The Ed Sullivan Show

The Ed Sullivan Show
Premiere	June 20, 1948
Finale	June 6, 1971
Host	Ed Sullivan
Network/Provider	CBS
Style	60-minute variety
Company	CBS Television, SOFA Entertainment, Inc., Sullivan Productions (seasons 9-24)
Seasons	24
Episodes	1068
Origin	USA

The Ed Sullivan Show (or Toast of the Town in its first eight seasons) was a long running primetime comedic variety show hosted by Ed Sullivan. It was a landmark in television and one of the most influential television shows of all time. This was all the more remarkable because it was quite unlike both its contemporaries and its successors and imitators.

What set it apart was its format and its host. Unlike such contemporaries as Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle, or his successors Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Conan O'Brien, Sullivan was not a comedian. He was not a singer or actor, unlike Frank Sinatra or Nat "King" Cole. He was not even a performer prior to hosting the show. He was, in fact, a newspaper columnist. He had no comic monologue to open the show, and he rarely performed in skits or scenes. Also unlike most successors, Sullivan spent very little time talking with the majority of his guests. He did not sit at a desk, and he did not interview most performers; in a sense, he was nothing more than an emcee.

In every sense of the word, The Ed Sullivan Show was a true variety show. The typical episode ran the entire gamut of entertainment and entertainers—musicians, comedians, dancers, "variety acts" (plate spinners, trick-shot artists, ventriloquists, figure skaters, et al.), movie stars and casts of current Broadway shows performing scenes from their productions. Even non-entertainers, such as the great humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, might be seen standing on the stage next to Sullivan. Berle and his ilk had brought the vast scope of Vaudeville to television, but Sullivan moved past even Vaudeville's far reach to bring the entire world to television audiences.

For all its broad reach of entertainment, The Ed Sullivan Show is most famous for his musical performances, and two in particular: Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Elvis had appeared on national American television prior to his September 9, 1956 Ed Sullivan Show performance of "Hound Dog," "Love Me Tender" and "Don't Be Cruel" which rocketed him to musical superstardom. The Beatles, on the other hand, made their American debut on Sullivan's stage. But even beyond those two icons, Sullivan was arguably the most significant non-musician or non-producer in American music during the 1950s and 60s. The Doors and The Rolling Stones, among dozens of others, also had legendary Ed Sullivan Show appearances, and at a time when Black faces were almost never seen on television Sullivan routinely hosted African-American artists such as Cole, Ray Charles, Diana Ross and the Supremes and Louis Armstrong.

In 1971, after a title change, a switch to color and nearly a quarter-century's dominance of American primetime, Sullivan bowed out without fanfare or farewell. He was not aware that his March 28, 1971 broadcast would be the final one, and thus it was a show like every other, featuring a handful of musicians, comedians Tony Faye and Lennie Schultz, an impressionist and a sleight-of-hand artist. Reruns and pre-emptions aired in that time slot throughout the following April and May, and in June, CBS announced that The Ed Sullivan Show had been cancelled.

Seasons

Season	Premiere	Finale	#
CBS
Season One	June 20, 1948	August 15, 1948	9
Season Two	September 26, 1948	September 11, 1949	53
Season Three	September 18, 1949	September 10, 1950	52
Season Four	September 17, 1950	September 2, 1951	51
Season Five	September 9, 1951	September 7, 1952	53
Season Six	September 14, 1952	September 6, 1953	52
Season Seven	September 13, 1953	September 5, 1954	51
Season Eight	September 12, 1954	September 18, 1955	54
Season Nine	September 25, 1955	September 16, 1956	52
Season Ten	September 23, 1956	September 15, 1957	51
Season Eleven	September 22, 1957	September 7, 1958	50
Season Twelve	September 14, 1958	September 13, 1959	52
Season Thirteen	September 20, 1959	September 11, 1960	49
Season Fourteen	September 25, 1960	July 30, 1961	40
Season Fifteen	September 17, 1961	August 19, 1962	46
Season Sixteen	September 30, 1962	August 18, 1963	42
Season Seventeen	September 29, 1963	September 6, 1964	42
Season Eighteen	September 27, 1964	August 29, 1965	40
Season Nineteen	September 12, 1965	August 14, 1966	43
Season Twenty	September 11, 1966	June 25, 1967	42
Season Twenty-One	September 11, 1967	June 9, 1968	39
Season Twenty-Two	September 29, 1968	August 31, 1969	40
Season Twenty-Three	September 28, 1969	June 14, 1970	36
Season Twenty-Four	September 20, 1970	March 28, 1971	25

In-Depth

• At a Glance: Additional information about the series