50 Years Ago Right Now ~ An Evening With Carol Channing !
Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 6:00PM Imagine your parents or maybe your grandparents gathered 'round a 21 inch television on February 18th, 1966 on ABC to watch this. If you were born in October 1966 I apologize that the weirdest things got your parents frisky.
Wowee Wow. Here's Our Dolly now! 🎵
There were only three channels in 1966 and, I mean, why would ANYONE have been watching anything else? She was on Broadway at the time with Hello Dolly. Broadway had such a cache back then. Can you imagine a Broadway star getting a whole hour of television to promote their celebrity today?
Some highlights...
04:10 Wanna hear where Lady Bunny got her voice. It's right here.
12:22 David McCallum (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) reads T.E. Lawrence and speaks multiple languages with Carol, cracking each other up
24:20 Mona Lisa musical comedy sketch. The takeaway: the 1960s were a very strange and alien time from an alternate Earth. Possibly another Galaxy altogether
33:00 Los Angeles, skewered. Must see if you've ever hated on L.A.
50:30 George Burns & David McCallum join Carol for the finale. "The Monkey Rag"
Reader Comments (14)
21 inch TV in 1966?? I don't know as I wasn't born yet but still, it feels a little too big :-)
Oh! The day I saw Thoroughly Modern Millie for the first time! I almost died.
The next year she would play her Oscar-nominated role of Muzzy. Sigh.
adelutza -- i thought so too but i was trying to find online numbers for it and that's what i saw.
She was blonde, funny, talented, vivacious, and liked a good party. How could anyone not like Carol Channing?
And a nudist!
Paul -- what? really?
Yeah, I did a guest performance here in LA a couple of years ago and the production manager at the facility at the time had had a long career as a sound engineer working with some of the most interesting musicians (rock, R&B, classical, jazz, theater). He had some great stories, including about the period when he was on the road with Channing. He told me he had to get used to walking in on her and her (fourth? fifth?) husband comfortably relaxing in the buff.
Paul - well, that's something I've never heard before, but then Channing always seemed an unpretentious sort of person. ( I don't know why I keep laughing)
Wow-e-Wow indeed. It's good to see that Carol went nowhere without a fleet of safety gays to back her up!
That width would be right if you had a console TV. My grandmother had one, with an enclosed turntable to one size...you know the Deluxe model! That sucker was a PIECE of furniture!
Such a different world, the stage was so respected and those performers all had showpiece specials. I remember my folks saying how they loved to go see dramatic readings. They use to talk about going with a group to see Agnes Moorehead, Charles Laughton, Charles Boyer and someone else I can't remember perform John Brown's Body, where they all stood behind podiums and read and how riveting it was, and that they watched them perform it again on a special presentation. You'd never see something like that nowadays.
Check out Carol during the Oscar presentation for 1967 Best Actress sitting in front of Dame Edith on youtube. Or Ella's guest spot on What's My Line when she is asked if she is Carol Channing! Such little joys.
I still really only know her best from her cameo as herself on "Magnum P.I."
Old school variety shows are the best. So wish they could find a way to bring variety shows back to TV in a way that works.
And yes, really can't imagine a broadway star headling something like this on tv nowadays (unless it's a concert for PBS). What a pitty. Sutton Foster would kill in her own TV special (thank you, now I'll be dreaming of it).
Wow that was truly strange...