By Berle's account, he continued to play child roles in other films: Bunny's Little Brother, Tess of the Storm Country, Birthright, Love's Penalty, Divorce Coupons and Ruth of the Range.

[citation needed] In 1933, Berle was hired by producer Jack White to star in the theatrical featurette Poppin' the Cork, a topical musical comedy concerning the repealing of Prohibition.

Berle continued to dabble in songwriting: with Ben Oakland and Milton Drake, he wrote the title song for the RKO Radio Pictures release Li'l Abner (1940), an adaptation of Al Capp's comic strip, featuring Buster Keaton as Lonesome Polecat.

[citation needed] From 1934 to 1936, Berle appeared frequently on The Rudy Vallee Hour and attracted publicity as a regular on The Gillette Original Community Sing, a Sunday night comedy-variety program broadcast on CBS from September 6, 1936, to August 29, 1937.

Others in the cast were Pert Kelton, Mary Schipp, Jack Albertson, Arthur Q. Bryan, Ed Begley, Brazilian singer Dick Farney and announcer Frank Gallop.

[15] It ran for an additional season (with new sponsor Texaco), keeping the same format but running concurrently with Berle's better known TV series, from September 22, 1948, to June 15, 1949.

[17] Berle would revive the structure and routines of his vaudeville act for his debut on commercial TV, hosting The Texaco Star Theatre on June 8, 1948, over the NBC Television Network.

[18][19] Berle dominated Tuesday night television for the next several years, reaching the number one slot in the Nielsen ratings with as much as a 97% share of the viewing audience.

Berle asked NBC to switch from live broadcasts to film, which would have made possible reruns (and residual income from them); he was angered when the network refused.

Later, Berle was offered 25% ownership of the TelePrompTer Corporation by its inventor, Irving Berlin Kahn, if he would replace cue cards with the new device on his program.

starring Mickey Rooney as egomanaical TV comic Sammy Hogarth, who ran his weekly show through explosive tantrums, intimidation, bullying and cruelty.

The cast included Edmond O'Brien, Kim Hunter and jazz singer Mel Tormé in his first dramatic role, portraying Hogarth's spineless brother Lester.

While some speculated the play was based on Jackie Gleason's loud, controlling personality, Berle, aware the production echoed his own reputation, was quoted as saying, "I wasn't that bad".

[33] In addition, "Berle's persona had shifted from the impetuous and aggressive style of the Texaco Star Theater days to a more cultivated but less distinctive personality, leaving many fans somehow unsatisfied.

[35] He later hosted the first television version of the popular radio variety series, The Kraft Music Hall from 1958 to 1959,[36] but NBC was finding increasingly fewer showcases for its one-time superstar.

[48] The Statler and Waldorf puppets were inspired by a character named Sidney Spritzer, played by comedian Irving Benson, who regularly heckled Berle from a box seat during episodes of the 1960s ABC series.

Milton Berle also made a cameo appearance in The Muppet Movie as a used car dealer, taking Fozzie Bear's 1951 Studebaker in trade for a station wagon.

After Flaherty made a joke about the size of the SCTV crew rivaling Hill Street Blues, Berle replied sarcastically, "That's funny."

In it, friendly aliens from space receive TV signals from the Earth of the 1950s and travel to Hollywood in search of their idols, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, The Three Stooges, Burns and Allen, and Milton Berle.

[53] One of Berle's most popular performances in his later years was guest-starring in 1992 in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alongside Will Smith as womanizing, wise-cracking patient Max Jakey.

He also appeared in an acclaimed and Emmy-nominated turn on Beverly Hills, 90210 as an aging comedian befriended by Steve Sanders, who idolizes him, but is troubled by his bouts of senility due to Alzheimer's disease.

He also voiced the Prince of Darkness, the main antagonist in the Canadian animated television anthology special The Real Story of Au Clair De La Lune.

"[citation needed] In 1947, Milton Berle was one of the founding members of the Friars Club of Beverly Hills at the old Savoy Hotel on Sunset Boulevard.

[55] Berle avoided consuming drugs and alcohol, but was an avid cigar smoker, womanizer, and gambler; primarily gambling on horse racing.

[62] In 2023, on episode 1478 of WTF with Marc Maron, Arnold Schwarzenegger recalled how he joked during Berle's eulogy, saying, "Look, even though the son of a bitch is dead, they still had a difficult time putting the top on his casket".

[67][68] In his autobiography, Berle tells of a man who accosted him in a steam bath and challenged him to compare sizes, leading a bystander to remark, "Go ahead, Milton, just take out enough to win".

He claimed relationships with numerous famous women including Marilyn Monroe and Betty Hutton, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.

When "Buffalo Bob" Smith came on, Berle appeared dressed as Howdy Doody.Texaco Star emulated a vaudeville variety hour, with several guests each week, including singers, comedians, ventriloquists, acrobats, dramatic performances, and so forth..

When the program premiered on Tuesday, June 8, 1948, on NBC Television, the format was strictly vaudeville, with dancers, jugglers, acrobats, and guest stars in sketches--in short, a close approximation of the show that Berle was already doing for ABC on Wednesday nights.Radio exists as an aural medium, and no matter how physically animated a performer may be or how clownish his or her costume ... Berle's comedic gift shone in slapstick, something he had mastered in his vaudeville experiences.

... Berle clearly considered no costume too outlandish, no stunt too foolish.The city of Detroit was baffled when the reservoir water levels dropped each Tuesday evening shortly after 9:00 pm.