This script is a result of our new look at Videos pertaining to the underlying music that is part of Israeli dance. You can access this video script by clicking here or clicking the "We Do Music Videos" link on our welcome page. Four videos seemed quite interesting and we posed the question to our historical editor: write a short script discussing these four videos. Notice the operative word short in this request. As usual this has been ignored and the result is just too large to resolve in one script. This research project, which is still ongoing, has been broken up and this script deals with just one of the videos. Shortly further scripts will appear pertaining to the other videos but for now we hope that you enjoy this script which touches on the history of some media outlets in the Philadelphia area and their one encounter with Israeli dance.

Note: You will not see this video in our video section since we really don't know where to categorize this per a specific dance. But, it does involve Israeli dance and it does involve a well known Israeli dance choreographer, Moshe Eskayo, seen here being interviewed by Mike Dougles in the rightmost picture. How this occurs in Philadelphia on May 21st, 1971 allows us to discuss one of the most interesting media outlets in this country at least as far as its history is concerned.
When we look at electronic communication, the first instance seems to be the telegraph whose use became widespread during the late 1830's. This technology was so established that Union forces during the Civil war were "wired" in to their commanders and Washington. It is said that the telegraph, complemented by a rapidly expanding railroad network, provided the edge to the Union effort. In fact, both went hand in hand as most telegraph lines across the US were positioned on railroad right of ways. The Telegraph came with its own language, Morse code, which converted operator's dot and dashes into text.
The telegraph was tethered to the wire which ran impulses between the termini. These impulses could be looked at as static caused by electrical discharges down the wire between the connections. But, what about situations where laying wire was not feasible such as ships at sea. Several engineers and scientists started to look at the transmission of such static - electromagnetic waves - through the air. One such pioneer, Marconi, patented what we now call Radio in 1896. Creation of this medium was in two parts: creating and receiving. With further experimentation Marconi was able to create a receiver for his transmissions. And we should note that Marconi was not alone in the experimentation of radio transmission and reception although progress could be considered slow by today's standards.
Proof of the slow advances in Radio can be seen in the sinking of the Titanic on April 15th, 1912 - almost 16 years after Marconi's patent. The Titanic did have radio, but the distress signal went out as a Morse code SOS. Apparently there were other ships in the area at the time of the sinking but the vague SOS did not have an impact. We assume this led to an international convention standardizing call letters for seagoing vessels so at least there would be an available listing to attribute the sender of such signals. Each country at the time was given a prefix and the United States was assigned the letters W and K. Initially K was assigned to Atlantic Ocean based ships and W to those in the Pacific but with the advent of the Panama Canal it became clear that this separation was irrelevant.
Even in great world events, the lack of progress in radio was and is surprising. In World War II, every unit had a radioman easily spotted by the antenna he was carrying. No such thing existed in World War I. Orders and actions were facilitated by runners on all fronts and by all sides. In WWI this was not easy and very dangerous in such combat where the runner would have been one of few open targets in an arena of fixed facilities like trenches. On both sides runners had high mortality because of this lack of communication and their survival through the war alone gave them a type of special status. Think how much different, considering the most prominent German runner of that war, the world could have been if what we consider as ordinary commercial radio, which could have been available to all parties with a slight tweak, had been used.
But change was in the air (if you'll excuse the pun). Even before WWI ended engineers began to understand that the power of this new media was not in creating static emissions but in the underlying use (vocalization) of the transmission. Hence, experimental transmissions of voice were started with the ultimate result being the first US radio broadcast on Nov 2, 1920 reporting the election of that day. The location was Westinghouse company headquaters in Pittsburgh. The station was KDKA and it was broadcasting on radio dial 1020 as it does today. To receive this broadcast, listeners had to have a receiver which, no doubt, Westinghouse had been making available to its employees and perhaps the public to create an audience.
George Westinghouse had already been very successful with his Westinghouse Air Brake Company that made braking systems for railroads. In 1886 he expands this and creates the Westinghouse ELectric company. Westinghouse had always been a rival of Thomas Edison and this extended into the companies both formed: Westinghouse Electric and General Electric. In a bold move Westinghouse hired Nikolas Tesla from GE (Tesla and Edison had a falling out while Tesla was working for Edison) and using Tesla's ideas about alternating current expanded into the creation and transmission of electricity. It was natural therefore for Westinghouse to look at Radio as the creation and transmission of electricity through a different medium and so Westinghouse (and Tesla) led the way into the age of radio.
