We discussed how Vaudeville lost its popularity as broadcasting became central to American culture. Which genres of television seem most influenced by Vaudeville and how? How do you relate this week's screenings to the types of performances exhibited here? Feel free to share a clip of a contemporary show that exhibits some of these influences and compare the two types of entertainment.
Monday, September 8, 2014
Vaudeville and Television
We discussed how Vaudeville lost its popularity as broadcasting became central to American culture. Which genres of television seem most influenced by Vaudeville and how? How do you relate this week's screenings to the types of performances exhibited here? Feel free to share a clip of a contemporary show that exhibits some of these influences and compare the two types of entertainment.
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Shows like The Tonight Show, SNL, Jimmy Kimmel and Late Night are all influenced by Vaudeville. They include various guests, sketches and musical acts but they have one central figure that is in control, similar to how the Texaco Star Theater was operated. Though there are many talent shows on air, like American Idol, that certainly have the performance aspect of Vaudeville, the array of different acts on The Tonight Show shows off the large variety and diversity that was present in Vaudeville acts. As we saw in the Texaco Star Theater there were acrobatic, comedic, and musical acts. Today, interviews are a main feature of these shows to include as many guests as possible but a similar array of performance types exists. In the same show you have a host perform an opening comedic skit, followed by a music performance, an interview, another act and a closing skit. In one hour you have the opportunity to see a lot, which also makes these shows appeal to larger audience, just as Vaudeville appeared to a wide audience. The main difference between these shows and Vaudeville is continuity. All segments flow together because a host is there to participate in every act, introduce the acts, and guide the audience through.
ReplyDeleteContemporary variety shows such as Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Conan, and Late Night have all been strongly influenced by Vaudeville. Much like Milton Berle in Texaco Star Theater, these shows begin with a host that delivers an opening monologue and then introduces a number of special guests and performers who he often joins for skits. Today, most late-night talk shows are focused more on interviewing their guests and mixing in some skits and games. Saturday Night Live is similar to Vaudeville in that there are no interviews. The scenes shown here are very similar to what was shown from Texaco Star Theater because they both involve performers doing tricks for the audience. In Texaco Star Theater, we saw people doing tricks on a trampoline and the Vaudeville clips show a lot of animals doing tricks on stage. Variety shows today have more singing and comedic performers than acrobats and animals and the reason for that is most likely because we also enjoy reality competition shows today where those kinds of entertainers have the opportunity to perform their tricks. The enormous influence that Vaudeville has had on variety shows is still apparent today in late-night talk and sketch shows.
ReplyDeleteAs previously discussed in our lectures and by my classmates above, Vaudeville had a clear influence on the late-night talk shows, variety shows and reality competitions that are an integral part of the modern television experience. The smaller acts seen in the video above were incorporated into the longer performance strung together by the host, similar to much of late night television today. What I am most interested in is the continued interest in acts that some view as simple to today’s standards of over the top spectacle and the deviation of the variety show format seen in the skits of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show and The Martha Rayes Show. While Texaco Star Theatre took those short acts and kept them in a form true to their Vaudeville origins, Burns, Allen, and Rayes took the shorted skits and created something more narrative. Their style of bit is surprisingly similar to the modern day sitcom, or perhaps closer to the sitcoms of the 80s and 90s. On shows such as America’s Got Talent, many of the acts would have fit in with the Vaudeville performances of the early 20th century, yet millions of viewers still tune in to see that same performance. I believe that this deviation of the performance act and narrative act is key to understanding the development of many of television’s modern genres.
ReplyDeleteI would have liked to see Milton Berle try his hand in this act:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHbeguUPmVE
I disagree with the first sentence of the question above describing vaudeville as having "lost its popularity" as television became more mainstream. At least, the essence of vaudeville never left American culture, it simply adapted to the changing mediums of entertainment. Of course, the most obvious representations of this essence can be seen in today's late night talk shows and reality shows like America's Got Talent, where entertainment derives from an assortment of acts. But an even more recent essence of the vaudeville can be seen on Youtube. Youtube is a compilation of short acts, from music, to stories, to acrobatics and everything in between. Except for the first time, the schedule of "performances" is up to the individual viewer. We may think of vaudeville as specific performers who have a minimal time to entertain a live audience, but vaudeville has evolved with the internet age. Whatever popular video is trending is most probably a popular act, and will soon be replaced by the next trending video. It has come to the point that many television shows that replicate the vaudeville experience take videos from the internet as part of their lineup, most notably Tosh.0, whose entire show derives from a compilation of youtube videos.
