An overview of entertainment history lasting fifty years, after the jump ……..
But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send your nominations to TopComments at gmail dot com by 9:30 PM Eastern Time nightly, or by our KosMail message board. Please indicate (a) why you liked the comment, and (b) your Dkos user name (to properly credit you) as well as a link to the comment itself.
On one of his 1970’s comedy albums, Robert Klein talks about an old man who sits next to him at a lunch counter, saying “I was in vaudeville” … “Oh, were you, Pops? Here, take my creamed kale”. That gave me an image of vaudeville (and creamed kale, for that matter). I had assumed it was something that — like big bands — had lasted up until WW-II, after which costs became prohibitive. It turns out it had fallen out of favor a decade earlier, according to a 1999 special on PBS— and some eighty-five years later, an overview seems apropos.
From about 1880 to 1932, a live variety show featuring a dozen performers of various forms of entertainment (singers, dancers, comics, magicians, jugglers, dancing-bear acts, etc., appearing for ten minutes or so) was a staple of American entertainment. Similar to it was music hall in Britain (which had a longer lifespan, with its heyday from 1850-1915, then soldiered-on in a diminished capacity until 1960). Yet the legacy of vaudeville endures (even somewhat today) for a genre that led Jimmy Cagney to say, “Everything I know I learned in vaudeville.”
The origin of its name is uncertain, with most centering around French expressions Voix de ville (“Voice of the City”) or Vau de Vire (“Vire River Valley”) where bawdy drinking songs from the 15th Century thrived. The first use of that term is believed to have taken place in 1871 by Sargent’s Great Vaudeville Company of Louisville, Kentucky.
In the US before the Civil War, variety and minstrel shows existed … yet often would probably not be considered ‘family entertainment’. Over time, travelling shows began to move more in that direction, and the first impresario in vaudeville was Tony Pastor— a circus ringmaster turned theater owner — circa 1880. He banned the sale of liquor in his theaters and sought to eliminate bawdy acts in his venues, which later became the model followed by others. If there is a true “opening night” of major vaudeville it may well be October 24, 1881 — when he proclaimed an evening of “clean vaudeville”.
Tony Pastor (1837-1908)A far more consequential impresario was Benjamin Franklin (“B.F.”) Keith— whose Bijou Theater in Boston (1882-1943) became an early temple of vaudeville, before he built a chain of successful theaters across North America. He bridged the gap between high-low entertainment, yet maintained strict clean entertainment guidelines. And he developed the policy of ‘continuous vaudeville’ that ran for up to twelve hours, until theaters twenty years later returned to the older prevailing two-a-day show schedule.
B.F. Keith (1846-1914)His business partner Edward Franklin (“E.F.”) Albee managed the chain well, so that the name Keith-Albee became synonymous with successful vaudeville. In case his name looks familiar: his (adoptive) grandson — who died just two years ago — was the playwright Edward Albee (of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” fame).
Edward F. Albee (1857-1930)If there could be said to be a main venue: it would be the Palace Theater in NYC, that was managed by the Keith-Albee organization, but was built by a Slovakian immigrant named Martin Beck — and if his name sounds familiar, his Martin Beck Theater (built in 1924) was renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theater in 2003. Eventually his Orpheum chain merged with Keith-Albee (forming “KAO”) which eventually merged with the RCA corporation to found RKO Pictures in 1928.
Palace Theater, NYC (built in 1913)For immigrants in America, vaudeville was the first place that different ethnic groups could make-their-mark on American society, and often where theater-goers would first sit with members of other ethnic groups from different neighborhoods. Later, some separate venues for black (and for Yiddish) performers would also come into being.
The peak of vaudeville came during the late 1890’s, and the circuit coined several word/phrases we recognize today. “Gags” and a production “flop” became associated with vaudeville ... and today we refer to expletive-laden comedy as “blue” material — because B.F. Keith would often send performers blue envelopes‘suggesting’ material needing to be altered … if they still wanted to work for him. (To be clear, what was “blue” back then … didn’t compare to much later on).
The expression “Will it play in Peoria?” was first suggested in a novel by Horatio Alger, yet it was vaudeville’s touring shows that asked it as a specific question: whether an act could appeal to a Midwestern town, as well as larger cities. The question was memorialized in 1935 by Groucho Marx in “A Night at the Opera”.
And it is believed to be NYC theater owner Henry Miner, whose Miner’s Bowery Theater (opened 1878) first used a shepherd’s crook as a means to bring awful performers off-the-stage. This (apparently) was rarely used, but cries of “Give ‘em da hook!” were memorialized in the Warner Brothers cartoons of the first half of the Twentieth Century. (I suppose the Gong Show was a successor to da hook).
Bugs Bunny gets “da hook”The fall of vaudeville came over a twenty-year period, beginning around 1910. First, Broadway theaters started promoting Revues and then lower-priced cinema became more popular — some theaters switched to a film-and-vaudeville format. Radio in the mid-1920’s began to draw more audiences, and many of the early vaudeville stars now found fame in Hollywood, especially after talking pictures became the norm by the end of the 1920’s. The Great Depression also contributed to its downfall.