Anyway, sometime early in 1921 the convention of assigning W to east coast and K to west coast stations is set (although the boundary would be modified over the years). KDKA, with a call sign grandfathered in, would soon start broadcasting to the Pittsburgh area on a regular schedule. About 400 miles west in Chicago, in late 1921, Westinghouse would again be involved in another special event in US commercial radio broadcasting history using call letters that we in Philadelphia would readily recognize. Allegedly with the initial words of "My God, but it's dark in here!", selections from the opera, Madame Butterfly, would be broadcast live to the Chicago area on KYW. KYW? The local Philadephia radio and television station? Yep. The same KYW is the seventh authorized commercial radio broadcaster in the country operating out of Chicago also initially using the same 1020 frequency as KDKA. To this day it is a mystery as to how this station gets call letters starting with a K given that Chicago is east of all the demarkation lines ever set between K and W. The first letter should really have been W and perhaps the call letters got swapped and should have been WYK. In the end, KYW is only one of seven stations remaining east of the Mississippi with a K leading call designation. Of course, to those not familiar, it might seem a mystery as to how KYW starts in Chicago, moves to Philadelphia, then Cleveland and then back to Philadelphia. Hopefully we will have answered this latter question by time you are done reading this script. Note: The first picture of this montage is from a web site dedicated to the history of media in Chicago, www.richsamuels.com where there is a link to a discussion of the early KYW broadcasts.
Until KYW relocates, the station becomes a fixture of Chicago media. This montage shows several stories about KYW personalitiers of the time as written in the Chicago Tribune. But it's not all positive. Westinghouse engineers had decided that 570 on the AM dial was the best position for a commercial station in this region of Chicago and for a few years KYW had this location. But, the early 20's was a time of very rapid expansion of the radio industry in the US with stations popping up possibly every day. By 1925, the Federal Radio commission had been established and continued the practice of allocating W call letters east of the Mississippi and K to those stations that were west. Stations were grandfathered in as was the case of KYW. By 1926 the radio commission started to look at the problems that multiple stations would create snd came up with the following solution. The country was split into five regions with each region having 8 or so clear channel broadcasters (this station's frequency would not be allocated anywhere else in the country) 5 regional clear channels where the frequency would not be allocated anywhere else in the region and 30 or so local frequencies with several channels allocated to the same frequency within a region. For whatever reason, KYW was again allocated the 1020 band in the Chicago area and Westinghouse thought that this was not a feasible solution given the poor reception to this frequency in many areas of the Chicago metropolitan area.
As Westinghouse becomes disenchanted with the Chicago area due to government decrees and intervension, the radio industry is expanding rapidly. One major development is the formation of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1926. At the time NBC was an amalgamation of ownership by the big three in radio broadcasting: RCA, GE and Westinghouse. Although sometime in the future, due to Antitrust considerations, RCA would buy out its partners (and eventually GE would buy out RCA in 1987) all the stations owned by these big three corporations would become affiliates of the NBC network. KYW was no exception. NBC became so big that shortly after its creation it itself split into the Red and Blue networks whose logos we display in this montage. The Westinghouse stations could choose which version of NBC to join and some joined the blue network (we think KDKA was an example of this) and sone like KYW were part of the Red Network. Sometime in the '40s due to Antitrust considerations, NBC Blue was sold and became what we now know to be ABC and therefore Westinghouse, at that time, had stations affiliated with both ABC and NBC and it would stay this way until Westinghouse bought out CBS in 1995, sometime in the future, with the effect that all its stations would became CBS affiliates. And, by the way, if this history seems complicated, the early history of radio in this country is byzantine with media swaps, swindles and shady financial dealings which forced the creation of the various governmental regulatory agencies leading up to the FCC.
Sometime in 1934 (the date seems to be around Dec 10, 1934) the powers that be at Westinghouse act on the decision to move KYW east to Philadelphia. Apparently this is a fast decision as nothing is ready for the station on its arrival to our city. Yet the station blends into its new adopted city easily as this picture, a copy of the Inquirer radio listings, shows if you click on it and enlarge it. The reason for this is that after the move, for several years, the station is administered by WCAU, the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia with personnel moving back and forth between stations. Additionally, sometime late in the '30s, NBC proper becomes a guardian. While this is going on Westinghouse is building a state of the art studio at 1619 Walnut Street in the heart of Philadelphia to house the station and sometime in 1940 the station reverts back to Westinghouse rule. 25 years later a similar situation will occur after a "forced" movement out of the city 10 years before.
