2027 will be here before you know it, and as each new year takes us further away from the earliest days of television, the likelihood intensifies of its pioneers being forgotten.
It’s unfortunate that this happens with television but not with movies. In the Criterion Closet videos on YouTube you’ll see celebrities in their 20s honoring films older than their grandparents. Whether it’s Fellini or Bergman, Chaplin or Tati, Kubrick or Kurosawa, they know the movies and why they should be known.
Why should television be different? Maybe it’s because so much of the work of its first generation of stars has been lost, as it was never deemed important enough to be preserved in the first place. But there’s still plenty left to attest to the talent of these creators, and their impact on the medium.
Steve Allen belongs on everyone’s short list of TV’s most influential figures.
He had the ingenuity of Ernie Kovacs, the quick wit of Robin Williams and, like Johnny Carson, he had the ability to bring out the best in every talk show guest.
Allen wasn’t perfect – he hated rock and roll and mocked it at every opportunity, usually by reading the lyrics to pop songs as if they were profound poetry (“Be Bop-a-Lula, she’s my baby…Be Bop-a-Lula, I don’t mean maybe…”). When Elvis appeared on his show, he had him sing “Hound Dog” to a Bassett Hound wearing a top hat.
Allen wasn’t perfect – he hated rock and roll and mocked it at every opportunity, usually by reading the lyrics to pop songs as if they were profound poetry (“Be Bop-a-Lula, she’s my baby…Be Bop-a-Lula, I don’t mean maybe…”). When Elvis appeared on his show, he had him sing “Hound Dog” to a Bassett Hound wearing a top hat.
But as a Grammy-winning composer who wrote several popular hits, he at least earned the right to take a pessimistic view of the top 40.
What else should you know about Steve Allen if you didn’t already? Here’s a start.
He Invented The Tonight Show
Nearly 70 years after Allen left The Tonight Show viewers are still watching a format that he essentially created. From Carson to Colbert to Kimmel, if you’ve ever watched a late-night talk show host deliver an opening monologue, then sit behind a desk and interview guests, you’re looking at the template he established. Allen was not just the show’s first host (1954-1957), he was also its co-creator and was responsible for its most memorable segments. After launching a weekly variety series at the same time, he realized two shows were too much. Since the variety series paid more, he left The Tonight Show to Jack Paar – another oft-forgotten television pioneer.
He was also Letterman before Letterman
Remember all the crazy stunts Dave did on his late-night show, like being lowered into a tank of water while wearing a suit covered in Alka Seltzer tablets? Allen was doing that stuff 30 years earlier. He dunked himself into a large vat of Jell-O, and wore a suit made of teabags. He would also, like Letterman, interview business owners and passers-by outside the TV studio.
Big Bill Allen’s Sports Roundup
Long before bloopers went mainstream, Steve Allen was featured in one of the first and the funniest. Playing a sports reporter, he allegedly saw himself in the camera with the character’s hat and wig and began cackling hysterically. Thankfully it’s one of the clips from that era that survived.
The Steve Allen Show (all of them)
Allen’s IMDB page lists seven separate “Steve Allen Show” entries ranging from 1950 to 1981, and totaling more than 580 episodes, in addition to his more than 500 episodes as host of The Tonight Show. You don’t stay on television that long if audiences don’t enjoy what you’re delivering.
The Man on the Street
One of the most popular recurring bits on Allen’s first variety series was “man on the street” interviews in which Allen would ask a question about a pressing issue of the day. While he would often interact with actual strangers in segments, these skits featured cast members Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Don Knotts, and provide an early example of television introducing characters and catchphrases that viewers looked forward to watching. Nye would always be a smarmy dude who introduced “Hi-ho, Steverino!” into the lexicon. The Poston interviews always began with Allen asking his name and Poston being unable to remember it. And Knotts would usually play an extremely nervous guy in a dangerous profession.
I’ve Got a Secret/What’s My Line
When you watch game shows from the 1950s with celebrity panels, it’s apparent that people in the public eye back then were smarter, more erudite, and held themselves to a higher standard of civility and decorum. Allen was right at home among such luminaries as journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, publisher Bennett Cerf, humorist Henry Morgan and actress Arlene Francis. Back then the question “Is it bigger than a bread box?” was often asked when trying to guess the profession of guests on What’s My Line. Allen introduced that saying.
Meeting of Minds
I remember watching this PBS series created by Allen back in 1977 and being fascinated by the concept. It was a talk show, a format as a host he had long since perfected, but in this case his guests were actors playing historical figures. The groupings were beyond audacious: Cleopatra chatting with Theodore Roosevelt; Attila the Hun and Emily Dickinson (sounds like a Monty Python sketch!); Socrates and Susan B. Anthony. But the performers played it straight and though much of the conversation was scripted (by Allen), it never felt that way and it drew from the actual writings of each guest when possible.
