Broadway Open House is network television's first late-night comedy-variety series. It was telecast live on NBC from May 29, 1950, to August 24, 1951, airing weeknights from 11pm to midnight. One of the pioneering TV creations of NBC president Pat Weaver, it demonstrated the potential for late-night programming and led to the later development of The Tonight Show.
Hosts
The show was originally to be hosted by comic Don "Creesh" Hornsby. Hornsby had been brought into the variety show business by Bob Hope, whose topical humor would serve as the basis for most of the late-night talk shows that would follow. One week before he was to begin hosting, the 26-year-old Hornsby suddenly contracted polio, from which he died on the day he was to host his first show, May 22, 1950. Hornsby's sudden demise forced NBC to postpone the show and rush to find new hosts on short notice. Pat Weaver, an NBC executive at the time, noticed the positive feedback that Jerry Lester and his manic personality had received on a recent appearance on one of NBC's talk shows and offered Lester the hosting position almost immediately, allowing the show to go into production only a week after originally scheduled. For the first few weeks, Lester hosted only the Tuesday, Thursday and Friday episodes of Broadway Open House, with Morey Amsterdam hosting Mondays and Wednesdays. Amsterdam soon exited the show, leaving Lester the sole host, performing sketches with his crew of sidekicks, running through standard nightclub comedy routines and introducing the show's vocal group, the Mello Larks. Lester's signature bit was to twist his eyeglasses at a 45 degree angle on his face. The show had occasional guests, including Lenny Bruce, who appeared May 1950 and Charlie Parker who appeared October 31, 1950, and there were also audience participation bits, such as having women from the audience join the female cast members in modeling fur coats. Lester's fondness for bean bags became a running gag on the series. The sponsors included Anchor Hocking glassware and Blatz Beer.
Dagmar arrives
However, devising new material night after night became a treadmill of desperation. The solution was to hire Jennie Lewis, who was given no script and told, "You just sit there and act dumb. Your name is Dagmar." With her new name, she sat on a stool with a sign around her neck saying "Girl Singer," did breathing exercises, and soon performed as a reader of poems and plays, while Lester made occasional jokes about her "hidden talents." Her appearances created a sensation, leading to much press coverage and a salary increase from $75 to $1,250. With Dagmar getting all the attention, Lester walked off his own show in May 1951, and Dagmar carried on as host. On July 16, 1951, she was featured on the front cover of Life, and the show came to an end one month later. Lester was retained as a rotating host for a new early prime-time variety show the next season, Chesterfield Sound-Off Time, along with Fred Allen and Bob Hope. NBC filled the late night time slot for the next year with Mary Kay's Nightcap, a non-comic show in which Mary Kay Stearns previewed the next day's programming. For a short time, Dagmar was given a weekly late-night show Dagmar's Canteen. The show's even later time slot and the lack of a comic partner for Dagmar to foil were factors in the show being short-lived. Dagmar's run on Broadway Open House and her appearances on other shows made her the first major female star of television, and she soon had her own show, Dagmar's Canteen, making guest appearances during the late 1950s with Jack Paar on The Tonight Show.
Cast and crew
Other Broadway Open House cast members were tap dancer Ray Malone, accordionist Milton DeLugg, announcer Wayne Howell and vocalists Jane Harvey, Andy Roberts and David Street. The show's opening theme music was "The Beanbag Song" by DeLugg, Lester and Willie Stein. A second theme was the song "It's Almost Like Being in Love." DeLugg often played a song he wrote with Stein, "Orange Colored Sky", which became a hit for Nat King Cole. Ray Buffum and Jac Hein were the producers. Hein and Joseph C. Cavalier directed. Stan Burns and Allan Sherman were the writers. The program was developed by Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, a programming vice-president at NBC who had started his career as a production assistant on Fred Allen's radio show Town Hall Tonight in the 1930s. After the 15-month run of Broadway Open House, Weaver further developed his ideas on a local show over NBC's New York station starring Steve Allen, which eventually took to the network in 1954 as The Tonight Show. There are those who dispute Weaver's credit for The Tonight Show, including hosts Steve Allen and Jack Paar. Years later, Paar said "He didn't invent programs, but wrote great memos." Steve Allen remembered Hornsby, Broadway Open House and Fred Allen in a 1997 interview:
Reception
Broadway Open House was an early influence on the comedy stylings of George Carlin who spoke of the show in an interview with the Television Academy recorded December 17, 2007. Carlin prefaced the description of the show with other variety shows of the time, including The Ed Sullivan Show and The Jackie Gleason Show.
Episode status
No episodes from Amsterdam's hosting run exist. A limited number of episodes from Lester's run have survived and are archived at the Paley Center for Media.