Above we have been tracking KYW radio through its first 20 or so years. In that time there is the creation of NBC and the imposition of more federal regulations. But, a year after the formation of NBC, a patent is filed for a more powerful use of radio. This involves Philo Farnesworth and his ideas formulated while working a tractor on an Iowa farm. While plowing he envisions a device that would paint a screen section by section fast enough to make it seem to the viewer that this was live pictures. In 1927 he is able to prove this and applies for a patent. His is one of at least four viable ideas as to how to create television. There are ideas from England, Germany, RCA (using a Russian Engineer's idea) but Farnesworth's concept will win out in the end. Unfortunately for him, numerous lawsuits against him (and he against them) by RCA and David Sarnoff make moot any real future financial gain (although Farnsworth did win a million dollar settlement against RCA) but at least Farnesworth gets his due when he appears on "I've Got A Secret" as the inventor of Television as indicated in the rightmost pictures of this montage.
If we are discussing Farnsworth, we should spend some equal time discussing his nemesis, David Sarnoff. Sarnoff emigrates from Russia and arrives in New York in the early 1900s. Among his interests is the newspaper business but he eventually becomes an employee of the Marconi Radio company. Over the years he is promoted through this company's ranks and is aware that the company during World War I is experimenting with vocal text transmission. But the company mindset is still on what is called point to point that is the basis of the wired telegraph. To Sarnoff's credit, he realizes that Radio's future will be from point to mass population. In a series of deals, GE is able to create the Radio Corporation of America out of the Marconi company and Sarnoff continues to rise through these new ranks. He becomes president of RCA in 1930 and oversees the Red and Blue radio networks of RCA but his interest is also on the new technology of television. Given his Russian heritage, he backs a Russian engineer's concept for TV. It is said that RCA spends 50 million to perfect TV but it is obvious that the Russian engineer has used Farnesworth's principles and this results in the patent suits indicated above. After much legal battle RCA and Sarnoff settle the case with Farnsworth for a million dollars although it is clear that RCA stands to gain multiple millions from this new technology.
One company that enthusiastically accepts Farnsworth's ideas is the Philadelphia Storage Battery company which by that time had changed its name to Philco. Philco was already a part of the radio mania that swept the country in the 1920's being a supplier of radio receivers. Philco did much to make Philadelphia at that time a leader in technology development. This montage shows a variety of technologies that Philco was involved in including the aforementioned radio production, television cameras and receivers (what we now call TVs) and early computer technologies. And, one of its engineers at the height of the company's success is the aforementioned Philo Farnsworth lending his expertise to Philco's efforts.
Thanks to Philco as mentioned, many of the early advances in Television occur in the Philadelphia area as documented in a script on the Early television web site which you can access by clicking here. Starting as WX3E in 1932 (changed to WPTZ in 1941 when it became the third television station authorized by the FCC) this station was at the forefront of early TV developments. For example, it joins with NBC's TV station in New York to create the first (albeit very small) Broadcasting network pre World War II. As far as we know, the station began to broadcast the Penn football games on a regular schedule making WPTZ the first station to have a regular sport schedule. After the war, with the addition of GE's station in Schenectady, NY, these three stations are the first to air NBC's TV lineup as it starts in Nov 1946. It's experience with remote locations such as football games and the annual Mummers Day Parade is probably the reason that both the Republican and Democratic conventions were held in Philadelphia, post war, in 1948. The station had also originated the first political convention TV coverage in 1940 as it televised the 1940 Republican convention.
We should, in fairness, indicate that in this period, the early 30's, the United States is not the leader in television technologies. Concensus is that the Germans take the lead in this. Germany starts an experimental broadcast in 1929 and by the early 30's Berlin has a consistent television station broadcasting on the air. This culminates in 1936 as the Germans televise the 1936 Berlin Olympics. This is the Olympics of Jesse Owen's fame and we don't doubt that the athletic events had the camera's highest priority but, being German TV and operated by the state, its leaders are also highly profiled in this 1936 German television special. It is highly ironic that the leader of Germany at the time, who made his reputation in World War I delivering messages because of the lack of Radio advancement, is one of the prominent personalities/highlights of these telecasts which are in essence advanced usages of radio.
