I was in the audience when this was taped at NBC Studios in Burbank. I was 19. Pretty top notch performers. We have nothing like them today. These guys were LEGENDS !
But did you notice that, while Hope's weekly "CHRYSLER THEATER" was in 'Living Color', Bob's SPECIALS continued to be taped in black and white until December 1965?
More than likely because he paid for the 'Specials' under Bob Hope Productions and it was cheaper for him to still get away with b/w film until 1966 when NBC became "The Full Color Network"... and he had no choice...but I know you knew that already :-P
+Barry I. Grauman - And it was a measure of how he did it for as long as he could get away with it, until that fateful December '65 special where he finally got in line. (But then, Jackie Gleason continued to do his CBS variety shows in B&W until that network decreed that its entire prime-time schedule would be in color starting in the 1966-67 season.) It should be noted that Hope's last few B&W specials up to 1965 were taped with newer RCA TK-60 monochrome cameras (the only other network to use TK-60's was ABC; CBS, of course, used Marconi Mark IV's.)
Not really. Bob's first two specials for the 1965-'66 season were taped in black and white. NBC finally called him on it after the second special, and told him that he'd BETTER start finding the extra money to tape his next special in color....OR ELSE {they were billing themselves as "The Full Color Network", and "Mr. Cheapo" STILL couldn't afford the extra cost of color tape}. He FINALLY taped his first color special, which aired on December 15, 1965.
December 18, 1964, I was stationed at Takhli, Thailand. 128 American airman on stationed, all showed up for this wonderful mans road show for the Americans stationed in Thailand, Viet Nam, Korea, and many others I can’t remember. He had Les Brown and his band of renown, Jill St.John, Miss Universe, Joe E.Brown,maybe more. When Silent Night was sung by all, no dry eyes. I have asked GOD to bless this wonderful man many times. He provided so much pride and hope to us all to keep going on and for doing so many thankless jobs. Too bad there isn’t a great road show for our troops now. But, may GOD bless our freedom fighters now!
The image quality of this recording is superb. This was Hope's last special in black and white. At this time, the networks and local stations used videotape primarily so that the west coast could view a program with the same image quality the east coast had seen 3 hours earlier live. Of course, once the networks realized that the problems with live TV could be solved by videotaping everything before broadcast, that was essentially the end of live TV. The networks were not archiving shows yet on videotape. They were still using kinescope for archival purposes. Videotape was extremely expensive but the high cost of tape initially was overcome by reusing it, which erased the material previously recorded. There are very, very few complete shows from this era on videotape that have survived. The oldest is The Edsel Show which aired in October of 1957. There is a complete kinescope of that show as well as a videotape and they are compared on RU-vid. The difference is remarkable. Ecen though this tape of Bob Hope is in black and white, it looks much newer, more contemporary than other shows from this era preserved on kinescope. I wonder how this show survived.
My grandfather co-wrote "Everybody Loves Somebody." We have that identical gold record hanging in our kitchen. I've never seen another one like it. Just got a little choked up.
This was a time where entertainment was at its best. An era where acting; comedy and singing were of a high class of professionalism that can never be replaced.
Bob Hope and Jack Benny are two of the funniest men that have ever lived. Jack Benny is my all time favorite. Phyllis Diller was wonderful. They helped make American entertainment so great.
Gee Kay this show aired ten months after j f k and the day after the warren report was presented and four and a half months before malcolm x. We had hope and burns for a hundred years and two months
These were the Years.? When a Family could all sit down together & enjoy a Family Show.? With real Talented Performers,? And Great Commercials.? Times gone by,? But not forgotten R.I.P. Bob Hope Dean Martin, Jack Benny, Phyllis Diller Milton Berlel .For you are sadly missed by all of your Fans.
Every time I see Bob Hope I think of my dad. Bob was giving the troops a show & my dad was standing in the group with his medical tray. Needed etc & Bob made a joke about him. My dad had a great sense of humor. 1960? 😂🤓👍
Well I agree there is some crappy TV now, but remember there is 100 times more programming. And while I'd probably like this show back in the day, it seems kinda corny and lacking any edge or irreverence that is found more modern comedy IMO
@@casario2808 We may have 100 times more programming, but it does't make it any better. That just means more garbage on the air. Do we really need 20 seasons of the Kardashians? NO.
The decline of western civilization indeed . It happens to every great society . After every period of flowering there is a dark age. That’s where we are now
I saw, and can still remember, this tv special from when I was age 5. My family watched ALL of his TV specials, from 1960s-1980s. God, he was, and is, a classic. His Xmas specials were terrific! His poker face after each joke was as funny as his jokes. Simpler times, and 'clean' shows. I miss those decades. 1965, I was in kindergarten.
