NEW CLASSIC TV SHOWs by STEVE ALLEN OLD TIME 4 DVD SET

 

 

InfoDeluxe Presents

The Steve Allen Show

7 fabulous hour-long shows from 1956 through 1961

Part of the InfoDeluxe Classics Collection

 Take a trip down memory lane with this region free four disk DVD set! Featuring appearances by many of the biggest stars of the era:

To name just a few...

Jerry Lewis
Fats Domino
The Four Diamonds
Ginger Roger
Tony Bennet
Don Knotts
Georgia Gibbs
Steve Lawrence
Errol Garner
Tim Conway
Jonathon Winters
Eydie Gorme

and of course Steve Allen playing his piano... on top of a flagpole!

The Steve Allen show was THE forerunner of the late night shows of today.

Featuring comedy, music, dance, and more in Steve's best episodes, this is a great introduction to the works of Steve Allen!

This collection includes the following episodes:

Be-Bop-a-Lula,  Airdate September 2, 1956

The episode features the famous clip of Steve doing a mocking poetry reading of Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-a-Lula"!

As if to make up for this mockery, the show's also got a wonderful performance by the great Fats Domino, to whom Steve gives his Cashbox Disc Jockey award. It showcases Steve's famous piano-accompanied Cavalcade Collage o' Comedy, whose vignette stylings are most often credited (correctly) to his great contemporary Ernie Kovacs -- and for old time radio fans, there's a heart-warming recreation of a dance band remote broadcast of yesteryear!

Co-hosted by Gene Rayburn, with comic appearances by Louis Nye, and co-starring musical guests Georgia Gibbs and Steve Lawrence. 

Sponsored by Crosley TVs, Bendix Appliances, Viceroy Cigarettes, Jergens Lotion & Woodbury (nowadays named "Camay") Soap.

College Graduation,  Airdate June 2, 1957

Finally! The end of the spring semester! And what better way to celebrate than go on the Steve Allen show and spout all the nonsense they've filled your head with? Steve opens the show with his version of a college graduation. He then bites the hand that feeds him by making fun of TV & print advertising. We get treated to a regular staple of his show, "Letters To The Editor", where he reads real such letters from real newspapers.

Steve's famous piano-accompanied vignettes make a great reprise as well, where cohost Gene Rayburn and comedian Louis Nye return to pitch in.Steve's musical guests of the day include Xavier Cugat with his "squeeze" at the time, Abbe Lane (no "Coochie-Coochie" Charo here, but Abbe's quite a talented & lovely lady, too!), the Four Diamonds of "Little Darlin'" fame, and the beautiful Erin O'Brien.

Also featured is the "extra added attraction" Jerry Lewis, who cuts up brilliantly in routines as fresh and funny as David Letterman and Jay Leno routines of our day. 

Sponsored by Windex, Drano, Twinkle Carpet Cleaner, Revlon Satin-Set Hairspray & Aquamarine Spray Mist and the Greyhound Bus Corporation.

 

Fad Fare

Airdate 1959

Exceptional even for Steve, this episode is jam-packed with top acts such as Ginger Rogers, the great Jazz pianist Erroll Garner, Henny Youngman, Tony Bennett, Louis Nye, Don Knotts, Bill Dana as "Jose Jimenez" and Les Brown & His Band Of Renown.

The absolutely ruthless Steve takes on TV production companies in a blistering series of comic attacks upon all the fad fare being served up for broadcast those days. He even takes a swipe at his own show as he airs it when we listen in on the comments made by a couple of anonymous fellow viewers.

Henny Youngman's at the top of his game & sets up Ginger Rogers as a fellow comic, and Erroll Garner's performance is simply outstanding, "Jose Jimenez" reports on his round-the-world underwater trip & Tony Bennett wows cast, crew & audience alike through as he closes of one of Steve's best shows.

 

Campus USA

Airdate 1961

A unique show broadcast from the steps of UCLA. Starring Frankie Avalon, Connie Francis, Buck Henry, Tim Conway (incorrectly credited as "Tom Conway"), Jim Neighbors, Bill "Jose Jimenez" Dana, Robert Ryan, John Houseman, The UCLA Football Team, the UCLA Bruin Marching Band & The UCLA A Capella Choir.

Also featured are lots of singing & dancing by the student body, a one-of-a-kind "singing" performance by the Henry/Conway/Neighbors trio, an even more unusual singing trio of Avalon/Francis/Allen, the UCLA Theater Group with members Robert Ryan and John Houseman taking on Shakespeare and Jose Jimenez consecutively, and Decathlete Rafer Johnson.

Sponsored by Bufferin Aspririn, Muriel Cigars and Maybelline Cosmetics

 

What I Like About the Show

Airdate 1959

Steve sings us into the swing of things with his introduction of the night's guests to the tune of "That's What I Like About the Show". And there's a lot to like! This episode features the great comedian Jonathan Winters, the celebrated comic Don Knotts, bandleader/singer/hipster of old time radio fame Phil Harris, Bill Dana of "Jose Jimenez" fame, Les Brown & His Band of Renown, comedian Louis Nye, Pat Harrington, Jr., singer Patrice Munsel, The North American Air Defense Band & more!

A rare & wonderful assemblage of talent, wit, wackiness & fun.

 

The Tonight Show

December 30, 1953

This episode was a TV milestone. Sponsored by "Father Knickerbocker" of Knickerbocker Beer, this episode documents the infancy of an entire TV genre in a first season episode of what evolved into the venerable late night institution "The Tonight Show".

Originally a local show broadcast out of WNBT-TV New York City, it went national on the NBC network under the title "Tonight!" in September 1954. Some nine months earlier, this choice show featured Eydie Gormé and Steve Lawrence as singers, Bobby Byrne as conductor, Roger Price as guest comedian and, most important, Steve cutting up with all the charm and wit with which he was to later earn so much acclaim and renown.

 

Steve and the Flagpole

1962

The modern late night TV viewer may see much in Jay Leno's "Tonight Show", and even more in David Letterman's "Late Night", that seems new, unusual, ground breaking and/or cutting edge. Truth to tell, much of such material was in fact not only already done before, but had been pioneered by the late great Steve Allen half a century or so ago. 

This particular broadcast of "The Steve Allen Show" is such a surpassing example of such pioneering material that, though styles in clothes and hair may have changed, the content and character of this unpredictable, wide-ranging romp through the frontiers of the possible will make you feel throughout as though you are watching moment-by-moment something entirely fresh and new under the sun.

To begin with, Steve starts the show off from atop a flagpole (you have to see it) - and if that isn't enough, he plays a piano atop that flagpole, then follows that up by making prank telephone calls to apartment dwellers in the surrounding neighborhood, telling them to look to the sky outside their windows to see who's calling!

Wait a minute, though, he's not done setting standards yet - after air-dropping salamis to the crowd below by parachute, he returns to terra firma, introduces a classic piano & guitar performance by the legendary Slim Guillard, then literally dissects the mystery of the Mexican jumping bean with scalpel & magnifying glass.

He intros the lovely singer Barbara McNair -- two black performers on the show in 1962 was itself quite out-of-the-norm, to say nothing of Steve's wrapping his arms around both in the closing moments of the show -- and amidst an array of other entertainments, he closes the show with himself, the crew and "Miss Measure Your Mattress Month" bouncing up, down and around on top of beds and each other onstage!

This is one of the best episodes we have to offer!

 

This brand new four DVD set comes in a standard, full color printed DVD case and is playable in all regions.

 

You must be satisfied with your purchase or your money back!

With excellent products, wonderful service and super-great feedback from happy customers

At InfoDeluxe, we work hard to treat you right!