In all countries, Television stations were silenced during World War II. Homing devices had been perfected to the point that point of origin could be discerned by intersecting radio signals and that's exactly what was television. However in specific military theaters, such as in several pacific island campaigns, the military experimented with television as a way for commanders to control battlefield action. When the war ended, the ban on televison transmission ceased. So, WPTZ went back on the air, and as mentioned the station became an original menber of the NBC television network post World War II. What television shows does this network feature at that time? Much of its talent trades radio for television and NBC radio had talent galore even given the sale of its Blue subnetwork of stations. In addition, TV shows featuring the pop music of the time - and this can only mean the sounds of Swing music by the Big Bands - are readily accepted and appreciated by the audience. One such pop music favorite was a Big Band show starring Kay Kyser and his ensemble called Kay Kyser's Kollege Of Musical Knowledge which was scheduled Saturday nights on the network. This show featured a young singer from Chicago whose real name was Michael Doud, Jr. and this same singer some twenty years later, whose stage name became Mike Douglas on this Kyser show, would be interviewing Moshe Eskayo about Israeli dance.
However, Philco, at that point, is a company having financial problems and a quick source of funding was to sell WPTZ to another concern. In 1953 Westinghouse Broadcasting purchases this TV station to add to its broadcasting properties. Apparently NBC would have liked to purchase this station as Philadelphia was the largest city in the country where NBC did not have a company owned affiliate. Although the Westinghouse stations were NBC affiliates, this apparently did not satisfy the NBC hierarchy. This montage, focused on the year 1953, shows a radio schedule for KYW on a Sunday, a live broadcast of Jean Shepherd originating from KYW radio before he would move to WOR, New York, and become a radio legend, and a picture of Gary Geers who would remain with Channel 3 in its various call letters for his entire career which included being the announcer on the Mike Douglas show when it originates from Philadelphia.
With a set of threats about dropping Westinghouse stations as affiliates, Westinghouse management agrees to sell the transmission rights of KYW AM and WPTZ TV in Philadephia (apparently Westinghouse also had KYW FM in the city but this frequency was donated to WHYY FM, the city's first public radio station) to NBC for NBC's owned and operated stations in Cleveland. So sometime in 1956 KYW is on the move again as the former NBC stations in Cleveland become the Westinghouse KYW AM and KYW TV. In Philadelphia NBC brands its new stations as WRCV AM and WRCV TV apparently honoring RCA Victor in this designation. Another inheritance was the studios at 1619 Walnut which, after a rehab, still were state of art in terms of broadcasting in spite of the fact that they had been completed 15 years before.
Before we discuss how the old KYW/new WRCV merges into the city's fabric of life, what about the new KYW stations in Cleveland? How does that city react to a third movement of KYW into a new city. No doubt the call letters seem odd. KYW is one of only 7 stations east of the Mississippi to start with the letter K and to a population not used to these call letter, this must have been somewhat surprising. But this montage kind of shows that KYW entered into the life of Cleveland very successfully, assuming the reports indicated here of listenership is correct. Notice also that the station schedules hymms at selected times of the day including late at night. Whether this was the practice in Philadelphia before the move would have to be investigated although we doubt it.
As both KYWs set up shop in Cleveland, Philadelphia also has to get used to the new call letters that replace KYW. Since the early 50's radio has been on the decline with television on the ascendancy. For all intents and purposes, the NBC radio network at that point amounts to the weekend programming of "Monitor" - something akin to NPR's Morning Edition today - and around the clock on the hour news reports. The NBC radio stars of the past decades have either migrated to the NBC television network, or perhaps worse from NBC's point of view, emigrated to the other non-NBC television networks. It is this second situation that sees Jack Benny move to CBS as does Burns and Allen (although to be fair Burns and Allen had moved to CBS while doing their Radio program. Since both KYW in Cleveland and WRCV in Philadelphia were a part of the NBC television network, really little difference would be seen per network fare if situalted in Cleveland or Philadelphia.
