Category Archives: TV SHOWS

Some of the best titles for ElvisBlog columns have come from the texts of Elvis reviews in the New York Times.  One was “Virtuoso of Hootchie Cootchie,” taken from the Times review of Elvis’ June 5, 1956 appearance on The Milton Berle Show, and there was “Turgid, Juicy, and Flamboyant,” which came from the Times review of the first Elvis movie “Love Me Tender.”  You might remember that the Times columnists slammed Elvis pretty hard in both cases.

Well, there is also the Times review of Elvis’ 1973 worldwide TV special “Elvis – Aloha from Hawaii.”  That’s the source of the above title for this article.  So, what do you think?  Did they slam Elvis once again?  Let’s take a look.

Favorable opinions about Elvis in the New York Times were rare in his early days, but this column by John J. O’Conner stayed fairly balanced.  Perhaps neutral would be a better characterization, as he barely said anything good about Elvis.  The most positive line about “Aloha” was this:  “Smartly produced and directed by Marty Pasetta, the program maintained an effective and attractive fluidity, not easy with ‘live’ concerts on TV.”  That’s not Elvis’ fluidity he’s complementing, it’s the show’s.  Not a word about Elvis’ voice or how he mesmerized the live audience of 6000 folks at the Honolulu International Center.  At least there was mention that the show was broadcast live by satellite to 1.5 billion people in 40 countries.  This was a monumental technological feat back in 1973.

“Shameless, Oldfangled Showmanship” came from the last line of the New York Times review of “Aloha.”  Columnist O’Conner was convinced that under the careful orchestration of Col. Parker, 38-year-old Elvis had evolved into a calculated and calculating showman.  However, Mr. O’Conner was not saying that this was a bad thing. 

He was not at all negative as he presented his ideas why Elvis was pure schmaltz:  “His white jumpsuit costume is adorned, in studded jewels, with American eagles.  His repertory includes a medley of 'Dixie,' 'Battle Hymn of the Republic,”'and 'Hush Little Baby.”'His fingers are clogged with flashy rings.  His act includes tossing scarves, dabbed in sweat from his chest, to aging teeny boppers.”

I love the way Mr. O’Conner summarized what all that meant:  “It is pure showbiz in the style of Radio City Music Hall, reeking of apple pie, or more precisely, peanut butter and jelly, distinctly grape.”  I’ll bet he was really proud of that line.  Reeking of peanut butter and jelly is a good thing, right?

Mr. O’Conner’s most negative statement came in an author aside, when he started a paragraph with the words “Mr. Presley,” but then decided Elvis didn’t deserve the title Mr.  He concluded “… no, that sounds downright silly.”  Well, excuse me, but your attitude sounds downright elitist.  However, Mr. O’Conner tried to recover by saying, “Elvis is a proven entertainment commodity.”  Wow, that was really going out on a limb.

Here is what the article says about Elvis’ career: “Bursting out of country music’s relatively youthful strain of ‘rock-a-billie’ around 1960, he bumped his way to national notoriety with such hits as ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Blue Suede Shoes.'”  I have to quibble about a few points, here.  Mr. O’Conner shows some ignorance about basic Elvis history.  Both songs he referenced came out in 1956, the year Elvis burst on the national scene, not 1960.

The Times review continues: “Appearing on Ed Sullivan’s TV variety show, he was generally restricted to camera shots not going below the belt.  Those were the television days of innocence and absurdity.”  If Mr. O’Conner wanted to point out the best example of the TV days of innocence, he should have referenced the nation’s mood when Elvis’ performed on the June 5, 1956 Milton Berle Show (camera shots were definitely not restricted to above the belt).  And the absurdity was better illustrated in the tidal wave of protest against Elvis in the press and the pulpits around the country after that wild appearance on the Berle show.

Fortunately, Mr. O’Conner followed that with begrudging acknowledgement of Elvis’ continued success: “But Elvis has survived.  He is still churning out hit records, and his relentlessly unmemorable movies have made millions of dollars.”

