Variety Shows Quotes

I like 'My Ugly Duckling,' 'High School Rapper,' 'Newlywed Diary,' and 'Radio Star.'

On Saturday afternoons, there was a film, of course, and then we did about four shows between the films. And I would do a tap dance, a little military tap.

I watched a lot of old movies, and a lot of Carol Burnett and Andy Kaufman.

I went to a lot of theatre. My parents were very involved with the performing arts. I went to nightclub shows when I was a little girl. We went to Florida and we would go to the Cocoanut Grove down there. We'd go see Lena Horne, Jimmy Durante, Sophie Tucker and Judy Garland.

Obviously neither 'American Idol' nor 'Dancing With the Stars' is a variety show in the classic sense, but the way they incorporate elements of drama, comedy and suspense is moderately ingenious.

My dad used to put me in front of the TV screen and made me watch old Jimmy Durante and Dean Martin movies. I just always loved entertainment.

The original Dean Martin Comedy Hour handed me some hysterical sketches. I've got highlights on tons of these variety shows, given to me by their great writers. I'd love to be doing all that again.

Bob Monkhouse, Galton and Simpson, Spike Milligan and I all started around the same time with an enormous advantage: working to an audience all of whom had shared an awful, common experience - the war.

When television began, it modeled itself after radio. Many early television programs were radio programs first. 'My Favorite Wife,' 'The Jack Benny Show,' 'Burns and Allen,' 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents.'

I did the Ed Sullivan show four times. I did the Steve Allen show. I did the Jackie Gleason show.

I'm glad I was born when I was. My time was the golden age of variety. If I were starting out again now, maybe things would happen for me, but it certainly would not be on a variety show with 28 musicians, 12 dancers, two major guest stars, 50 costumes a week by Bob Mackie. The networks just wouldn't spend the money today.

With the collapse of vaudeville new talent has no place to stink.

I always sang when I was little-bitty girl. I sang all the time. And then I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee, so I sang in a show at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. You know, they have all those variety shows where Dollywood is. And I sang there and yodeled and clogged, but I never wrote my own songs.

Some people hate the sight of me as soon as they see me on television. They loathe the look of me, and I accept that from the days of variety. I would walk on and some people would open a newspaper and think, 'He's first on, so he can't be any good.' I accept that.

I grew up on variety shows. I'm from the '60s and '70s. I loved watching Flip Wilson. I loved watching Sid Caesar's 'Your Show of Shows,' 'The Ed Sullivan Show.' I love all of those variety shows.

For better or worse, in the 21st century, reality shows are the variety show.

I had to find a way to get off the streets because it was too windy. So I started organizing variety shows of street performers. I would rent a hall, cafe or bar so I could put on a show. I did that for years before the 'Tonight Show With Johnny Carson' heard about this odd thing I did with bubbles.

I combined theatre and films with live TV, such as 'The Royal Variety Show,' performing sketches opposite Bob Hope and Maurice Chevalier.

I had a very exciting life in Italy, and I was doing lots of variety shows.

I'd like to continue doing movies, clubs, concert halls and television. I like something about each one.

As a person, I'm just really kitchy and corny, and I love '70s variety shows.

Standups have all the talk shows, but you never see a sketch group on a talk show. Even on so-called variety shows, if you do see a sketch group or character, it's written specifically for that variety show and usually written around the host of the show or a celebrity.

Variety shows didn't disappear; it was the caliber of the artists, the classic vaudevillians that have passed on. They are gone, so there's a different caliber performer that's come along that hasn't had the time to work in the small clubs and get the experience.

I grew up in the age of variety shows. 'Flip Wilson,' 'Carol Burnett,' 'Donny and Marie,' and 'Sonny and Cher' - I never missed an episode. These shows had it all: singing, dancing, and sketch comedy. One minute, they're ice-skating with pyrotechnics, the next they're doing a scene on a gigantic set. I just couldn't get enough.

I used to watch a lot of Nick at Nite as a kid, and it would play the original 'Saturday Night Live,' 'The Carol Burnett Show,' and 'Laugh-In.'