Differences between the two stations would arise when the airways reverted back to local programming which in the early days of television was a good part of the schedule. Also, television habits were different than today with much fewer choices and less selection. However, morning TV fare on NBC affiliated stations by this time was entirely different. By 1955, the whole country was watching the Today show. The Today show still continues but the format is very different. At that time it was hosted by Dave Garroway, whose image belied a job history of being a disk jockey for much of his life. Garroway was avuncular, similar to Garrison Keillor for those readers who have this familiarity. Garroway also had a very subtle sense of humor especially in his choice of co-host as indicated in this montage. The rightmost picture is one of Garroway doing his famous daily signoff at Today with the word "peace". You can also see the simplicitiy of the Today set that Garroway worked on.
The Today show was the brainchild of Sylvester (Pat) Weaver who was NBC's president during the 1950's. Probably more than any other person he defined TV programming during his tenure with the network which ended in the late 1950's. He had assumptions about the intellegence of the audience of early TV. You can see this in his pick of Garroway to host the Today show. Garroway had multiple interests including astromomy and the evolution of man, hardly what one would expect from the host of what was really an early morning entertainment show. But Weaver believed in his audience and set out a schedule of programming that attempted to educate as well as entertain. In 1954 he also established the Tonight show but by 1955/56 as KYW switches to Cleveland this wasn't as ingrained a feature of NBC as the Today show was. We should add that Weaver was no slouch at creating nights of entertainment, an idea that NBC followed for decades. It was Weaver who had the inspiration that would become the 90 minute long "Your Show Of Shows", at a time when comedy shows were having difficulty in filling 30 minutes, featuring Sid Ceasar and Imogene Coco with a writing staff that would include legends such as Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and others.
After leaving NBC, Weaver became the founder and president of a small cable operation in California which became known for producing cultural programming at no cost to the subscribers. Weaver was elected to membership of the Broadcasting Hall of Fame for his involvement with NBC (as described above) and for creating the cable industry. But he is probably better known for another aspect of his life. He had a daughter named Susan who changed her name to Siguorney after reading "The Great Gatsby". You may have heard of Siguorney Weaver who has starred in many a movie but perhaps you didn't realize that her father was a pioneer of early TV programming.
For whatever reason, it was a little harder to change habits with late night television and it really would take a personality like Johnny Carson to accomplish this. In the interim, Weaver looked around and saw that the NBC station in New York was succeeding with a type of variety show starring Steve Allen in this time spot. This show was a local broadcast and no one outside of the New York area could view it. Allen was a unique personality for the time. His parents were both in Vaudeville so he got a taste of the entertainment industry at a very early age. Similar to Garroway, Allen had multiple interests. He was interested in music (having composed several popular numbers) and in writing books. Not as cerebral as Garroway, nevertheless he could authentically make fun on a variety of different subjects and had a great creative mind as far as comedy was concerned. He also had a good taste in women as his second marriage was to Jayne Meadows, the movie actress.
Allen started the practice of talking/interviewing the audience and, at first, used a live camera to randomly interview people on the street. After a while, he got the great idea of planting the person to be interviewed sometimes in the audience but always on the street. Several comics played those interviewed, Tom Posten, Don Knotts and Louie Nye and all three enjoyed popularity after the Allen show had gone off the air. In fact, those who are familiar with the Newhart show will remember Posten as the handyman. And Don Knotts was Andy Griffith's deputy on the Andy Griffith show. And, one other thing should be mentioned as this script is being written a month after David Letterman's retirement from late night. Letterman pulled a lot of Allen's tricks during Letterman's early years of broadcasting at night.
The Allen show on NBC lasted until 1957 when Allen left. NBC tried another type of format in this time period but all conceded that this new format wasn't working. So, In looking around, Weaver picked a somewhat surpprising choice. Very similar to Dave Garroway but without the spontaneity, perhaps somewhat darker, Jack Paar was only a monologist whose previous experience was in talk radio. But, he had a side of him that was very authentic. and to some degree viewers were very sympathetic to his difficulties. He himself could exhibit great emotion. And, there was always the chance that he might walk off the set as he quit the show during live performances on several occasions, the last time being in 1962. However, there is at least one large positive in Paar's career as he interviews both candidates for President, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, before the 1960 election.
