The Beatles on Ed Sullivan - 51 years ago today.......and how Walter Cronkite played a major role

[underpants]

The Beatles' Yearlong Journey To 'The Ed Sullivan Show'

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2014/02/07/273085051/the-beatles-year-long-journey-to-the-ed-sullivan-show

The story goes that CBS variety show host Ed Sullivan just happened to be at London's airport, when thousands of fans were awaiting the Beatles' return from a tour of Sweden.

"Of course he'd never heard of the Beatles," says Sullivan biographer Jerry Bowles, "but instantly he recognized that if they could get 3,000 screaming teenagers to show up at an airport in the middle of the night, they must be somebody."

Major American newsmagazines and TV networks also did stories on the Beatles after that Royal Command Performance. One aired on CBS the morning of Nov. 22, 1963.

The story might very well have aired again that night, but at 1 p.m. CST, President John F. Kennedy died in Dallas. CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite decided to sit on the Beatles story for three weeks, while the country mourned the loss of JFK.

But by Dec. 10, Cronkite felt the country could use the diversion and re-aired the Beatles piece. Fourteen-year-old Marsha Albert of Silver Spring, Md., saw the broadcast and wrote WWDC radio requesting Beatles music. DJ Carroll James arranged to have a copy of the British release of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" hand-carried from England. He played it eight days before Christmas 1963.


"Kids are not in school. And they listened to the radio in those days. There are no video games. Kids that have Christmas and Hanukkah money and Mommy and Daddy can take them to the record store, and the next thing you know 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' is a humongous hit in New York and other cities follow."

[John1956PA]

1. 51 years ago today.

The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964.

[underpants]

2. Whoops

thanks. editing.

[niyad]

3. ladies and gentlemen--THE BEATLES:

http://vimeo.com/85085658

[DBoon]

4. Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust!

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[corkhead]

6. I Always interpreted that as a reference to a resurgence

The Beatles enjoyed in the mid to late 70s. I was a little too young for them the first time around but became fans around the time that the 62-66 and 67-70 collections came out. I subsequently collected up pretty much their whole catalog at that time. The resurgence also happened at that same time in Britain but it was quickly washed out to sea by the fledgling punk movement

My interest in the Beatles did "bite the dust" (at least for a while) around the time London Calling came out.

My intepretation may be wrong but that was how I took it.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. I had the first American release of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (Capitol Records)

The flip side was "I Saw Her Standing There"

[BlancheSplanchnik]

7. wow! I watched it!

Had just turned 6.

Thanks!