The tv was the center of the house. I dont remember a time without tv. By 1960, essentially every household in america had a television. It was a new way of bringing the world to you. When Something Big happened on television it really did happen to the entire country and impacted the entire country at the same time. Keep an awakened eye on the world. Suddenly television was the main event. Everything else changed even the way you went about the business of getting someone elected president. David, would you hit the oneminute button, please . 30 seconds and the cut please. In 1960 the nixonkennedy debate was a first in television. A lot of people were watching that night and it introduced a lot of people to kennedy. Let me see the tight shot on camera one, please. Can you hear me now speaking . Is that about the right tone of voice . Good evening, the television and radio stations of the United States and their affiliated stations are proud to provide when the networks offered a debate, kennedy immediately said yes because he was sure he could do better than nixon. I think mr. Nixon is an effective leader of his party. I hope he would grant me the same. The question before us is which point of view and which party do we want to lead the United States. Mr. Nixon, would you like to comment on that statement . I have no comment. If you are live on television and there is a camera right here there is no place to hide. Once you see a guy sweating when asked a question, are you sure he is the leader for you . Thats the question before the American People and only you can decide what you want, what you want this country to be, what you want to do with the future. I think were ready to move. If you saw it on television, clearly kennedy won that debate. Gentlemen, thank you very much for permitting us to present the next president of the United States on this unique program. It was the beginning of a new form of political craftsmanship. You could structure the message appropriately for the tv camera you could have a huge impact. If you couldnt, you were toast. I would like to give a welcome to the senator from massachusetts, mr. John kennedy. May i ask you, so i dont look too naive, a tough question right off the bat . Whether im democrat or republican . People recognized television was now the medium that mattered. It wasnt before 1960 and it was every day after 1960 and those president ial debates. Try to find a western. Once everyone had a tv set in their living room and advertisers had fully gotten a grip on how effective a way this was to sell products, the very definition of what you were doing was to create entertainment that would appeal to as many people as possible. Eat your brussels sprouts. Gee, mom, i cant. My stomachs in my throat. No excuses. Leave it to beaver was something that a lot of families understood. Its the first show that was ever shot from the perspective of a child. Beaver. Most people have had a lot of the experiences that the beaver or wally had and everyone in their life has an eddie haskell. Some dumb kid fell in his soup. Good evening, mr. Cleaver. Some poor unfortunate child is trapped up there. Everyone has that moment when they were so embarrassed and thought they would never get over it but they did. Tonights special report from the scene of the 1961 emmys. Whether its a situation comedy or western or drama, i think its the quality of the show itself thats important. The Andy Griffith show a kinder, gentler place. Be hard not to want to live in mayberry. The core of the Andy Griffith show was this rock at the center of it. Calm wisdom. I have taken the best parts of myself and people that i have known all my life and put them into andy taylor. I hope there comes a time when you have to stop the play acting and tell the truth. Dont you believe me, pa . Dont you, pa . People appreciate emotional honesty. They appreciate it more than laughs. Its great if you can achieve both simultaneously and the Andy Griffith show did that often. For a sitcom it shows unexpected depth. The second dance number should come before the big sketch. I dont know. I like it. Now i like it. Me too. Now i like it too. What do you know . Look at that tie youre wearing. I only wrote what i knew about which was my life. And if youre writing about that, nobody can say thats not true. It is true, im living it. On the Dick Van Dyke show we could believe the actions of the characters because we could relate to them. This wasnt a genie in a bikini in someones bottle on their mantle. These were real people. Women are more more honest and direct. No. Theyre more courageous . We all have the same needs, feelings, relationships with husbands and wives. Thats the comedy we did, the problems of living. How much do you like that baby . Dont tell me you are jealous already. The season opening episode for the 1963 season was seared into my head. Our wives had a baby on the same day and the hospital was very busy. What am i getting at . They thought they got the wrong baby from the hospital. So he calls the parents of the other kid and thinks you know, we may have your kid and you may have our kid. Hi, were mr. And mrs. Peters. Come in. Mrs. Peters, wont you come in . It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Here theyre tackling a subject without tackling it. Why didnt you tell me on the phone. Miss the expression on your face . The network worried about the fact that the africanamericans might be upset by it. The network was always a little behind. There is always somebody back there who doesnt have bawls, bawls. In the hollywood, the cowriter, carl reiner, Dick Van Dyke. I wish somebody had told me. I would have worn my hair. Ll fi its a complete checkup of the services your vehicle needs. So prepare your car for any road trip by taking it to an expert ford technician. Because no matter your destination good maintenance helps you save at the pump. Get our multipoint inspection with a Synthetic Blend Oil change, tire rotation, Brake Inspection and more for 29. 