When Paar leaves in 1962, and it is announced that Johnny Carson will replace him in 1963, Group Westinghouse as it is now called - and KYW Cleveland is a part of this group of stations owned by Westinghouse - sees an opportunity both in the afternoon and at night. Instead of airing the Carson show at night, Westinghouse contracts Steve Allen to recreate his version of the Tonight Show to be aired on both the group Westinghouse stations and any other independent stations that might be interested. In addition, somewhat before announcing the Allen show, Group Westinghouse decides to expand its independent broadcasting into the afternoon. On December 11, 1961 The Mike Douglas show debuts on KYW using that station's facilities for production. This is the same Mike Douglas indicated previously as part of Kay Kyser's Kollege Of Musical Knowledge. This montage shows several ads associated with the Douglas show over the years in several of the cities that the show was syndicated.
Douglas is not a comic and at this point has limited ability to deliver a monolog. The solution: open the show with a song or two. An added gimmick to the show was that there would be a weekly co-host and the first weekly co-host as the show debuts is Gretchen Wyler who was a prominent Broadway actress at the time. This montage has a picture of her from about the time of the show and another of her circa 1977. The co-host was expected to help with any interviews done that week and one expects that the guest list was skewed to reflect the interests of the weekly guest host. Of course, the show had a built-in problem at the time: the show was taped at KYW's Cleveland studios so there was a limitation as to what stars could spend a week in that city let alone a day.
But a resolution of the Cleveland problem for the Douglas show was on the horizon. The FCC had already been questioning the transfer of stations between Westinghouse and NBC that moved KYW to Cleveland in 1955. It was apparent to the commission that NBC had applied pressure to effect the exchange. The FCC nullified the transfers and ordered NBC and Westinghouse to again transfer the appropriate stations back to their original cities. So, on June 19th, 1965, Westinghouse regains control of the NBC's radio and Television station in Philadelphia while Cleveland sees the return of NBC to that city. For the third time in its history, not considering its original creation, the call letters of KYW radio have moved between cities. After its creation in Chicago, from Chicago to Phila, from Phila to Cleveland and then back again. The Television station has also been moving from its creation as WPTZ to KYW TV in Cleveland and now back to Philadelphia with the KYW TV call sign. The Cleveland stations are renamed WKYC AM and TV. This montage shows the call letters as displayed on the various channels
While NBC offers to buy the Douglas show and keep it in Cleveland, Group W (the new name for Group Westinghouse) moves the show to Philadelphia using the basement of the 1619 Walnut bldg as the stage for the show. The announcer changes as Gary Geers assumes that responsibility. The last show produced in Cleveland is apparently aired on August 13th, 1965 and we know this by the fact that the mayor of Cleveland is a guest. We think the first show produced in Phila is between August 16th and August 26th as on August 26th Juanita Kidd Stout, a local Philadelphia judge who was known nationally, is a guest. The show would be based in Phila for the next 13 years before moving to LA in 1978 and then quiting production in 1980.
With the Douglas show now being produced in Philadelphia, the show finds that its selection of guests and hosts has been increased. While still not located in the capitals of entertainment, New York or Los Angeles, the city is about a two hour limosine ride from downtown Manhatten. Especially in the rest of the 60's, it would not be unusual to see one of Douglas' guests appear that week on the Ed Sullivan Show the Sunday before or on the Tonight Show that week with Johnny Carson as the logistics of this were possible due to Philadelphia's proximity to New York. By this time Westinghouse had stopped producing its competitor to Tonight on late night TV. Steve Allen had done the hosting for two years and then Regis Philbin took the reins for a year until production stopped. Carson had taken over the Tonight show in 1963 and by 1965 owned late night TV. One could say the same about Ed Sullivan and how his show dominated Sunday Night around the time that Douglas moves to Philadelphia. Sullivan's dominance was particularly apparent when he featured popular British boy bands such as the Beetles and the Rolling Stones.
The mid 1960's saw the rise of comedians who grew up doing comedy in what was called the Borscht Belt. This described a set of hotels in the Catskill area of New York state whose heyday was from post World War II until the advent of jet traffic to other resort areas. Each hotel provided entertainment to its guests and comedy was always a part of the entertainment repertoire. Most of these comedians discussed their childhood growing up Jewish in the ghettos of New York. By 1965 many of these men (and a few women) were at the height of their careers. Names like Joe E Leonard, Alan King, Myron Cohen, Jackie Mason would often be a part of the Sullivan and Carson shows. Buddy Hackett would talk about his transistion from life in New York to war in Korea as he reached the age of 18. This was the period when Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, both Jewish New Yorkers, paired up to create skits about the 2000 year old man. This montage shows pictures of those named here but there are multiple names missing who were regulars on Carson and Sullivan.