Of course Elvis survived.  As he got older he moved away from the wild rebel image and settled nicely into an era of shameless, oldfangled showmanship.  In fact, according to polls, this is the favorite Elvis period for the majority of today’s fans.  That’s fine for them, but I still favor 50’s Elvis, back when he was turgid, juicy and flamboyant.

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©  2008   Philip R Arnold, Original Elvis Blogmeister   All rights Reserved   www.ElvisBlog.net

I have never watched cable channel TV Land, but a little checking revealed that its programming consists of classic old shows like “Bonanza,” “I love Lucy,” “Gunsmoke,” “Andy Griffith” and “Mash.”    So, I’m not sure why they decided to have Elvis Month, but I am very glad they did.

Between August 3 and August 26, TV Land will feature twenty Elvis movies, concerts, and documentary videos.  Especially cool is the weekend line-up.  At 8PM every Saturday and Sunday night in August, we can watch Elvis concerts and other specials.  Also, on the big day, August 16, we can catch four different shows:  “Elvis, His Best Friend Remembers,” “Elvis By The Presleys,” “Ed Sullivan Rock & Roll Classics,” and “Myths and Legends – Elvis.”  And, if you can take long lunch hours from work (or are happily retired like me), there are four noon movies next week and three more the following.

The weekend concert videos of course include the big ones, “Aloha From Hawaii” and the “68 Comeback Special”.  I’m more interested in some I haven’t seen so recently or frequently: “The Great Performances-1, 2 and 3,” and “Elvis On Tour.”  I’m also looking forward to “Elvis and Me, Parts 1 and 2.”

The movies are a mixed bag.  By the time this article is posted, the one evening movie, “Love Me Tender” will have already been shown at 8PM, Friday August 3.  After that the sequence is “Wild In The Country” (I like Tuesday Weld in this one, but I like he even better in the 1988 movie “Heartbreak Hotel.”), “Fun In Acapulco” (I’ll never believe the bit about Elvis climbing up that cliff.), “Roustabout” (Elvis looks great on a motorcycle), “Girl Happy” (One of my favorites.  And, I love Shelly Fabares.), “Paradise Hawaiian Style” (Perhaps the record holder for the most girls in bikinis in an Elvis movie.), “Easy Come, East Go” (Elvis singing a duet with Elsa Lanchester has to be a low-point in Elvis movie soundtrack songs.), and “Live A Little, Love A Little” (Another favorite.  See the June 3, 2005 Elvisblog article).

In addition to all this cable content, TV Land has a bunch of good Elvis stuff on their website at http://www.tvland.com/specials/elvis/.  A complete schedule of their August Elvis programming is available to print out and keep by your favorite TV-watching chair.

TV Land and the city of Honolulu unveiled a life-sized bronze statue of Elvis last Thursday, July 26.  I recommend you take four minutes and watch the dedication ceremony on the website’s Video Gallery.  The statue is in front of the building where Elvis performed the “Aloha From Hawaii” concert in 1973.  Naturally, the Elvis statue is wearing the famous American Eagle jumpsuit, but bronze sequins don’t look near as good as rhinestones. For a selection of close-up photos of the Elvis statue, click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqAb2bMxnvM and watch an excellent slide show posted on YouTube by regular Elvisblog reader Ryan Ozawa.

Another nice feature on the TV Land website is their Video Gallery, which shows the original theater trailers for all the Elvis movies they will present – almost.  The trailer for “Easy Come, Easy Go” is missing, and “Speedway,” which is not on the viewing schedule, is included.  Some movies have two different trailers, and “Speedway” has four.  Don’t worry about clicking on each one to view them.  They all run automatically in sequence.  I also liked TV Land’s Photo Gallery, which included pictures of the statue ceremony, shots from Blue Hawaii, and other random Elvis photos.