95 or less. Get a complete vehicle checkup only at your ford dealer. I live in a luxury penthouse overlooking central park. When the guests arrive, theyre greeted by my butler, larry. My helipad is being resurfaced so tonight we travel by more humble means. At my country club, we play parlor games with members of the royal family. Yes i am rich. Thats why i drink the champagne of beers. Say hi rudy. [ barks ] [ chuckles ] id do anything to keep this guy happy and healthy. Thats why im so excited about these new milkbone brushing chews. Whoa, im not the only one. Its a brilliant new way to take care of his teeth. Clinically proven as effective as brushing. Ok, here you go. Have you ever seen a dog brush his own teeth . The twist and nub design cleans all the way down to the gum line, even reaching the back teeth. They taste like a treat, but they clean like a toothbrush. Nothing says you care like a milkbone brushing chew. [ barks ] if your denture moves, it can irritate your gums. Try fixodent plus gum care. It helps stop denture movement and prevents gum irritation. Fixodent. And forget it. I have got to tell you this one, you know those knockknock jokes . Yeah, but theyre old now. I have got a real good one, a real funny one, go ahead, start, say knockknock. Knock, knock. Whos there . There was only three networks, there was only one late night show, really. It was jack parr. They dont understand what how we do this show. We just keep talking with no script. I know, it is agony. Jack parr invented the Late Night Television talk show. You feel confident . There is not a man in the world to beat me. Im as pretty as liberace. Jack had in his corner his personality. His fabulously interesting complex frightening neurotic but in other cases, enthusiastic and informed personality. It made for great television. How much time have i done . I dont have a watch either. How much . Has it been charming . Ill quit now, then. Heres Johnny Johnny carson inherited the tonight show but he made it his own. It is going to be wild tonight, i can always tell. He hosted a nightly party. Are you married . Oh. And if his buddies came, and they started playing together you felt like what it must have felt like to go to las vegas at three in the morning and have the rat pack come out. No, but where is the guy you talk to . It was a beautiful thing to watch a guy working at his best. Okay. Bingo. Get your axe and lets go. [ laughter ] if you watch it closely, he is gauging how much longer he can wait to let the laugh die before what he says will be irrelevant to what happened. And he gets it just on the nose. It is beautiful to watch. I didnt even know you were jewish johnny was the best audience in the world. And he loved comedy. The woman is watching him from the corner of her eye and says to him what are you looking at . The guy says im looking at that ugly baby. Thats a badlooking baby, lady. Johnny was there listening for you. He wanted you to score. And when you scored, he scored. I said now calm down. He said madam, the Pennsylvania Railroad will go to any length to avoid having differences between the passengers. Perhaps it would be more of a convenience if we rearranged your seating. And as a small compensation, if you come with me to the dining car, well give you a free meal. Maybe well find a banana for your monkey. [ laughter ] im dick cavett, funnier than chet hutley, and as pure and honest as newark, new jersey. You could get people like Norman Mailer and woody allen. My only new years resolution this year, i think im going to try to sleep through the nixon administration. You have authors on there. Heavyweight boxers. There were conversations. When you mentioned the National Anthem and talk about playing it in any unorthodox way, you immediately get a guaranteed percentage of hate mail from people who say how dare that is not unorthodox. Its not unorthodox. No . No, i thought it was beautiful. There you go. I just thought anything that is interesting ought to have a place on a talk show rather than young pretty actresses who use the word excited in every sentence. Youre not frequently seen on television. Is that by choice . Well, of course it is the most impressive medium of all. It is the medium that will either save america or send it down into demise, there is no question about that. Im getting out of it myself. Really . Well be back after this. What you do is book the best possible guests from different kinds of businesses, maybe not everybody in show business. Some politics, some newspaper people. Get them all on the stage together and hope something works. But it is a great show, a great platform for people who have something to say. The point is they take these scripts out of the drawers. They change the things around. Maybe it doesnt work on green acres but that is why night after night you turn on these serials and they all seem as if they came out of the same breadbox. Back then you had copy cats. You had the Addams Family and then the munsters, you have bewitched. And then i dream of jeanie. The old saying is imitation is the sincerest form of television. If one person is doing this fantastical hit, were going to do that. Now, is that considered a crime . Im afraid not. There arent any laws to protect us against bad tv shows yet. So youre safe. Well, thank you. What im surprised by are some of the shows i cant even imagine the pitch meetings for. Like hogans heroes. Its a story about american prisoners of war in a nazi concentration camp which doesnt sound like its exactly a funny comedy. Why dont they trust us . That shows you how weird the 60s was right there. There is another one of our fine shows this year. Pit stop moving story of an effeminate race car driver, who was really an astronaut for the mafia. 