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When TV was taking its first baby steps toward becoming a national addiction, Milton Berle's Tuesday-night variety show was the reason a lot of people got hooked. The ex-vaudeville comic debuted as the host of the Texaco Star Theater in 1948 and quickly became so popular he earned the nickname "Mr. Television." This series of DVD reissues, six in all, collects episodes from the year Berle switched sponsors, in 1953, to Buick. Volume 1, like subsequent entries, contains two hour-long episodes, each of which is loosely structured around a central plot.

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The second volume culled from Milton Berle's 1953-54 TV series offers two hour-long episodes of the Buick Berle Show, each one short on plot and long on variety-show hot-cha-cha. The first episode is very, very loosely arranged around the idea of how the show is put together, with guest stars who appear to have been drawn from an alphabetical phone book listing: dumb-blonde prototype Dagmar, French singer-actress Denise Darcel, and then-young crooner Vic Damone (performing "April in Portugal"). The second episode has Uncle Miltie pursuing opera singer Marguerite Piazza (she sings an aria from Carmen, classing up the show a bit), while receiving tedious advice from actor Paul Douglas. (Sample joke from an art museum sequence: Douglas points out the work of an "old Dutch Master," to which Berle replies, "It looks more like a White Owl to me." Ouch.)

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Two more episodes from Milton Berle's 1953-54 variety-show season, a time when Uncle Miltie was still riding high as TV's crown prince of cornball comedy. The first episode is a pre-Christmas show in which Berle tries to convince his guests to come to his holiday party. They include Peter Lawford (an entire song routine is built around Berle's trying to figure out exactly what Lawford's talent is---a legitimate question, actually) and Maria Riva, then a fledging actress who is better known to history as Marlene Dietrich's daughter. The real fun of this installment, however, is Carol Channing, fresh from her Broadway triumph in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, who shows why "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" was her signature song long before Marilyn Monroe got her mitts on it. There's also an odd maudlin interlude for Berle to sing "I'll Go My Way by Myself," one of the comedian's forays into Chaplinesque pathos.

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Product Description
The classic "Milton Berle's Buick Hour" was television at its best, with many of the world's greatest entertainers joining Uncle Miltie in two raucous hours filled with songs, skits and lots of laughs. Volume 4 features guest appearences by Robert Cummings, Gertrude Berg and Charlie Applewhite.

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Description:
The classic "Milton Berle's Buick Hour" was television at its best with many of the world's greatest entertainers joining "Uncle Miltie" on his raucous shows filled with songs, skits and lots of laughs. Features guest appearances by Sid Caesar, Judith Anderson and Jack Webb.

Buy now!