ReplyDeleteJames Francis Cagney once said:“ Everything I know I learned in vaudeville.”As the symbol of the cultural diversity of early twentieth century America, vaudeville was a fusion of centuries-old cultural traditions, which has a deep and broad impacts on popular entertainments, especially the later talk shows, variety shows and reality TV shows, as our classmate discussed in the above posts. The genre of "one host facilitate the show and trick the audience/guest" is still used by the later variety shows, the Texaco Theatre had truly taken over the origin of vaudeville while shows like Martha Raye s added new elements (narrations, commercial and interviews) that made it more like a film or musical. However, all of the later shows in the screening we could see shades of vaudevilles from different aspects. The most interesting take-away, as for me, is that its influences on the contemporary reality TV Shows, which borrowed the format of talent-entertaining performance from vaudevilles, but focus more on a single contests(singing or dancing or acting). The host is still important elements but not in the central place as it used to be; how to catch audiences’ eyeballs is not only performer’s talent but also the whole production’s quality.
ReplyDeleteI would like to recommend this old clip from a 1936 movie starring Little Miss You-Know-Who offers a rare glimpse of Chinese American vaudeville. It features pioneering vaudeville performer Harry Haw, actor and singer Sammee Tong, and the Chinese music class of St. Mary's Chinese School.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo2wAQwTfWw
The second clip is a modern performance in China's got talent show adaptation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oqvzxIbYno
Texaco Star Theater certainly follows the rules of the vaudeville show, multiple short acts of varying performance types appealing to the broadest possible audience that would be watching the broadcast. Much like their earlier counterpart, Milton Berle, many late night presenters of this day and age use a similar format: short, quick, topical segments followed by a relevant interview with a star of the day followed by some sort of closing segment, whether that's a musical guest, "moment of zen", some form of game, or what have you. However, I would also postulate that the Martha Raye show takes many cues from Vaudeville. The completely desexualized nature of Martha Raye's character in concert with the lack of physical appeal to a male audience allows for the physical humor that prevails throughout the show, particularly in the musical numbers where Martha is forced to lift numerous stacks of luggage, mugs at the camera etc. In conjunction with the clip above, which includes a long segment of a woman holding a chair up with her teeth and dancing, I would put the show forward as taking many of its humorous cues directly from Vaudeville, particularly from short acts which used female figures and physical disparities between their size, looks, etc and their role in the show to create humor.
ReplyDeleteIn modern television I would say that not only do shows such as America's Got Talent, which showcase multiple performers with unrelated talents, draw their roots from Vaudeville but that shows which showcase singular talents also draw their inspiration from the genre. Shows such as American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, etc all evolve from this subset of the talent variety act which follows the Vaudeville style of entertainment. I would even argue that shows such as Iron Chef or the numerous shows which evolved from the cooking competition show (Chopped, Hell's Kitchen, etc) all take cues from the variety shows which evolved from Vaudeville in the way that they always return to the central commentator who keeps the tone light, the pace moving, and the jokes coming.
It is quite easy to notice that there are similarities between Vaudeville and the extremely popular comedy talk shows of today. This is why I believe that Vaudeville did not necessarily lose popularity as broadcasting gained it, but that various aspects of Vaudeville were implemented into broadcasting as people’s interests became more and more technology-oriented. What I mean by this is that the spirit and variety of Vaudeville was used by broadcasters due to their popularity, which progressed and evolved until they became the shows we see today (The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live, etc.). While talk shows like the Jimmy Kimmel Show aren’t nearly the same as the performances viewed in the Youtube clip in this blog prompt, their blend of celebrity interviews and staged acts are most certainly the “Vaudeville-esque” style of television entertainment people enjoy today.