I'm 24 years old and I'm convinced the world is a worse place without Mr Hope and other great entertainers. No one goes on TV anymore and does a little dance and show with jokes and variety. the closest thing we have to that is SNL, and it's the most fabricated mediocre "entertainment " we've ever had to bear. RIP you amazing and oh so funny man
+Vick K I never thought Bob Hope was funny, and this special only reinforces my opinion. His opening monologue of weak jokes relies heavily on canned laughter. I would expect a comedian of his fame should get his own laughs honestly instead of from an obvious laugh track.
You got that right.Get rid of JS,KH and those other idiots they don't hold a candle to the stars of yesteryear and we hardly got any of them left over like BW and CB who are some of the greatest stars left
My family and I always watched Bob Hope's specials from 1965 onward. He usually had one every September. Seems like Chrysler sponsored most of them. His jokes are timeless, even during 2019.
I grew up watching Bob's specials. Many were of him in Nam. Some were like this one. Chrysler sponsored many of them. This is when Hollywood was great, and stand up comics were of clean humor. I watched Hope's specials in the 1980s, too.His monologs are historical, when you listen to them you hear what was going on in the media, whether it be 1944, 1955, 1967, or 1973. I always liked his jokes and movies. I was age 4 in 1965, but watched these shows.
Watching these Hope specials as a kid I remember my folks telling me how everyone tuned in Sunday evenings for the Benny radio show and packed theaters for the Hope and Crosby 'road' pictures. These guys were so beloved they were considered virtual family members. Amazingly they were there at the beginning of two world changing mediums -- radio and TV.
The audience did to realize at the time that they were in the midst of the greatest comedians in history. Fifty two years ago they thought all comedians were like this. Welcome to 2016.
I GREW UP WATCHING YOU BOB HOPE AND ALL THE AMERICAN PATRIOTIC ENTERTAINERS DAILY, AS A CHILD. NO WONDER I LOVE YOU AND ALL THE GANGS OF HOLLYWOOD, THAT MADE LIFE SO EXCITING, FUNNY, LOVING, AND JUST PURE AMERICAN COMRADERIE ❤ 💙 💖 💗 💕 ♥ ❤ 💙 💖 💗 💕 ♥
Bob Hope was in his early '60's and Jack Benny was 70 years old. Demographics were unimportant during this period of Television and these performers aged well! LOL!
I have to admit that I've had my love/hate relationship with Bob Hope. I once saw him in person at a celebrity golf tournament and he was jerkish, but I don't really put any stock in that. Sometimes I've thought of him as cheesy, too old-school, whatever the case may be. He really wasn't an "artist" in the same manner as latter comics who wrote their own material and owned what they said. Nonetheless, with all that considered, what we see in this tape and in so many others is a true master at work. He was cocky, but the cockiness was earned, and his delivery, to-the-point, self-amused, sharp, never wavering, was flawless.
As a I am a comedy writer, I can tell you Bob, just like Jack, had something you can't buy: comic timing. With it, you can make an ingredients list funny. They had the greatest writers and impeccable timing. Jack Benny once paid Gracie Allen a high show biz complement. He said "You can set your watch by Gracie Allen". It could be said of him and Bob Hope, too.
This season, "THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM" followed "BOB HOPE PRESENTS THE CHRYSLER THEATRE" (and his monthly Chrysler specials) on Friday nights over NBC. And Bob appeared on a filmed episode of Jack's series on October 23, 1964.
Hope joked about getting Benny a guest shot on "The Flintstones". Am animated version of Benny DID appear in the episode where the Flintstones and the Rubbles are at the Bedrock World's Fair and are in the time machine and land in ancient Rome, where he's Nero and even performs his violin!
he definitely had good writers but he was spot-on with his timing. each joke was well thought out, but they had a lot of material and a lot of time to write them (this was just an occasional show unlike Johnny Carson writers that had to come up with new material daily.)
This had me fooled. At first glance, I thought this was a B&W film kinescope of a color broadcast, as many NBC 2-inch color videotape masters were reused and exist only as kinescopes. Then I decided that this must have been produced on 35mm B&W film (as Benny's show was -- perhaps I was influenced by the funny business that Benny's show was next "in the same studio") Then I spotted the obvious image orthicon black halo effect on Diller's sparkly dress at 00:23 indicating it was indeed shot as B&W video (NBC's color TK41's using 3 IO tubes had a different look) Finally I checked some vintage TV Guides and verified that these shows didn't have the [COLOR] tag in the listing. I am surprised these were not produced in color, but B&W only studios could be rented cheaply in 1964, and Hope's contract with NBC probably didn't demand color -- only a couple of years earlier "conventional wisdom" was that comedy, soaps, news, and game shows didn't need color. Still, the contrast curve, lack of video noise or bending, fools my brain and eyes into seeing this as shot on 35mm B&W film (at least as viewed on RU-vid at 480P) . So congrats on the video restoration job as well as for making these great shows available.