Another unusual feature on TV Land.com is the link to Radio Interviews.  There are two of them, both conducted by iconic Hawaiian DJ and celebrity Tom Moffatt.  In the summer of 1959, Moffatt interviewed Elvis in Germany by phone.  In the spring of 1960, Moffatt did another phone interview with Elvis and the Colonel.  Elvis was in Hollywood working on the movie GI Blues at the time.  I was struck by how natural and comfortable Elvis sounded on both interviews.  Just a regular, humble guy.  Good interviews.

So, explore all the Elvis stuff on the TV Land website and enjoy all the Elvis movies and videos on the channel in August.  I know I will.

(C)  2005   Philip R Arnold   All Rights Reserved   www.elvisblog.net

Have you watched “Elvis Lives” on your local educational television channel yet?  I watched it this week and enjoyed what I saw very much.  However, they left out some stuff I was looking forward to, so I’m a little bit disappointed.

For anyone who doesn’t know, “Elvis Lives” is the name of a new DVD release of the performance of “Elvis The Concert” in Memphis during the 25^th Anniversary Elvis Week 2002. Hopefully, all Elvisblog readers know that “Elvis The Concert” is a multimedia blending of old Elvis performance video with live musical backing by the band-mates, vocal group back-ups, and the orchestra that performed with him throughout the 70s.  Because I had attended the real event five years ago, I was interested to see how that unique concept translated to DVD.  I must say, it worked very well indeed.

Even though my tickets for the original concert cost $65 each, I was still a long way from the stage.  I primarily watched the three giant screens above the musicians.  The largest one in the center had the old Elvis footage, and the two side screens had live shots of the guys in the TCB Band, the Imperials, JD Sumner and The Stamps, and the Sweet Inspirations.  From my distance, all these folks looked to be about a half inch tall.

However, the DVD showed close-ups of all the live musicians and singers, and this added so much to the experience.  Now, I could see James Burton’s fingers working when the camera zoomed in on his guitar.  I liked the frequent shots of Ronnie Tutt beating on that monster drum set and Glen D. Hardin pounding on the ivories.  One particularly interesting feature was when the DVD showed side-by-side split-screen images of 1973 and 2002 James Burton doing guitar solos on the same song.

Speaking of instrumental breaks, there was a little segment where Ronnie Tutt explained how the TCB guys could do longer solos in 2002 than on the original footage of “Johnny B. Goode.”  The film technicians would repeat a loop of the Elvis stuff on the main screen while each of the band-mates had their turn to solo.  James was great, and Jerry Scheff did some fine work on the bass, which is not an easy thing to pull off.  Glen D. Hardin did his solo, and then it was up to Ronnie to end it all at the right time and match up with the return of Elvis singing.  He pulled it off and the whole segment was a blast.

Much of the vintage footage used in the production was from the “Aloha From Hawaii” TV special.  However, Elvis did appear in two other jumpsuits, but these costume switches didn’t mess up the continuity.  Which brings me to the part that was missing from the TV special and the DVD.

“Elvis The Concert” was created in the mid-90s and was built around video from the 70s when the TCB Band backed Elvis in Las Vegas and on tour around the country.  However, to make the 25^th Anniversary celebration in Memphis really special, a new opening feature was added.  It was film from Elvis’ career on TV shows in 1956 and from his earliest movies.  Scotty Moore, DJ Fontana, Bill Black, and The Jordanaires backed Elvis in those days.  Bill Black had passed away in 1963, and Scotty and Graceland had not yet patched up their differences, so DJ was the only original musician on the stage.  Fill-in players, whose names were not familiar to me, capably handled the guitar and bass parts.

I can’t remember all the songs in this early Elvis segment, but I’m pretty sure one was “Ready Teddy” from The Ed Sullivan show where Elvis really got to shake his hips and drive the girls in the TV audience crazy.  One other song I was so happy to see in the 2002 concert was “Baby I Don’t Care.”  This has long been one of my favorite Elvis songs, and I consider it his best recording never released as a single.  The footage of Elvis doing the song came from the poolside scene in the movie Jailhouse Rock.

