Vaudeville fell out of style as television gained popularity; however, early television programs closely resembled Vaudeville acts as they were filmed in front of live audiences and they contained a variety of acts designed to shock or humor the audience. Early television shows such as the Milton Berle Show used the Vaudeville style in how they offered many different segments of the show, including dancing, skits, music, and comedy interludes offered by Berle or a guest comedian. In the episode we watched this past week, Berle introduces and participates in a sort-of circus act, with a trampoline and jumprope. In the Vaudeville video, there are several acts that very closely resemble this style of "awe and shock the audience" and gag humor. Berle was dubbed "Mr. Television" by America, so it is not surprising that his show was incredibly influential for the line of variety shows and late night shows that followed, and continue today. In that vein, variety shows such as the Ed Sullivan Show, the Tonight Show, and Saturday Night Live all resemble this early Vaudeville-style television.
The Ed Sullivan show combined interviews, comedy stand-up, and music performance to spur the widespread popularity of shows like this. He brought the country acts that were popular, such as The Doors, Elvis Presley, and also introduced newcomers such as Joan Rivers, and lesser-known musical acts. The Tonight Show, beginning in 1954 on NBC, is the longest running late night talk show in the world. While hosted by Johnny Carson for the longest stretch, 1962-1992, it developed into a necessary-visit for any popular musician, comedian, actor, or political big shot. Its style during that time resembled the Berle Show, albeit without the overt Vaudeville style and circus acts, through its quick pace and live-studio audience. Today, the Tonight Show is hosted by Jimmy Fallon, who is reviving its fun spirit after several years of dragging feet on the show. Fallon is a comedian himself and he fills the spaces between musical acts, interviews and games with guests much like Milton Berle did. Saturday Night Live is a modernized Vaudeville act; its many pre-filmed sketches and the fact that it isn't technically "Live" set it apart, but the alternating host, fast-paced skits, and musical numbers compare it to Vaudeville and early television.
A clip from Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voCxOZCNRJ0
Television issued in a revival of vaudevillian entertainment. Early television variety shows like the Texaco Star Theater were modeled after vaudeville's heterogeneous structure: each show was composed of several unrelated sets featuring anything from comedic plot segments to non-narrative attractions much like what one might expect from a circus. Early television shows preserved the sense of immediacy and spontaneity of vaudeville by broadcasting shows live, setting it apart from the edit-dependent structure of cinema and the scripted-oratory universe of radio. True, radio was also usually broadcasted live, but I contend that the vaudevillian structure was so unstable it helped create the illusion of an unmediated presentation that radio could not pull off due to its mostly oration-based (language-coded) constitution. I would not deny that verbal language is a key component of some of the sets in early television variety shows, but it seems to me that the majority of pleasures aimed at with each set by the broadcasters can still be enjoyed watching these shows without any linguistic comprehension whereas it would seem almost impossible to do so listening to radio. But at the same time as it offered immediate visual pleasures that radio obviously could not, I imagine the vaudeville format also allowed television broadcasters to carry over from radio the impression of nearly infinite entertainment options found there. I imagine it was important for television stations to create the impression of a fecundity of entertainment options at a time when only three or four stations existed, a state of affairs which would have potentially seemed like a weakness when compared to the greater variety of stations and show-types radio proffered.
ReplyDeleteThe variety/vaudeville tradition may have reemerged in a big way with Saturday Night Live in the 1970s, but in a somewhat more tame version. Vaudeville and early television variety shows were composed of sets that shifted manically between different representational and non-representational registers: a trampoline act could be followed by a stand-up set which would then be followed by a scripted plot segment which would in turn be followed by a two-man slapstick routine. I would like to emphasize the variety in the *kind* of spectacles being presented, not just in the quantity. Saturday Night Live would, at least by the 80s, become something like a smorgasbord with a standardized set of event-platters: a guest host speaks, comedy skits ensue, a fictional newscast is reported, a band plays their latest hits, skits continue, and finally the guest host wishes the audience goodnight. Pretty much the same structure is used for each episode. Yes, there is variety in a show like Saturday Night Live, but not the structural instability – the right condition for unpredictability, surprise, and sensation - which I think made vaudeville and early variety shows like Texaco Star Theater *exciting* on top of being funny.