And Now, a R-r-really Big Shew

By John Elson

He couldn't dance. He didn't sing. And he bungled jokes. His malaprops and mannerisms endlessly inspired comic impersonators. "Let's hear it for the Lord's Prayer," he once croaked, after a tenor had sung it. During a lavish encomium to the Supremes he forgot the trio's name and concluded lamely: "Here are the girls." Looking somewhat like a Great Stone Face transplanted from Easter Island to Broadway, he would rock back and forth onstage, hands across chest or clutching his kidneys, while in baleful voice he introduced a succession of comedians, jugglers, rock bands and animal acts.

If charisma were all that counted, Ed Sullivan should have been pink-slipped after his first broadcast (on what was originally called Toast of the Town) in 1948. Yet for 23 years after that, for millions of Americans, Sunday night at 8 belonged to CBS, home of television's longest-running prime-time vaudeville, The Ed Sullivan Show.

At one time TV dismissed its early years, like a bad dream or an unhappy childhood. But nostalgia is in vogue these days: recycling golden oldies can mean money in the bank. As the centerpiece of a "Classic Weekend" that also includes anniversary tributes to All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore, CBS this Sunday will offer a two-hour special, The Very Best of the Ed Sullivan Show. With Carol Burnett as host and fond reminiscences by Alan King, Carol Lawrence, Joan Rivers and others, this visual anthology features many highlights that have not been seen since they were first broadcast.

Sullivan liked to promise his audiences "a r-r-really big shew," and far more often than not he delivered. "Ed Sullivan was America's taste," observes Rivers, which is probably as good an explanation as any for the program's long-running success. A Manhattan-born sportswriter turned show-biz columnist for the New York Daily News, Sullivan had a reporter's instinct for what was hot, and he outhustled rivals to showcase new talent, notably Elvis Presley and the Beatles. And not just in pop. Sullivan proudly treated his audiences to classical excellence in the personae of opera diva Joan Sutherland and ballet stars Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn. He encouraged black artists at a time when TV offered them few opportunities. Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey were all but regulars; Motown stars -- from Smokey Robinson to the winsome little Jackson Five -- got ample display.

The Very Best was produced by Andrew Solt, a TV-documentary specialist who spent a year negotiating the rights to 1,087 hours of taped broadcasts from the host's son-in-law and former producer, Robert Precht. (Sullivan died of cancer in 1974.) Solt is editing the shows into 130 half-hour segments, which he plans to offer for syndication, package as home videos and use as the basis for future TV specials.

Why not just rerun the originals? Solt's answer is that their pacing is too languid for modern tastes, which is probably true but also beside the point. Early TV was shot live, and a considerable part of its charm -- witness The Honeymooners -- was its ramshackle unpredictability. The Very Best solidly documents Sullivan's skill as a talent scout but gives little sense of the show's herky-jerky rhythm and calculated structure -- one novelty act, two comic spots and so on -- or of its host's weird, looming omnipresence. Solt's deconstruction is a pleasant memory tickler. It could have been more.

With reporting by William Tynan/New York