The Ed Wynn Show
1949-1950

By Jim Davidson
Posted 5/29/2005

Ed's guest was Buster Keaton in a December 1949 episode.

"A comedian is not a man who says funny things. A comedian is one who says things funny." So spoke Ed Wynn (1886-1966), the lovable old coot with the giggly laugh and a penchant for outlandish attire. By the late 1940s, with a successful 40-year career in vaudeville, Broadway, and radio behind him, the funny man known as "the perfect fool," was considered a has-been - a relic whose humor was too old-fashioned for a modern audience. But television helped reabilitate him, beginning with his 1949-1950 variety series.

The comedy on The Ed Wynn Show consisted mostly of old vaudeville schtick, with lots of corny jokes and silly sight gags. Each week, the show would end with Ed retiring to his bed, delivering quips as the credits rolled. Even though it was material Wynn was comfortable with, he found the technology of TV disconcerting. With technicians running around the stage, getting between him and the studio audience, it was hard for him to make a connection. As he reportedly commented at the time, "You just can't get laughs out of cameramen's asses." But despite the obstacles, the star's warmth shone through. Even in the commercials, Ed delivered his lines with such sincerity, it made you want to buy the product.

The show wasn't a success in terms of ratings. Despite several schedule changes over the course of its single season on the air (or maybe because of them), it never really found its audience. But it did win a couple of Emmy awards, one for Best Live Show and another for Wynn himself as Most Outstanding Personality. Variety gave the show good reviews, crediting it with "a high degree of soft humor rather than raucous comedy and its appeal lies largely in the upper IQ strata."

According to writer Hal Kantor, it was hard to find big name guest stars because most were terrified of going on a live show, where flubs were irretrievable. And at first Ed didn't want other comedians because, of course, he was the show's funny man. But after a while, he loosened up a bit and allowed the likes of Buster Keaton, The Three Stooges, Leon Errol, and Ben Blue. Other guest stars ran the gamut from older established stars like Gloria Swanson and Charles Laughton to up-and-coming youngsters like Dinah Shore. And when Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz appeared in a December 1949 episode, no one could guess that they would become two of TV's first superstars a couple of seasons later on I Love Lucy.

The Ed Wynn Show was the first network program to originate from Hollywood. At the time, it wasn't possible to transmit a live telecast simultaneously from coast-to-coast. The typical practice was to air a show live in New York, make a kinescope film of the broadcast, ship it across the country, and air the kinescope on the west coast at a later date. Wynn's show reversed the process, airing live in Los Angeles while east coast viewers saw a kinescope about two weeks later (though not necessarily on the same day of the week).

Wynn went on to host The All Star Revue (1950-52) on a rotating basis and starred in a sitcom (also called The Ed Wynn Show) during the 1958-59 season. But his big break came when he appeared in the 1956 Playhouse 90 production of Requiem for a Heavyweight, impressing critics by proving that he could excel in a dramatic role. His later years were busy ones, with guest appearances on The Twilight Zone and Bonanza, and character parts in films like The Diary of Anne Frank, Cinderfella, as well as Disney movies like The Absent Minded Professor, Babes in Toyland, and Mary Poppins. Not bad for an old coot!

For this episode guide, I've listed the live Los Angeles airdate, as well as the date that the show's kinescope aired in New York. This information was derived from TV listings and ads in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Because the Los Angeles Times listings don't always include guest stars, I've made an educated guess (indicated in red) for those dates, assuming that these few episodes aired in the same sequence as the ones in New York.