(June/July 1986)

Twenty-three years after its 1948 premiere, "The Ed Sullivan
Show" had its final broadcast on June 6, 1971.

For more than two decades, Sullivan’s variety show was the
premiere television showcase for entertainers of all stripes,
including borscht-belt comedians, plate-spinning vaudeville
throwbacks and, most significantly, some of the biggest and
most current names in rock ‘n’ roll.

In its first eight years of existence, there was no such thing as
rock ‘n’ roll to be featured on the program originally called
"Toast of the Town," yet even its first broadcast made music
history when Broadway composers Richard Rodgers and
Oscar Hammerstein II gave the world its first taste of the score
from their upcoming musical, South Pacific.

Comedian Carol Burnett played both dramatic and comedic roles
on stage and screen. She has received numerous awards and
accolades, including seven Golden Globe Awards, a Grammy
Award, seven Primetime Emmy Awards, two Peabody Awards,
and a Tony Award.

Burnett was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom
in 2005.

Jay North, who starred as the young mischief maker with the characteristic blond cowlick on the 1959-63 CBS comedy
Dennis the Menace, has died.

North died Sunday at his home in Lake Butler, Florida, after
years of battling colon cancer.

On March 11, 1903, musician and band leader Lawrence Welk 
was born.

For the generation that grew up on the big bands of the 1930s
and ’40s, The Lawrence Welk Show was a blessed island of
calm in a world gone mad for rock and roll, and it aired like
clockwork every Saturday night from 1955 to 1982.

When ABC dropped The Lawrence Welk Show in 1971, Welk independently arranged a syndication deal that kept him on
the air for another 11 years and made him one of the richest
entertainers in America.