ELVIS: THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW--THE CLASSIC PERFORMANCES -- DVD review by porfle

Originally posted on 8/6/09

 

Of all the various stages that Elvis Presley went through during his staggering career as a worldwide cultural phenomenon, the one I still prefer most is the fresh-faced supernova that we see in ELVIS: THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW--THE CLASSIC PERFORMANCES. Intense idolatry and fame are still new to this young, vibrant, almost naive Elvis, and we can see him having fun with the experience before it sours and begins to isolate him from the rest of humanity.

"The Ed Sullivan Show", for those who have never seen it, was a live hour-long variety show that ran seemingly forever and was hosted by a stiff, dour-looking guy known mainly as a renowned entertainment journalist. Ed brought to his vast television audience a wide array of acts that ranged from ballet to Broadway, from Shakespeare to Shecky Greene, and finally, unwillingly, began to encompass the burgeoning world of rock and roll. Ed was hesitant to feature this strange new hip-waggling rocker on his show, but when an appearance by Elvis on Steve Allen's show garnered astronomical ratings, Ed figured it was time to get some of those millions of rabid teen fans tuning in to his own show before the fad had faded. 

 

This DVD is a record of Elvis' three major appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show." The September 9, 1956 episode is minus Ed Sullivan himself, who had been injured in a head-on collision and would rely on a series of guest hosts until his return several weeks later. After being introduced to the screaming audience by a not-ready-for-primetime Charles Laughton, Elvis makes his way onto the stage and humbly thanks everyone for what he calls "probably the greatest honor I've ever had in my life" before launching into "Don't Be Cruel." The other songs he performs on this show are "Love Me Tender", "Ready Teddy", and "Hound Dog." After that last number Charles Laughton asks the audience in classic old-fogey style, "Well, what did somebody say, uh...music hath charms to soothe the savage breast?" 

 

The young Elvis proves to be a fun-loving cutup who rarely takes himself seriously. He loves to make faces during songs to provoke laughter and screams from the audience. Referring to "Love Me Tender" as his "latest RCA Victor escape...uh, release", Elvis doesn't even spare this solemn, sappy tune his constant clowning. Later, he holds up a finger and says with mock seriousness, "Friends, as a great philosopher once said..." before launching into "Hound Dog" with as much awareness as anyone else that it's a supremely silly song. 

 

On the October 28, 1956 show, a vibrant Elvis greets the returning Ed Sullivan by laughing his way through "Don't Be Cruel" and then having to slog through "Love Me Tender" again like a kid being forced to eat his spinach. He still manages to have fun with it, though--the playfulness of his mood that night just couldn't be contained. Surrounded by his ever-present backup vocalists the Jordanaires, he then croons the turgid ballad "Love Me" while relishing its doo-wop mawkishness for all it's worth. 

 

Strapping on his guitar, Elvis offers an elaborately solemn introduction to his final song of the night:

"Ladies and gentlemen, uh, could I have your attention, please. I'd like to tell you that we're gonna do a...sad song for you. This song is one of the saddest songs we've ever heard. It really tells a story, friends. Beautiful lyrics. It goes something like this..." 

 

The song, of course, is "Hound Dog", and Elvis finally cuts loose and becomes the hip-shaking rock and roller that we all envision him to be. Rarely does an entertainer seem to be having this much fun (much of it at his own expense) as he shares in the joyful mood of the audience. 

 

Not only that, but old-fashioned Ed himself, once reticent to book Elvis on his show, clearly loves the guy. At one point he even drops his usual stern countenance and jokes, "I can't figure this thing out, you know he just does this [shakes his hips] and everybody yells!" Elvis humbly ends his appearance by telling the audience, "Until we meet ya again, may God bless ya as He's blessed me. Thank ya very much." 

 

 

The January 6, 1957 show begins with a medley of "Hound Dog", "Love Me Tender", and "Heartbreak Hotel", but something seems a little odd. That's because this is the famous show in which, due to complaints from more conservative viewers about The Pelvis' lewd bodily motions, Elvis is never seen from the waist down. 

 

The segue from "Hound Dog" into "Love Me Tender" couldn't be more extreme, and Elvis' goofy facial expression conveys his weariness of singing it. He breaks loose again with lively versions of "Don't Be Cruel", "Too Much", and "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again" before ending with a heartfelt spiritual, "Peace in the Valley." Ed Sullivan, who has obviously had a ball during his experience with Elvis, doesn't let him get away without offering this endorsement of the controversial rocker: "I wanted to say to Elvis and the country, that this is a real decent, fine boy." 

 

The 1.33:1 full-screen image and Dolby Digital sound (5.1 surround and original 2.0 mono) are as good as the original kinescope elements permit. A wealth of interesting bonus material includes: 

 

--Why Ed Didn't Host Elvis' First Appearance

--Elvis and Ed: Intros and Promos

--Special Elvis Moments

--Caught on Celluloid: The First Moving Pictures of Elvis

--Jerry Schilling's Home Movies

--Remembering Ed and Elvis (interviews) 

 

Totally belying his image as an inarticulate yokel, the engaging performer that we see here is a shimmering entity brimming with intriguing paradoxes. Retaining a respectful humility that ingratiated him to the older crowd, he was also effortlessly cool, cocky, and irreverent just by being himself. He could be heart-on-his-sleeve sincere even as he mischievously poked fun at the superficial nature of his image, as playfully self-mocking and self-aware as anyone with such immense, intense popularity could be. Most of all, as ELVIS: THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW--THE CLASSIC PERFORMANCES reminds us, he was a beautiful, almost mystical creature who burned brightly long before he began to burn out. Buy it at Amazon.com:

 

Elvis Presley: The Ed Sullivan Shows: The Performances 

 

ELVIS: THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW--THE CLASSIC PERFORMANCES -- DVD review by porfle

Joe Bob Saves The Planet -- Elvis' Environmental Footprint?