+Frank Provasek These specials were produced by Bob Hope's production company, which might have contributed to the decision to produce in black-and-white until 1965. Hope was an astute businessman who was tight with a buck, sometimes to his detriment. By the way, does that Astaire-Chase-Nye special Hope teased at the end of this still exist in its entirety? There are a couple of snippets on RU-vid.
+Frank Provasek Don't forget, Frank...Hope was one of the first artists to archive privately his audio and video output. He knew the networks' practice of erasing or dumping recorded products, also he anticipated the monetary and historical aspects. He got first-generation videotape, kinescope, film and audio copies of everything he did comercially.
The announcer for Hope's specials such as this, up to 1974, was Frank Barton. See 'Barry I. Grauman's' comments, as well as my own, as to what cameras he was using for his specials at that point, as well as how he continued to do B&W on NBC for as long as he was allowed to get away with it.
Incidentally, while the "CHRYSLER THEATRE" episodes were filmed and telecast in color, Hope's specials were still videotaped in black and white.....and weren't produced in color until December 1965!
Barry I. Grauman - It was amazing, considering NBC was so gung-ho about color TV, that Hope continued to do his specials in B&W for as long as: a) he could get away with it, and b) the network would let him. But then, Jackie Gleason at CBS continued to produce his shows in B&W until that network decreed that the 1966-67 season would be the first where the prime-time schedule was 100% color.
Everyone can use a little extra money...even Stephen Sondheim. The Plymouth jingle is a rework of his song "Comedy Tonight" from A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM.
@@tomservo56954 he s being sarcastic ya dope. What state are y all from. It was common practice and i m sure sondheim got paid. Unless you think nobody noticed but you it was 1964. Not all amerikans were ignorant morons then. Some were sending brave servicemen into space then. The first amerikan walk in space would happen during the next year. Amerikans wouldn t all be lost in space for decades
PlD thought she was god's gift to men but I'll tell you this:she was "the" funniest woman on the face of the planet........hilarious........she could make Dracula laugh and the Joker cry......love her talent
In the fall of 1964, very few programs were telecast "live" in prime-time. The ones that were: "THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW", "I'VE GOT A SECRET" (even though they videotaped several shows in advance, due to emcee Steve Allen's busy schedule commuting between Los Angeles and New York), "WHAT'S MY LINE?", "THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS", and "THE BELL TELEPHONE HOUR".
*I used to find Bob Hope hysterically funny. Especially in the **_"Road to"_** movies with Bing Crosby and (sometimes) Dorothy Lamour. But that was when I was a child. As an adult, I now look at his body of work and realize that he was actually pretty useless when it came to everything BUT the **_"Road to"_** movies. And the humor in those was written by other people anyway. He seemingly couldn't do a thing unless he was reading it off an idiot board. And even then he seemed to have problems stringing a complete sentence together. I guess we were far more easily pleased in those days?*
George Burns pretty much wrote all the jokes for all the comedic actors back then. This was not even a year after JFK's assassination. Must have been hard for comedians and people to laugh again.
Six minutes of commercials, total. Wow. 1964 audiences could thank the NAB's "Television Code" for that. All I see: A two-minute Plymouth ad, at 7:25 Two 60-second ads, one each for Chrysler 25:35 and Imperial 37:55 Two 60's for Dodge near the end 52:36 and 56:50
Can you post beautiful 1960s singer / actress Connie Francis on Bob Hope shows , or Jonathan Winters show , or Joey Bishop shows ? That would be so much fun to see !
Bob was really on for this one (not that he ever comes out flat)...what an incorrigible smart ass (and don't we all love him for it)...the political quips were on fire; I notice he didn't make any remarks about 'bombing'...
I'd liked seeing all the ads for the cars; they looked great, not boring and featureless like so many of today's cars are. It's a shame the cars back then were so poorly engineered and built that they fell apart in just a few years.
Greg B not like your guns which are so well built that they can still kill after 150 years. It ll be your epitaph. Hopefully you won t take the rest of the world with you
Greg B Are you on ice? Todays cars have way more features, we are so much more futuristic compared to back then, we have digital dash all these safety features etc nowadays, yeh back then the cars had a unique and cool look to them but feature wise todays car shit all over older cars its just that simple.
Filmed in black and white. No, I wanna tell ya. Color was available at a great cost, color was in its early years on video tape. Film (standard in those years for shows of archival value) was used here.
It was sad the the media gave us junk like this, when they should have told us the truth about Vietnam. The American people should have had a vote on the war. If they knew how politicians lied about it, they'd voted it down.
ok at 49:00 when he is suspended up high, his comments were dubbed over. The audio says "Chicken in a driver's seat' but clearly that is not what his mouth is saying. Can anyone lip read???
