Ethel Merman

An ex-fighter pilot is forced to take over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food poisoning.

A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.

Fozzie and Kermit have come across a priceless collection of great moments in the career of the Muppets. This collection features many Muppet TV segments, including episodes of "Pigs in Space," and "Veterinarian's Hospital."

Molly and Terry Donahue, plus their three children, are The Five Donahues. Youngest son Tim meets hat-check girl Vicky and the family act begins to fall apart.

Bandleader and manager discover skater in Norway. They become rivals as she returns with them to America.

This intimate documentary explores the life and career of the stage legend Stephen Sondheim through six of his best-known songs.

Winterbolt is trying to make the North Pole his evil wonderland, and it is up to Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and others to stop him.

Kermit the Frog throws a glamorous party at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub to celebrate the premiere of the Muppets' first feature film, The Muppet Movie. Hosts Dick van Dyke and Rita Moreno interview the wide array of celebrities and Muppets who attend the event. Gary Owens serves as off-camera announcer, and appears on-screen to introduce Miss Piggy.

Struggling artist fakes his own death so his works will increase in value.

The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers paid up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors' Fund) was billed as "The Night of 100 Stars" but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.

From the A&E "Biography" series, a review of the birth, development and cinematic history of Betty Boop, the flapper cartoon character who has been a popular icon since the 1930s.

Leslie Uggams hosts this take on A Christmas Carol, where she and fellow guest stars, Anne Murray, Imogene Coca, and Dick Smothers try to get Oscar to stop being such a Grouch on Christmas.

Tom Bosley hosts a tribute to the American musical theater taped before a live audience featuring dozens of stars recreating their original performances. Among the show-stoppers are Chita Rivera's Spanish Rose dance in "Bye, Bye, Bireie," Ray Walston as the Devil in "Damn Yankees," Nell Carter singing the Fats Waller classic "Cash for Trash" from "Ain't Misbehavin," Glynis Johns with "Send in the Clowns" from "A Little Night Music," Barry Bostwick from "Grease," and many more.

Armed with a limitless Rolodex and a Benedict Canyon enclave with its own disco, Allan Carr threw the Hollywood parties that defined the 1970s. A producer, manager, and marketing genius, Carr built his bombastic reputation amid a series of successes including the mega-hit musical film "Grease," until it all came crashing down after he produced the 1989 Academy Awards, a notorious debacle.

A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of theatre and film appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war. The soldier meets a pretty young hostess and they enjoy the many entertainers and a growing romance.

Judy performs beloved musical numbers with Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, and more in this series of classic duets from The Judy Garland Show.

Classical violinist Roger Grant disappoints his family and teacher when he organizes a jazz band, but he and the band become successful. Roger falls in love with the band's singer, Stella, but his reluctance to lose her leads him to thwart her efforts to become a solo star. When the World War separates them in 1917, Stella marries Roger's best friend and, when Roger returns home after the war, an important concert at Carnegie Hall brings the corners of the romantic triangle together.

A star-studded documentary and tribute to the classic comedy, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

Ethel Merman sings the title song with a Bouncing Ball. Animated sequence: a cat burglar, just out of jail, raids Betty Boop's icebox.

A would-be filmmaker and actress shake up the industry with a trick dog who gets discovered by a studio bus driver in the 1920s.

Fleischer Studios 'Screen Song' with Ethel Merman singing the songs.

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award-winning filmmaker Rick McKay filmed over 100 of the greatest stars ever to work on Broadway or in Hollywood. He soon learned that great films can be restored, fine literature can be kept in print - but historic Broadway performances of the past are the most endangered. They leave only memories that, while more vivid, are more difficult to preserve. In their own words — and not a moment too soon — Broadway: The Golden Age tells the stories of our theatrical legends, how they came to New York, and how they created this legendary century in American theatre. This is the largest cast of legends ever in one film.

The program was the first so-called "Television Spectacular". Ford presented the show without commercial interruption. It is believed to be the first time that Edward R. Murrow appeared on NBC in a professional capacity. Also, in 1953, it was necessary for Ford to buy time on two networks to ensure maximum coverage of US TV households - at the time, neither CBS nor NBC reached 100% of them. The famed 1953 television special celebrating the Ford Motor Company's 50th anniversary brought together two of the greatest leading ladies Broadway has ever known. The highlight of the program is Merman and Martin’s 13-minute duet medley, where they sing the songs that made them famous, plus much more. On their own, Merman sings “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Mademoiselle from Armetières” and Martin performs a brilliantly comic routine about changes in fashion over the first half of the 20th century.

First of three programs about musical theatre hosted by writer-composer-lyricist Sylvia Fine.

A Classic Holiday Celebration with Dean and Friends.

Dorothy and Toto return to Oz to find the Scarecrow ruling the Emerald City. Unfortunately for the new overseer, the wicked Mombi is conspiring to take over the city. With the help of the Tin Woodsman, the Cowardly Lion and other familiar friends, Dorothy sets out to save Oz.

The outrageous story of 1970s porn icon Jack Wrangler, and how he rose to the top of the gay, and then straight, adult film industry.

For the first time in their careers, all the Muppets (except the ones that couldn't make it, like the Doozers, Gorgs and most of the Fraggles) have gathered together in one place to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary and honor the one who brought them together: Kermit the Frog (and by doing so, Jim Henson).

