Berle, Milton TV Show - Volume 1 (2007) Review

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(More customer reviews)With the enormous number of channels now available on television and the large number of people that appear, it is hard for the modern viewer to think back to the early days of the medium. It was raw and unproven and Milton Belle was the first one to become a television superstar. His show, also called the Texaco Star Theater, owned Tuesday nights, at times 80% of the audience watched the show. He was so popular that some theaters and restaurants closed down when his show was on. On regular occasions there are stories in the media about a significant drop in water pressure after a popular show is over or during a commercial. The first recorded instance of this phenomenon was immediately after the Milton Berle Show was over. Berle is credited with being a force driving the sales of television and one point that he does not get enough credit for is his role in integrating television.
In 1950 he wanted the Four Step Brothers, a set of black tap dancers to appear on the show. He was told that they could not appear the precise phrase used was "We don't like them." To Berle's everlasting credit, he simply said, "If they don't go on, then I don't go on." It wasn't until ten minutes before the show started that Berle received permission to have them appear.
This disc contains two shows from his show, the first that guest starred Ronald Reagan was aired in 1948. The second was filmed at the Nellie Air Force Base outside Las Vegas in 1956 and appropriately guest-starred Zsa Zsa Gabor and the sensual French actress Denise Darcel. It was also appropriate that the Four Step Brothers appeared in the second episode, given Berle's role in getting them on television.
In the first episode Ronald Reagan contacts Berle to ask him to bankroll a picture. Berle thinks that Reagan is asking him to star in the picture so the comedy is all about the misunderstanding. The second features a couple of acts based on air force themes as well as the Four Step Brothers in an extended dance routine.
It is fitting that the first year of the Milton Berle Show was in 1948 and the last year was in 1956, so these two shows are in some sense bookends of the time of Berle's greatest popularity. There is no question that television would have become popular without Berle, yet he did more to make it that way than anyone else. He also should receive more credit for his actions in promoting black performers on television; at the time there was no one else with the star power to do it.


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Three classic shows from the 1950s with guest stars Ronald Reagan, Zsa Zsa Gabor, George Burns.

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