For some reason, this wonderful early Elvis segment was not included in the ETV special. Nor were ten additional songs from the 70s that are on the DVD.  The 1-1/2 hour telecast had several long breaks asking for donations to public television, so the actual concert time totaled only an hour or so.  The DVD is much longer with the extra songs and a half-hour of interviews as a bonus.  Priscilla and Lisa Marie both came on stage during the 2002 presentation of “Elvis The Concert,” but it is unclear whether this is shown in the DVD. 

One of the best songs on “Elvis Lives” is “Steamroller Blues.”  I get tickled when Elvis sings, “I’m a churning urn of burning funk.”  Other good songs on the TV specials were: “That’s All Right,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Suspicious Minds,” “A Big Hunk Of Love,” “ My Way,” “American Trilogy,” and “I Can’t Help Falling In Love.”

Some folks criticize EPE for just about anything they do.  Not this time.  Graceland has created a most unique Elvis video, a true technical marvel.  First, they created a superb concert experience blending the music of a live band with Elvis voice from 29 years earlier.  Now they have made real magic with the video of it all.  It is done so well, you might scratch your head and ask, “When did Elvis play with all those old dudes?”  Don’t worry about it.  These old dudes kick butt.

©  2007   Philip R Arnold   All Rights Reserved   www.elvisblog.net

It’s a fact that Elvis fans buy lots of Elvis stuff, and that keeps the smart marketers coming up with new goodies for us.  Well, they’ve done it again, and, if you’re looking for a way to get the most bang for your buck, let me recommend Elvis – The Ed Sullivan Shows.  You have probably read that this recently released triple DVD set contains all three shows where Ed Sullivan hosted Elvis in 1956 and 1957.  It is that and so much more, and I am truly surprised it costs only $30, not $50. 

Because I had seen these performances on a twelve-inch TV as a young fan of fourteen, there was a huge déjà vu factor for me when Elvis – The Ed Sullivan Shows arrived in the mail.  I was even more pleased when I saw the packaging.  Although the set covers events a half-century old, the graphic design is as cool and modern as you can get.  Mini-holograms front and back.  When you slide the set out of the heavy cardboard sleeve and fold it open, it measures almost three feet wide.  First class liner notes await you, done by famous rock & roll writer Greil Marcus, author of “Mystery Train.”

Some of the inner pages list the special features on each disk.  I love all the special features that come on DVDs these days, and Elvis – The Ed Sullivan Shows has plenty.  My favorite is a color film (no sound) of Elvis performing in 1955.  It is the earliest known video of Elvis performing and shows a step in his evolution as a performer.  Here he is wearing some sort of denim overalls, singing on a tiny stage (with young girls sitting on the edge).  He looks so young, and he sure is having fun.

One of the special features on each disc is the option to watch just the Elvis segments.  That’s exactly what I did first.  When you see all the songs back-to-back (four songs from Sept. 9, 1956, four songs from Oct. 28,1956, and seven songs from Jan. 6,1957, you start to notice interesting things.  For example, Elvis did three of his hits on all the shows: ”Hound Dog,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Love Me Tender.”  That’s not surprising with the first two being a two-sided smash that together stayed at # 1 for twelve weeks.  “Love Me Tender” was the title song from Elvis’ first movie, which got lots of mention on the shows.

Watching Elvis’ performances in sequence cleared up the confusion in my mind about whether Ed Sullivan filmed Elvis from the waist up on all three shows or just the last one.  Actually, Sullivan allowed full viewing of Elvis on just one song each on the first two shows.

