Hirt's virtuoso dexterity and fine tone on his instrument soon attracted the attention of major record labels and he signed with RCA Victor.

The albums Honey in the Horn and Cotton Candy were both in the Top 10 best sellers for 1964, the same year Hirt scored a hit single with his cover of Allen Toussaint's tune "Java" (Billboard No.

Hirt's Top 40 charted hit "Sugar Lips" in 1964 would be later used as the theme song for the NBC daytime game show Eye Guess, hosted by Bill Cullen and originally airing from January 1966 to September 1969.

In 1962, in an effort to showcase him in a different musical setting, Hirt was teamed with arranger and composer Billy May and RCA Victor producer Steve Sholes to record an album titled Horn a Plenty that was a departure from the Dixieland material that he was generally associated with.

Covering an eclectic variety of popular, standard and show tunes, it featured a big-band supplemented by timpani, French horns and harp.

In 1965, Hirt hosted the hour-long television variety series Fanfare, which aired Saturday nights on CBS as the summer replacement for Jackie Gleason and the American Scene Magazine.

Hirt starred along with Marguerite Piazza, Lionel Hampton, Doc Severinsen and the Southern University marching band at Super Bowl IV halftime show on January 11 1970.

This incident was parodied in a Saturday Night Live skit from their second season Mardi Gras special, the "Let's Hit Al Hirt in the Mouth with a Brick Contest".