During his career, Bob Hope was the only performer to achieve top-rated success in every form of mass entertainment. American Masters explores the entertainer’s life through his personal archives and clips from his classic films.

Broadway royalty and Tony-winners Tommy Tune, Carol Channing, Robert Goulet, and Harvey Fierstein are your hosts for this third compilation of great musical performances from the archives of the Tony Award® broadcasts. Legendary stars from legendary shows strut their stuff in 23 performances that have become part of Broadway history.

A religious sect, cheated by an adventurer, wants to occupy an African territory not knowing that it is inhabited by a bloodthirsty tribe. Luckily Tarzan intervenes.

Beautiful high society type Doris Worthington is entertaining guests on her yacht in the Pacific when it hits a reef and sinks. She makes her way to an island with the help of singing sailor Stephen Jones. Her friend Edith, Uncle Hubert, and Princes Michael and Alexander make it to the same island but all prove to be useless in the art of survival. The sailor is the only one with the practical knowhow to survive but Doris and the others snub his leadership offer. That is until he starts a clam bake and wafts the fumes in their starving faces. The group gradually gives into his leadership, the only question now is if Doris will give into his charms.

In this surrealist entry, a fisherman deals with rebellious worms; a diver flirts with a Betty Boop-like mermaid who becomes Ethel Merman, singing the title song in live-action with a Bouncing Ball.

A two-hour in-depth exploration into the Hollywood musicals of the 1930s.

A defendant pleads her case in court and promises to stay out of trouble from now on through singing.

Washington hostess Sally Adams becomes a Truman-era US ambassador to a European grand duchy.

Biographical portrait of one of Broadway's most brilliant songwriters. Told through the use of archival material and interviews with the rich and famous that knew him, this portrait concentrates on his career and his public life events.

This 1967 TV Movie featured the cast of the recent Lincoln Center and Broadway Revival of the classic musical. Starring Ethel Merman, who recreated her original 1946 role as sharp shooter Annie Oakley, the telecast co-starred Bruce Yarnell, Jerry Orbach and Benay Venuta. Running only 90 minutes and with no studio audience, this TV version was the most popular single musical special of the season for NBC. It raked in a total of 60 million viewers. The special retains a certain notoriety as a "lost" program. Seemingly the only surviving videotapes were erased at some point, with no copies found in the collections of Merman or composer Irving Berlin. A complete audio recording captured by a fan off the television can be sourced for listening online.

"Around the World with Mike Todd" serves as a summarization of the Todd's career, and his role in producing 'Around the World in 80 Days'. Numerous behind-the-scenes footage from the film.

Two-bit radio station owner Spud Miller doubles as the station's sole announcer. On the verge of bankruptcy, Spud is receptive to the wacky notions of George and Gracie, who've just invented a television device that can pick up and transmit any signal, any time, anywhere.

The Ritz Brothers go to the race track. They raise training end entrance money in a wrestling match and help a young man train the horse of his fiancée.

Worlds collide in this unconventional essay film, when filmmaker, film historian, and archivist Daniel Kremer seamlessly edits Michelangelo Antonioni's legendary but controversial counterculture art film Zabriskie Point (1970) into the same narrative universe as Stanley Kramer's madcap epic comedy extravaganza It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). In creating these new sequences, Kremer comes to recognize that the exercise effortlessly draws cultural and historical parallels in twentieth-century American life that echo in present-day America. The editorial mashups weave a tangled web of social and cinematic history that root our notions of Americana in the mythology of the desert. As Kremer expounds in his narration on these often astonishing and sometimes shocking associations, his very personal ties to the subject matter become manifest.

A musical comedy about a Brooklyn boy who inherits a fortune from his archaeologist father, but has to go to Egypt to claim it.

A young man falls in love with a beautiful blonde. When he sees her being forced onto a luxury liner, he decides to follow and rescue her. However, he discovers that she is an English heiress who ran away from home and is now being returned to England. He also discovers that his boss is on the ship. To avoid discovery, he disguises himself as the gangster accomplice of a minister, who is actually a gangster on the run from the law.

A documentary exploring the creation of the new musical Ragtime, based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow.

A kooky waiter and sometimes vaudevillian promises to get his employer's daughter into a Broadway show. When he kidnaps the show's star, she gets her opportunity, as the understudy, to play the role and become a star herself.

Meek Eddie Pink becomes manager of an amusement park beset by mobsters.

Relive the dazzling show stopping songs, dances and production numbers from some of your favorite Broadway musicals. Great Broadway Musical Moments from The Ed Sullivan Show brings you legendary musical entertainment performed by a galaxy of great Broadway stars like Ethel Merman in "Annie Get Your Gun," John Raitt in "Oklahoma!," Julie Andrews in "Camelot," and more! This exciting event includes exclusive interviews with legends Shirley Jones, Joel Grey, and Rex Reed.

On an ocean liner, a nightclub singer tries to help a fellow American romance an English heiress who is being forced to return home to marry a man she doesn't love. The American must avoid his boss who is traveling on the same vessel and disguises himself as a gangster traveling with a minister who is, in fact, a disguised gangster on the lam.