If there can be said to be a symbolic ending to the vaudeville era, it would be a one-two punch in 1932 at the Palace Theater: on May 7th, it switched from a two-a-day vaudeville show to four-a-day with films … and then on November 16th, it switched to an all-film format.
Just a few of the stars of vaudeville (both early and later) who transitioned into other formats were Will Rogers, Bob Hope, Burns & Allen, the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Kate Smith, Judy Garland and Sammy Davis Jr …. in the first three decades of the 20th Century, nearly every actor had at least some vaudeville experience.
Besides going to Hollywood, the vaudeville stars transitioned into other formats: radio (with Rudy Vallee hosting a variety show), the Borscht Belt expanded beyond Yiddish language shows and in the 1950’s, obviously television with variety shows from Milton Berle to Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, to Laugh-In. And while many were comedy-centric, perhaps the closest to old-time vaudeville that exists in the memory of some pf us of (cough) a-certain-age (cough) would be the Ed Sullivan Show— beginning in 1948 (as Toast of the Town) and lasting until 1971.
Having started in vaudeville, the twenty-four year film career of the Three Stooges came to an end in 1958 (when the studios no longer produced those sort of “shorts”). In his memoirs, Moe Howard said that they floundered for awhile:
“Night clubs, I decided, just weren’t for us. Our film career was over; we were really meant for vaudeville, but vaudeville was dead. I wondered where our next booking would be?”
And then, Columbia re-packaged several of their early shorts for the emerging TV market (at bargain prices, not expecting much interests) ……. and were surprised at the success they had being shown as children’s entertainment. Yet another example of changing mediums in the entertainment business.
If you’d like to pursue further: see if you can find the PBS series.
Of all of the songs of vaudeville …. among the most emblematic was Eubie Blake’s I’m Just Wild About Harry— with lyrics by Noble Sissle— that was written for a 1921 play Shuffle Along that was based upon many sketches the two had performed in vaudeville. And below you can hear it.
x xYouTube VideoNow, on to Top Comments:
From Mike the Liberal:
In the diary by AlyoshaKaramazov about the president of the United States explaining why he shouldn’t be impeached— Da Rock made a comment about the “World Imbecile Organization (WIO)” and their CIO, “Wily Coyote”. I queried about the CEO being a “super genius”, and in the responses was a comment from antirove, where he pointed out an interesting similarity between the “super genius” and our current “stable genius”. I only nominated it because the comment made me laugh.And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the front-page story about the Trumpster upset about his West Virginia rally having some empty seats— former resident champaigncarl wonders if attendees are truly there out of belief, and thinks interviewers should ask.And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
) Maybe you need a Pecker to bring down a Dick. by Fatherflot +182 2) I’ve yet to get over Graham and McCain teaming t … by Leslie Salzillo +152 3) LOL! I thought it was only in kids’ cartoons tha … by progressive2016 +142 4) The official start of the end is here. … by mycomputermachine +133 5) Yes! The sooner Kavanaugh is regarded as an ille … by Ugmo +123 6) [embed] by durrati +112 7) There are plenty of “Baghdad Bob” clones on Team … by ontheleftcoast +107 8) OMG! Hahahahahannity breakdown at 11. by gchaucer2 +100 9) Further breaking news. The Manafort juror said t … by txdoubledd +98 10) I am blinded by the white. by Friend of the court +93 11) I suffered greatly transcribing that for y’all. by Jen Hayden +91 12) Thanks, Greg. I'm sure we’re all still reeling a … by Sher Watts Spooner +90 13) Pecker is concerned about saving his company. He … by dsnottselliott +91 14) I am not even remotely surprised by this. They l … by ursulafaw +90 15) Maybe he could get permission for a more appropr … by stevemb +89 16) McConnell thought nothing of having a 10 month v … by Jacoby Jonze +88 16) I could not believe what that photo showed and h … by Clio2 +88 18) [image] by hummingbird4015 +87 19) The Nike ad with their old “Just Do It” slogan w … by ontheleftcoast +85 19) Lanny Davis has been revealing a lot since last … by AKALib +85 21) And I suspect every single Republican member in … by Magnifico +84 21) I think this poll reflects severe wage stagnatio … by sydneyluv +84 21) The polls should widen a bit once they start foc … by Aggie85 +84 24) Just saw the Sac Bee write-up on this. My next-d … by Laurel in CA +80 25) So was the Voting Rights Act so fuck her. Sick o … by gchaucer2 +78 26) I live in a Congressional district with a long-t … by mprovd +79 27) I am bothered that reports keep calling Cohen on … by niemann +78 28) That is why you immunize the most you can… “Herd … by El Mito +77 29) Heard an interview on NPR the other morning, whe … by Catte Nappe +74 30) Your excellent information bares repeating. Ther … by Sandy1 +72