Another thing I noticed was how Elvis toyed with the young girls in the audience by doing hand motions, mouth movements and exotic looks with his eyes. All followed by shrieks, of course.  The Jordanaires backed Elvis on every song and were constantly visible behind or beside him except for the tight shots of Elvis’ head.  That’s fine, but the band was not seen except on two songs.  You could tell Scotty, DJ, and Bill were close by, so why the camera didn’t pan to them mystifies me.  Well, maybe Col. Parker had already started his campaign that ultimately squeezed Scotty and Bill out.

The song on Disc 1 with the band on screen is “Ready Teddy,” and it is my favorite of the whole set.  Scotty rocks out on the instrumental bridge, and we get a full-shot view of Elvis doing some hot footwork.  This is the Elvis I tuned in to see back in 1956, and my preference is no different today.  I must admit that one move looks like classic James Brown, but I don’t care.  Elvis’ dancing was great and I wished it had lasted much longer.

The second time I watched the song, I couldn’t resist the temptation to play with the slow-mo and freeze-frame features on the remote.  Seeing Elvis in action in slow motion is such a kick for me.  Every time I freeze a good shot, I wish there was a machine connected to my TV that would print out a poster of what’s on the screen.  Boy, would I have a collection of cool posters.  Come to think of it, maybe that’s another good idea for those smart marketers.

©  2007   Philip R Arnold   All Rights Reserved   www.elvisblog.net

Jack Gould was the king of TV critics during his 35-year career with the New York Times.  He was there when the new medium was born, and he was its most notable commentator for the next two decades.  Like the rest of America, he saw Elvis’ second appearance on the Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956, the broadcast that freaked out the entire country.  The next day, Jack Gould’s pen dripped with condemnation of Elvis, and his comments set the tone for the huge national backlash that followed.  It’s fun to look at some of his statements, line-by-line, now that we have the historical perspective to make judgments on them.

“Elvis Presley is currently the entertainment world’s most astonishing figure.”  (So far, so good, but Mr. Gould gets no special credit for this statement.  Whether people liked or disliked Elvis in early June, 1956, nobody disputed he was the most astonishing figure in show biz.)

“Mr. Presley has no discernible singing ability.”  (This is the first indication that Mr. Gould just didn’t ‘get’ Elvis.  And, we can safely assume Mr. Gould never went out and bought any Elvis records.)

“His specialty is rhythm songs, which he renders in an undistinguished whine.”

(Oh come on.  Elvis’ whine is very distinguished.)

“His phrasing, if it can be called that, consists of the stereotyped variations that go with a beginner’s aria in a bathtub.”  (Say what???  Certainly not the simplest and clearest metaphor Mr. Gould ever wrote.  A lowly blog writer might say “like a kid singing in the shower.)

“For the ear he is an unutterable bore…”  (You want boring?  How about “stereotyped variations that go with a beginner’s aria in a bathtub”?  Maybe Elvis was a bore to Jack Gould, but he could make the girls cry at his concerts.  Elvis was anything but boring to them.)

“From watching Mr. Presley it is wholly evident that his skill lies in another direction.  He is a rock-and-roll variation on one of the most standard acts in show business: the virtuoso of the hootchy-kootchy.  His specialty is an accented movement of the body… identified with the repertoire of the blond bombshells of the burlesque runway.”  (At the end of “Hound Dog” on the Berle Show, Elvis sure did do some classic bump-and-grind.  Mr. Gould’s loquacious pontification took a long while to say that, but, you will note, he didn’t say he disliked it.)

“The gyration never had anything to do with the world of popular music and still doesn’t.”  (Boy, did Mr. Gould get that one wrong.  It’s a good thing he passed away before music videos showed up on MTV.  He’d probably roll over in his grave if he saw one now.  Today’s popular music is synonymous with sensual gyrations.)

Jack Gould was a middle-aged man when he watched Elvis perform on TV on June 5, 1956, so he can be excused for ‘not getting it.’  But millions of American teenagers saw it and got it.  Got it big time.  Elvis’ career shot into overdrive and all of the bad press from TV critics and others could not stop it.

©   2006    Philip R Arnold    All Right Reserved    www.elvisblog.net