 

Due to the efforts of pioneering environmentalist Elvis Presley, 100 percent of the objects, flooring, ceiling and walls of the Jungle Room at Graceland are recyclable

NEW YORK—People ask me all the time, “How do you do it, Joe Bob? How did you achieve that negative-27,000 environmental footprint?”

Easy. I recycle everything. I once recycled a One-Oh-Eight Freightliner dump truck with a flat-leaf spring suspension and a stand-up right-hand drive that I inherited from Chubb Fricke when he went to jail for getting drunk in San Diego and stealing a penguin from SeaWorld.

But for day-to-day recycling, I’m gonna give you the foolproof Joe Bob Briggs Guide to Loving the Earth. If you follow these 21 easy steps, you won’t just be loving the earth, you’ll be having kinky sex with the earth. Other planets will be asking you for your phone number.

First off, you’re gonna need two dozen 55-gallon whiskey barrels, the kind used for Wild Turkey, then reused for Macallan single malt, then frequently used to dispose of dead bodies.

 

 

 

We’re gonna arrange our whiskey barrels into four groups—plastic, paper, metal and glass—and then we’re gonna put a single slime bucket next to each group. The slime bucket is for stuff you can’t categorize, like egg cartons.

What the fuck do they make egg cartons out of? Somebody please tell me. It’s not paper, it’s not cardboard, it’s not plastic, it’s some kind of spongy white Frankenbucket substance that’s cranked out through a 3D printer fed with squirrel manure.

And yet, I will recycle it. Do not challenge me. I have recycled machine-gun-toting members of the Medellin cartel.

Okay, let’s start with plastic. You’re gonna take seven barrels and label them as follows:

Styrofoam Coffee Cups: We use 24 trillion of these a year, and everyone believes they can’t be recycled. We’re gonna recycle these mothers anyway. We’re gonna smush em down into that barrel, tens of thousands of Styrofoam coffee cups in a single barrel, until that foam polystyrene becomes rigid polystyrene. They’re going right in with the plastic razors, CD cases, license plate frames, and Uber Eats utensils. America uses 2.5 million plastic bottles per hour, and I’m determined to increase that pace by proving that every Poland Spring container can become yet another Poland Spring container if we just shovel this stuff back into the Plastic Mash-up Factory.

Okay, let’s move on.

High-Density Polystyrene: This is your Lysol bottle, your Oreo tray, and your Tide dispenser. And we’re gonna make lawn chairs out of em.

Polyvinyl Chloride: This is all that stuff you thought was leather when you bought it but turned out to be made out of kitchen linoleum. We’re gonna use it to make traffic cones for use in midwestern cities that maxed out their budget subsidizing the B-B gun factory.

Polypropylene: Tic Tac boxes, Tupperware, prescription drug containers, beer coolers, and those little trash cans that you kick across the room in motels. This is stuff that is made to last. But it won’t. We’ll mash that molded deck chair into oatmeal residue.

Polyethylene: This is virtually everything plastic that you use in your daily life, from Head and Shoulders bottles to all those quilts they sell at Family Dollar—those things are 110 percent petrochemical-based, which is why we have heat-stroke victims in January. Here’s the part you’re gonna love, though. We’re gonna compact all that stuff and feed it to the Greater Wax Moth, an ugly little monster that normally feeds on beehives. The Chinese have determined that these creatures can live on polyethylene, and that means that it’s only a matter of time before Michael Bay makes the movie about China using its overwhelming polyethylene stockpile to breed monster Wax Moths that attack en masse and eat their way through redneck packing plants all over the South.

Okay, what else we got here?

  

READ THE FULL COLUMN HERE

SEE JOE BOB IN PERSON AT THESE EVENTS!

▪     9/24-9/26 Monster-Mania, Hunt Valley, MD. Tickets
▪     10/9 How Rednecks Saved Hollywood, Columbus, OH. Tickets
▪     10/22-10/24 Monster-Mania, Oaks, PA. Tickets
▪     10/30 Scarefaire, Victorville, CA. Tickets
▪     11/19-11/21 Preserve Halloween Festival, Irving, TX. Tickets


©2021 Joe Bob Briggs | NY, NY 

Joe Bob Saves The Planet -- Elvis' Environmental Footprint?

How Early Did The Word "Groovy" Appear In Movies? (video)

The word "groovy" was so commonly heard in the 1960s and beyond...

...many think that's when it originated.

But it actually began to appear in movies some years earlier. Such as:

"Miss Annie Rooney" (1942)
"Groovie Movie" (1944)
"Up In Arms" (1945)
"Miracle On 34th Street" Trailer (1947)


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

How Early Did The Word "Groovy" Appear In Movies? (video)

Elvis Presley's Western Fantasy ("Tickle Me", 1965) (video)

Elvis Presley visits a ghost town saloon with lovely Jocelyn Lane...

...and imagines himself as a heroic gunslinger, the Panhandle Kid.

Jack Mullaney is the bartender and Ed Faulkner plays a lecherous card shark.

Elvis outdraws the bad guy, gets the girl, and drinks his milk.


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Elvis Presley's Western Fantasy ("Tickle Me", 1965) (video)