Perry Como, The Perry Como Show
Question: When I was a kid, my family used to always watch Perry Como Christmas specials. We loved them every year. But one thing I was never able to figure out: Who was he? Did he have his own show or something?
Answer: Not only did he have his own show, Kenny, he had several (both radio and TV), not to mention a long, successful music career. Matter of fact, Como's life in the biz was remarkable for precisely the reason you give: Like the Energizer bunny, he kept going, and going, and going — well into the rock-and-roll era, when many other crooners like him had long faded into obscurity.
Como started out, interestingly enough, as a barber when he was still in high school, but was already singing at weddings even then. In 1933 he began singing in bands and built enough of a following (and enough hit records) that NBC hired him to cohost The Chesterfield Supper Club radio show, which moved to TV in 1
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ERFirst things first. Why all the hype about John Stamos? He was hardly featured this week or last and that's it — it was a two-week appearance. All those "Very Special Episode"-type promos that said "John Stamos joins ER…. " for what? Like Bette Midler brilliantly sings in her new Peggy Lee tribute CD: "Is That All There Is?" OK, I said it. Besides that let down (cue Debbie Downer noise), I quite enjoyed tonight's overly hyped "crash episode." This week certainly was a busy one for plane crashes, what with Wednesday night's Lost tailies flashback episode and now this. I knew from the promos that one of tonight's victims would be tennis star Serena Williams (she was pretty darned good), but who knew Uncle Leo from Seinfeld would be another crash victim
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