The Colgate Comedy Hour

I own a DVD that is entitled "The Abbott & Costello Show". But it's actually two episodes of "The Colgate Comedy Hour". From what I have seen it looked like a good show. But again I have only seen two shows. Both shows were hosted by Abbott & Costello and they were hilarious. It featured many different skits and bits including the "Two Tens For a Five". And of course it had everyone's favorite "Who's on First?". I really enjoyed the quick banter between the two. I heard the best Abbott & Costello routines are the ones preformed in front of a live audience. Costello was great at ad-libbing and it shows here. I have only seen a couple of the Martin & Lewis movies and they were good. So I'm guessing the ones hosted by them were good too. I really recommend this to anyone who likes comedy and especially anyone who hasn't seen the "Who's on First?" bit. It's classic stuff.

An earlier comment claims that an episode in November 1953 was the first color television broadcast ever. That is not so. The Federal Communications Commission, on Oct. 10, 1950, approved a color television system developed by CBS that was not compatible with existing black and white television sets. However, a court challenge by RCA, which was developing its own color system that was compatible with black and white sets, tied up the inauguration of the CBS color system until a decision for CBS by the U.S. Supreme Court in May 1951.

Finally, on June 25, 1951, CBS broadcast a one-hour program in color, called "Premiere", featuring Ed Sullivan and other CBS stars, and carried it on a five-station East Coast CBS-TV hookup.

The episode of "The Colgate Comedy Hour" broadcast in color in November 1953 was actually the network debut of the rival RCA color television system. In December 1953, the FCC formally reversed its earlier decision and approved the RCA system as the color standard for American television.

I've been lucky enough to see five episodes of this golden age of TV pioneer. The high powered talent was only part of a top notch production. Two of those shows featured Abbott and Costello, who can be seen doing their "Who's on First?" routine and interacting with horror film legend Boris Karloff. The other three are Martin and Lewis shows, and actually made me laugh out loud more than a half century later, their work was that good. In fact, what's obvious from those shows is that there's a lot of ad-libbing going on, and the two seem like they're absolutely having the times of their life. If you find that DVD (the sleeve advertised two shows but actually contains three, all with original commercials, I found it for a dollar at a Dollar General store...talk about a buried treasure!) look for the bit part where Jerry teases two NBC studio cameramen. A true gem. And fans of old TV commercials won't be let down, either, by the catchy jingles and nice animation for Colgate toothpaste, Palmolive soap and shave cream, Halo shampoo or Fab detergent.

Another one of the earliest shows I've watched, I of course didn't finished this in it's entirety, which ran for over 200 episodes across 6 seasons from 1950 - 1955 live on NBC. Sponsored by the toothpaste Colgate (and other products), the comedy hour aired Sundays at 8PM and held that primetime slot for each year it ran. Dropping most talk-show aspects of the late night talk show, and keeping the music and comedy performances just more of them, the show was similar to many surrounding it at the time, but came to great success from the quality of the acts it brought on, from Martin & Lewis to Abbot & Costello. The DVD collection I watched featured performances from the latter, including their famous "Who's on first?" bit, as well as Frank Sinatra, Eddie Fisher, Eddie Cantor, and Victor Borge. All quite funny to see, the DVD unfortunately was more highlighted bits rather than full episodes, I turned to YouTube for a couple of those but being a live taped show in the 50s the quality remaining (physically of the tapes, not the material) is not great, and at times hard to watch. Aside from a throw-away reference in an I Think You Should Leave sketch I doubt many will have even heard of this show, and that's fairly fair. If you're really into television history, then for sure, check it out.

This series shows what should still be there today: honest humor, charm, joy in life and a lot of craziness of the kind that makes life more beautiful. A classic that you can probably enjoy at all times.