One such comedian, perhaps we should say humorist, with a similar background when growing up (being a part of a large Jewish immigrant family) had taken a detour into a teaching career. After a while, he could use both his experiences in teaching and growing up to create a comedy act. Possibly a little older than those mentioned above, this comedian, Sam Levenson, had already been a guest host for Ed Sullivan several years before. During the '70s, when Carson moved his show to LA, Levenson was a frequent guest. Starting in 1969 Levenson wrote a series of books taking his comedic/humorist approach to the written page which will be discussed below. Levenson, whose pictures make up the right part of this montage, would die in 1980 of a heart attack after having a steller career.
Levenson's writings could be very powerful given his humanistic bent. Here's an example of his home spun philosophy. Reading this you can get a feel of Levenson's perspective some 50 years later and he practiced what he preached having married (and remained married) to his wife Edith while raising a family.
We're sure that pop culture historians will disagree, but the highlight of Levenson's career as far as this web site is concerned would be during one of his appearances as the week long guest host of a Mike Douglas show in May of 1971. We already mentioned that Douglas would delve into issues that he thought his guest host had an interest in. Douglas, as did the world, knew that Levenson was Jewish. For the show that was scheduled to be telecast on May 21st, 1971, Douglas' staff includes something that derives from the culture of Israel, an early (for this country) example Of Israeli dance. This was carried out as the Sadot dancers, under the choreography of Moshe Eskayo, took to the stage twice during the show to dance to several songs that would now be familiar to Israeli dancers (although with different steps). Not to mention that the finale, as the show ends for that day, danced with Douglas and all the guests, was the ubiquitous Hava Nagila.
This video came to our attention as we were looking for the underlying music to Al Tira. It had been put up on Youtube by one of the participants, Antonio La Greca. Here you can read his explanation as to how this all evolved (click on picture of text for enlargement). Apparently Moshe Eskayo was leading two Israeli dance groups at the time and this one, Sadot, was teenaged oriented. Apparently most of these teens were in it for the dancing and the experience of working with Eskayo. It seems as if most were not Jewish - not that you need to be to enjoy this type of folk dancing. In addition to the video (and luckily for this web site) someone had already inquired of Antonio about the participants and in doing so, had also provided the information that allowed this web site to explore this subject - especially pertaining to KYW and Mike Douglas. Note: Click the picture of the dancers to see the video on Youtube or click here
Thanks to Antonio's description, we can identify several of the dancers. At the top going left to right:Fred Pearson, Bruce Tanzer, Guy Haskill and Antonio La Greca. There was no description of the women so in alphabeltical order is Debbie Glass, Susan Siegal Hargrove, Laura Resnick and Miriam (last name unknown). We should also add that two additional female dancers joined the circle for the aforementioned Hava Nagila.
This dance group was led by Moshe Eskayo. He on the drum, and an accordianist, Shlomo Shai, provided much of the beats of the music (no doubt assisted by the show's house band). During the last set of dances Sam Levenson accompanied the dancing on the violin. This montage follows Eskayo, Shai and Levenson.
It is interesting to see this type of dancing on the Mike Douglas show. It is believed at the time this program aired that no organized Israeli dance class was in existance in the Philadephia regional area. Later in the decade dancing would start at the Hillel and International House of the University of Penna. It is probable that Eskayo made appearances at the U Of P sessions to teach his choreography. We doubt that his appearance on the Mike Douglas show was ever mentioned.

Mike Douglas, whose show went off the air in 1980 and who died in 2006, deserves a lot of credit for this and other presentations through the years representing various cultures dependent on the co-host for the week.

Oh, and one further note. This map shows KYW on the move. However, it's been fifty years since KYW relocated back to Philadelphia. We think we speak for all Philadelphians in saying that we like these call letters. There's something special about the use of the K and the 3 letters have a nice ring to it. So, please CBS (who now owns the station) move some other channel when the need next arises.