9 30 eastern time, 8 30 central time, quarter after 2 00 pacific time. Cbs presents this program in color. I didnt have Color Television until i was 16 years old. Yes, i lived like an animal. The following program is being brought to you in living color on nbc. Getting the color tv was huge because suddenly we could watch walt disneys Wonderful World of color on sunday nights. Which was just an acid trip of a show. We just could not believe it. Tinkerbell going bing, bing, bing, and it was like special effects, par excellence. The world is a carousel of color it also happened just coincidentally that at the time when what we think of as the mod 60s came in, colors were all over the place just as tv could start to take advantage of them. Hi. Well, glad you could make it. I remember saying stay tuned for gidget next, in color. In color on abc. It was a Big Marketing thing. Color tv was a huge step forward as far as the technology went. And yet, i think of lost in space. It started off as a black and white show and went to color. It didnt get any better when it went to color. Dr. Smith, youre alive. Of course im alive. Do i look like a corpse . The period has a reputation for being tv as a kind of candy. Sometimes felt like there was this really aggressive innocence to it. You are only to blow that in an emergency. This is an emergency, youre standing on my foot Gilligans Island made no sense whatsoever logistically. How is the professor able to build all this stuff but not build a damn raft . It makes no sense if you pull any Single Thread on it but it was just the kind of show designed to live forever in syndication. Who are you looking for . A nun, who else. Are you kidding . Flying nun is a crazy show. Like, what is that about . Look, it is very simple. You see i only weigh 90 pounds and the combination of my cornet and the wind lifts me. Which was just complete nonsense. Lets face it. It was the height of the 60s, and everybody was eating granola and dropping out and doing god knows what else, and i wasnt. Hello, central . Im switching to my eyeglasses. Put a hold on my wallet but keep my shoe open. Television more than ever in the 60s was a place to escape to. Lets go. Seemed like it was sort of almost a willful respite from the stuff that was going on in the world and in real life. Here is a bulletin from cbs news. There has been an attempt as you know on the life of president kennedy. He was wounded in an automobile driving until the early 60s Television News was by and large seen as something as a backwater to print journalism and teen radio. But the kennedy assassination was the moment that Television Journalism came of age. Continue fullday coverage of the president ial funeral. And the final procession more and more people were depending on television to give them the Headline News of the day. 330 americans were killed in combat last week in vietnam. But the number of wounded, 3886 was the highest of any week in the war. Most of the 1960s, the contrast between what you saw in your entertainment and what you saw on the news was planetary. Never has this descent been as emotional. As intense. In the 60s, it was one thing after another. Each year it was filled with important events. Governor wallace has ordered 500 Alabama National guardsmen into tuscaloosa. At the moment, they are under his control. Whether it was the Civil Rights Movement or it was the kennedy assassination or the space race, when there was a huge thing that happened, it happened on tv. The witness to the violence, said it seemed to be unprovoked on the part of the demonstrators. Television became the fire in which the whole tribe gathered around to listen to the elders telling them what was going on. Police reinforcements moving down the street now. [ chanting ] you fifteen percent or more on huh, fiftcar insurance. Uld save yeah, Everybody Knows that. Well, did you know that playing cards with kenny rogers gets old pretty fast . You got to know when to holdem. Know when to fold em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run. You never count your money, when youre sitting at the ta. What . You get it . I get the gist, yeah. Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, tonight, live from new york. From hollywood. From beautiful downtown burbank. Here is the star of our show, bob hope variety was the backbone of television back then. One year, there were like 18 different variety shows. Everybody had a variety show. Everybody was different because of who was helming the show. Dean martin was just so loose he acted as though he was doing the whole show drunk without a rehearsal. This is a Real International show, now, where else could you see a smooth italian and a slippery pole . He was funny, he was really, really funny. He always looked as if he was a bit lost. People thought that it was because he was tiddly. But that was part of the charm. Here he is, ed sullivan thank you. No matter who controlled the tv set on the other nights, on sunday night at 8 00, you were going to watch ed sullivan. Now, ladies and gentlemen, a very fine novelty act. Ed sullivan was a phenomenon. He was a powerful force. Quiet, please. Quiet. The beauty of the sullivan kind of variety show is that if you didnt like something, Something Else would be around in four minutes. No. No. Why . It is very difficult. Easy. Advertisers wanted everybody. And so they got everybody. A little kid and his grandparents to watch the same show. They would have an elephant on, and then the next thing somebody doing shakespeare, and the next thing, a comic. There would be an acrobat and then an opera singer the next bit, which was true variety. Go downtown things will be great when youre downtown anything that was current was on the ed sullivan show. A Young Richard pryor. Joan rivers. Rodney dangerfield. Everybody wanted a showcase. If you got on sullivan you could talk about it. Did you see sullivan . My whole life i dont get no respect, no respect from anyone. As a performer you couldnt get a better place to sell your product. When i started out they would say variety is a mans game. Its dean, milton berle, jackie gleason, but variety is what i know. I felt it was in my genes