, and frequently irreverent: which is exactly the kind of thing I want these articles to preserve. READ MORE

From the Archives
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Harry Shearer's First Post-'SNL' TV Special

by | March 8th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

Harry Shearer, who today is probably best known for being the voices of hundreds of characters on The Simpsons, quit Saturday Night Live in 1985 while dressed as Ronald Reagan. After three consecutive weeks of not appearing on the show, having multiple sketches cut, and experiencing clash after clash with producer Dick Ebersol, he felt that his voice was being stymied and it was time to move on. According to Tom Shales' and James Andrew Miller's Live From New York, when called for a quote on the press release that said he was leaving due to creative differences, Shearer responded, "Yeah, I was creative and they were different."

Later that year when Cinemax aired a special from Harry Shearer called It's Just TV he might have been making a larger statement. READ MORE

From the Archives
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Looking Back at '30 Rock' with Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, and the Writers

by | March 1st, 2013

30 Rock is gone. After seven seasons, Liz Lemon is no more. On Wednesday night, her real-life writers, Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, Colleen McGuiness, Josh Siegal, and Dylan Morgan reunited at the Paley Center in New York to reminisce and discuss just how a show like 30 Rock came to be. In a panel moderated by New Yorker television critic Emily Nussbaum, we learned all about the show's origins, stories that never got to be told, how Tina felt about Studio 60, and who at TGS Jenna Maroney almost had an affair with. (Be warned, there are a couple tiny spoilers for the 30 Rock series finale in here.)

A lot of the conversation centered on the show's beginnings and its evolution. When asked what guiding principles the show began with, Tina immediately brings up the show's characters. She and Robert set out to create characters that would speak differently and have "different points of view on any topic that could come up." In the beginning, Tina and the staff found the show easy to work on, cracking the stories for 12 full episodes before filming had even begun. Carlock attributes this to the fact that there was so much virgin territory that the show could cover, whether it is race relations in the form of Liz Lemon thinking Tracy was illiterate, or women in the workplace. To him it "felt like snow without footprints." READ MORE

From the Archives
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Looking Back at the Upright Citizen's Brigade TV Show with the UCB4

by | February 22nd, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

The Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater has been talked about quite a bit this month, with escalating Facebook messages, responses from people working in every aspect of the comedy industry, and even an article in the New York Times all about whether or not the performers at the theaters should be paid. A weekly feature examining comedy TV history might seem like an unlikely place to discuss this controversy, this seems like the perfect time to look back into the UCB's past and reflect on the thing that has allowed the institution to survive and prevail after some 20-odd years: their comedy.

The members of the team known as the Upright Citizens Brigade have rotated over the years, including such comedy luminaries as Horatio Sanz, Rich Fulcher, and Adam McKay, but the last, and most well known lineup consists of Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Amy Poehler, and Matt Walsh, commonly referred to as the UCB4. After meeting in Chicago, studying under improv guru Del Close, moving to New York, opening their own theater and training center, in 1998 they began their own television show, which aired on Comedy Central for three seasons. On November 8, 2007, the Paley Center in New York got these four together (sort of) to discuss with moderator and Onion writer/editor Todd Hanson their TV show, their comedy, their philosophies, and a bunch of stories from their long, fruitful careers. READ MORE

From the Archives
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'Do Not Adjust Your Set': The Children's Show That Launched Monty Python

by | February 15th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

The idea of children's programming being "cool" feels like a relatively new idea. There's the indie rock/alternative comedy friendly Yo Gabba Gabba!, there's The Aquabats Super Show, and as I'm sure you already know, we now live in a world in which "bronies" are a thing. However, cool children's shows have been around for quite some time, including one that aired for two seasons in 1968 that counted Monty Python's John Cleese and Graham Chapman as fans.

The program was called Do Not Adjust Your Set (named for the warning that would often appear on TV screens when there were broadcasting issues), and aired weekly at 5:20 PM on the ITV network in the UK. In it's cast were David Jason, who would later be known for staring in the BBC series Only Fools and Horses, and for lending his voice to Dangermouse, and Count Duckula, as well as Denise Coffey, an actress, director and playwright with a very long career. It featured performances/art pieces from the surreal avant-garde musical group, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

Oh, also it was written and performed by Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. READ MORE

From the Archives
4

Watching Ernie Kovacs Host One of TV's Strangest Morning Shows

by | February 8th, 2013

The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)

Since you are the reader of a series of articles about old shows from a TV Museum's archives, I'm going to assume you are already familiar with the work of the highly influential Ernie Kovacs. You've already read the articles, you've seen the list of comedians that cite him as an influence (Letterman, Conan, and so many more), and maybe you even own the two fantastic volumes of DVDs Shout! Factory has been putting out of his work. So why don't we both agree to just agree to skip the part where I tell you how important and influential he is: me, as the writer of this article, and you, as the person who I sort of tricked into talking to a website article.

The insanely prolific Kovacs was bouncing from gig to gig in the 1950s, and when we last left him in 1955 he was hosting a weekly show called The Ernie Kovacs Rehearsal on the now defunct DuMont network. From there he moved to the big time, hosting a daytime version of his show from 10:30 to 11 every weekday on NBC. The episode that we'll be examining today aired on May 29, 1956, towards the end of the show's daytime run, and is typical of the Kovacs style: it's live, it's chaotic, and there's a feeling of irreverence. Ernie doesn't seem to care that he's on TV. He's going to do what he wants on the air, and who cares if it looks a little unprofessional? READ MORE

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