What else should you know about Steve Allen if you didn’t already? Here’s a start.
He Invented The Tonight Show
Nearly 70 years after Allen left The Tonight Show viewers are still watching a format that he essentially created. From Carson to Colbert to Kimmel, if you’ve ever watched a late-night talk show host deliver an opening monologue, then sit behind a desk and interview guests, you’re looking at the template he established. Allen was not just the show’s first host (1954-1957), he was also its co-creator and was responsible for its most memorable segments. After launching a weekly variety series at the same time, he realized two shows were too much. Since the variety series paid more, he left The Tonight Show to Jack Paar – another oft-forgotten television pioneer.
He was also Letterman before Letterman
Remember all the crazy stunts Dave did on his late-night show, like being lowered into a tank of water while wearing a suit covered in Alka Seltzer tablets? Allen was doing that stuff 30 years earlier. He dunked himself into a large vat of Jell-O, and wore a suit made of teabags. He would also, like Letterman, interview business owners and passers-by outside the TV studio.
Big Bill Allen’s Sports Roundup
Long before bloopers went mainstream, Steve Allen was featured in one of the first and the funniest. Playing a sports reporter, he allegedly saw himself in the camera with the character’s hat and wig and began cackling hysterically. Thankfully it’s one of the clips from that era that survived.
The Steve Allen Show (all of them)
Allen’s IMDB page lists seven separate “Steve Allen Show” entries ranging from 1950 to 1981, and totaling more than 580 episodes, in addition to his more than 500 episodes as host of The Tonight Show. You don’t stay on television that long if audiences don’t enjoy what you’re delivering.
The Man on the Street
One of the most popular recurring bits on Allen’s first variety series was “man on the street” interviews in which Allen would ask a question about a pressing issue of the day. While he would often interact with actual strangers in segments, these skits featured cast members Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Don Knotts, and provide an early example of television introducing characters and catchphrases that viewers looked forward to watching. Nye would always be a smarmy dude who introduced “Hi-ho, Steverino!” into the lexicon. The Poston interviews always began with Allen asking his name and Poston being unable to remember it. And Knotts would usually play an extremely nervous guy in a dangerous profession.
I’ve Got a Secret/What’s My Line
When you watch game shows from the 1950s with celebrity panels, it’s apparent that people in the public eye back then were smarter, more erudite, and held themselves to a higher standard of civility and decorum. Allen was right at home among such luminaries as journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, publisher Bennett Cerf, humorist Henry Morgan and actress Arlene Francis. Back then the question “Is it bigger than a bread box?” was often asked when trying to guess the profession of guests on What’s My Line. Allen introduced that saying.
Meeting of Minds
I remember watching this PBS series created by Allen back in 1977 and being fascinated by the concept. It was a talk show, a format as a host he had long since perfected, but in this case his guests were actors playing historical figures. The groupings were beyond audacious: Cleopatra chatting with Theodore Roosevelt; Attila the Hun and Emily Dickinson (sounds like a Monty Python sketch!); Socrates and Susan B. Anthony. But the performers played it straight and though much of the conversation was scripted (by Allen), it never felt that way and it drew from the actual writings of each guest when possible.
When I first watched it, Meeting of Minds was my introduction to many of the personages on its panels, and I learned more about all of them from this series then I ever did at school.
You Never Knew Where He’ll Turn Up
It would be hard to find an actor/celebrity with a more diverse IMDB page than Steve Allen. He popped up in uncredited appearances in Batman and Get Smart, he announced wrestling matches, played himself on episodes of Hart to Hart and Amen, made the standard stops on The Love Boat, Hotel and Fantasy Island, played Dr. Ehrlich’s dad on St. Elsewhere, was Bart’s electronically altered voice on The Simpsons, and kept working up until the year before his passing, with a guest spot on Diagnosis: Murder in 1999.
And in his spare time, he wrote 50 books and thousands of songs. I don’t know if he cared about being remembered – his gravesite is unmarked at Forest Lawn – but he certainly deserves to be.
You Never Knew Where He’ll Turn Up
It would be hard to find an actor/celebrity with a more diverse IMDB page than Steve Allen. He popped up in uncredited appearances in Batman and Get Smart, he announced wrestling matches, played himself on episodes of Hart to Hart and Amen, made the standard stops on The Love Boat, Hotel and Fantasy Island, played Dr. Ehrlich’s dad on St. Elsewhere, was Bart’s electronically altered voice on The Simpsons, and kept working up until the year before his passing, with a guest spot on Diagnosis: Murder in 1999.
And in his spare time, he wrote 50 books and thousands of songs. I don’t know if he cared about being remembered – his gravesite is unmarked at Forest Lawn – but he certainly deserves to be.