ReplyDeleteOf the screenings viewed on Tuesday, Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theatre seems to bear the greatest resemblance to Vaudeville (as noticed by my fellow classmates who have commented on this post). Just like contemporary talk shows, Milton Berle leads a spectacle of comedy, talent, and music. On top of this, all of the screenings (except for Captain Video) kept the live audience at the heart of its performance, something that can also be said for both Vaudeville and contemporary talk shows. While people may never see the uniqueness of Vaudeville’s acts on live TV, the use of various performances is still extremely popular to this day. These performances have simply changed to cater to the ever-changing needs of the audience.
Being that Vaudeville was one of the most widely popular forms of mass entertainment just before and at the start of the Television era, it obviously influenced just about every one of the initial entertainment based Television programs. These first programs developed into what we watch today. Shows like Saturday Night Live or The Tonight Show have obvious heritage to Vaudeville, but I would argue that day-time talk shows, a good example being The Ellen DeGeneres Show, were influenced the most by, and most closely resemble, Vaudeville.
ReplyDeleteEllen does less sketch comedy than her late-night counterparts, which is where they draw their similarities. Ellen’s Vaudeville pedigree is in all of the undiscovered guests she brings on her show. Being before broadcast, Vaudeville was not a small set of celebrities that essentially the same audience would see every night, it was thousands of small acts touring around to different towns. With every new show, the audience of a town could see fresh, exciting performers they may never have even heard of before. Audiences could see not just new performers, but also exotic, unseen performances they would never have imagined. Ellen brings these small acts on to her show, finding them through contests, the internet, etc. Everything from prodigy children, to obscure talents (see video), to dancing dogs could end up on her show. When she brings these talents on the air, it is just like one of the old Vaudeville acts for the viewers.
Milton Berle would do a similar thing on his show, bringing in new talents. Many of his guests were already established performers, coming from Broadway or other such places, but still were probably unknown to many, or most, of the viewers.
Clip: Odd Talents on Ellen
http://www.ellentv.com/videos/0-l3nhpcmk/
The influence of the vaudeville medium seems to have influenced the development of the variety show. Not only did the variety show provide a weekly collection of new talent but they also provided visual comedy. This can be seen in a show like Texaco Star theater where every week a new spectacle was presented to the at home audience. Not only that, but the participation of the variety show host in the guest’s acts mirrors the slapstick spirit of the vaudeville acts. You can also see aspects of vaudeville in the Martha Raye Show skits. With her show it’s all about making a fool of oneself which seems to be a common trope in the success of the vaudeville act.
ReplyDeleteIn a modern context it would seem that sketch comedy shows like SNL or talk shows have adopted some of the fundamental comedy structures that vaudeville presented. SNL is very often about making a fool out of oneself and providing a collection of acts for the audience to laugh at. On the other hand a talk show like Ellen often provides a spectacle of the week act for the audience to enjoy, and sometimes, if they’re good and liked by the audience, they even get a return engagement like Carmen Miranda.
Vaudeville is a type of comedic entertainment that has influenced live comedy shows throughout television history. In the late 1940s Texaco Star Theatre was broadcasted. This show contained a variety of live entertainment that incorporated both comedic and physically demanding acts. The guests who appeared on Texaco Star Theatre were both male and female, and wore extravagant and unique clothing. Females were usually dressed in short skirts and dresses, similar to the costumes featured in many of the Vaudeville performances. Both Vaudeville and Texaco Star Theatre presented women in a way that contained sexual undertones. These extravagant and unique forms of dress, along with physical comedy are also featured in The Martha Raye Show. Furthermore, both forms of entertainment found enjoyment in watching comical fights between characters. For example, in Texaco Star Theatre the host poured eggs and oil on the head of another character. This is similar to the dirt fight depicted in the Vaudeville clip above. In the present day, live entertainment shows like Saturday Night Live, Late Night, Jimmy Kimmel feature similar comedic acts. However, performance shows like The Voice do contain aspects of Vaudeville, but are less apparent. In this way, Vaudeville has influenced the development of many types of comedic and performance based television shows.
ReplyDelete