Variety show
British performers who honed their skills in music hall sketches include Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, George Formby, Gracie Fields, Dan Leno, Gertrude Lawrence, and Marie Lloyd.
[2] Most of the early top performers on British television and radio did an apprenticeship either in stage variety, or during World War II in Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA).
In the UK, the ultimate accolade for a variety artist for decades was to be asked to do the annual Royal Command Performance at the London Palladium theatre, in front of the monarch.
After World War II, the genre again was an early favorite of the burgeoning electronic television industry; Hour Glass, dating to 1946, is the earliest surviving variety show, preserved in the form of audio recordings and still photographs.
Using his no-nonsense approach, host Ed Sullivan was instrumental in bringing many acts to prominence in the United States, including Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
Having carried over from an already 20-year run on radio, the series airs a program of religious music, messages, and occasional interviews, and remains the longest-running variety show in U.S. television history.
In fact, a bunch of head-banging, beer-crushing rock jocks blew up a pile of disco records in the Chicago White Sox outfield.
Entertainers with weekly variety shows that ran for one season or less in the 1970s include Captain & Tennille, The Jacksons, The Keane Brothers, Bobby Darin, Mary Tyler Moore, Julie Andrews, Dolly Parton, Shields and Yarnell, The Manhattan Transfer, Starland Vocal Band, and the cast of The Brady Bunch.
Entertainers with variety-based TV specials in the 70s include Carpenters, John Denver, Shirley MacLaine, Diana Ross, Bob Hope, and Pat Boone.
The Carol Burnett Show, which had aired in severely edited form sporadically in syndication since it ended in 1977, returned intact in 2019 on numerous platforms.
The Spanish language variety show Sabado Gigante, which began in 1962, and then moved from Chile to the United States in 1986, continued to produce and broadcast new episodes on Univision until its cancellation in September 2015.
In 2016, following Keillor's retirement, Chris Thile took over the program and, over the course of the next year, transformed it into Live from Here, a more streamlined musical variety series.
Improvisational comic Wayne Brady, coming off his successful appearances on the panel game Whose Line Is It Anyway?, launched an eponymous variety show in 2001, which aired on ABC.
Earlier that season, NBC aired Best Time Ever, an adaptation of the British variety game show Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway starring actor Neil Patrick Harris which was ultimately unsuccessful.
[12][13] Starting in the 1950s, some entertainers became associated with variety television specials that would recur on a regular basis, in some cases for decades, on American network TV.
Such entertainers included Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Andy Williams and Mitzi Gaynor.
[14] Williams's and Johnny Cash's annual Christmas specials outlasted the regularly scheduled variety shows that spawned them by several years.
Entertainers who have hosted Christmas variety specials in the 21st century include Kid Rock, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, Carrie Underwood, Lady Gaga, Michael Buble, Bill Murray, Gwen Stefani, and Darci Lynne.
The Emmy Awards academy considers the two genres to be related closely enough that, until 2015, the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series was open to any of these types of show; in 2015, the academy separated late-night talk shows and sketch comedy series into separate categories.
As of the current generation of U.S. hosts, late-night talk shows vary widely on their resemblance to the original variety format, with Jimmy Fallon's incarnation of The Tonight Show putting heavy emphasis on sketch and game segments incorporating celebrity guests (especially involving music), while The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has placed a larger emphasis on news satire similar to its host's previous Comedy Central late-night program The Colbert Report (where Colbert portrayed himself as a parody of rightwing pundits).
Another popular telethon, for United Cerebral Palsy, ended its run in 1998 shortly after the death of its founder and figurehead, Dennis James.
The first Cantonese variety show to become a major success was Hong Kong's Enjoy Yourself Tonight, which first aired in 1967 and ran for 27 years.
Soviet variety television established itself as a cornerstone of cultural life, with iconic shows that entertained millions and reflected societal values.
Little Blue Light (Goluboy Ogonyok), which debuted in 1962, became a New Year's Eve tradition, blending music, comedy sketches, and celebrity interviews in a convivial atmosphere that connected audiences with popular Soviet stars.
Around the same time, Wider Circle (Shire Krug) expanded the format to emphasize cultural diversity, featuring folk performances, community events, and discussions of national achievements to promote unity.
Adding satire to the mix, Pub "13 Chairs" (Kabachok "13 Stulyev"), aired from 1966 to 1980, and entertained viewers with its fictional Polish café setting, where characters performed comedic sketches and musical numbers inspired by Eastern Bloc satire magazines, offering subtle commentary on contemporary life.
It combined comedy and variety scenes including unscripted stunts and special guest stars while taking place in various settings.
The most notable Philippine variety show is the longest-running Eat Bulaga, which premiered in 1979 and has aired on RPN, ABS-CBN, GMA, and TV5 in the succeeding years.
Throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, the producers Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier created the most popular variety shows on French television, including Le Sacha Show (1963–1971) hosted by Sacha Distel, Top à... (1972–1974), Numéro Un (1975–1982) and a lot of television specials presented by various famous singers (Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Vartan, Claude François, Petula Clark).
From 1965 to 1970 was also aired Dim Dam Dom, a modern, playful and sophisticated show intended for a female audience and produced by Elle chief editor Daisy de Galard.
