Hi-Ho, Steverino!: My Adventures in the Wonderful Wacky World of TV [Paperback]

Page after page of tired jokes and boasting weaken the nostalgic appeal of this memoir about radio and TV in their palmy days by an author who has spent 50 years in broadcasting. "Steverino" started his career in radio during the early 1940s and broke into network TV in 1950 as the first host of "The Tonight Show." He remained a popular and innovative entertainer despite occasional lapses in taste, such as a "funny routine" about the 1956 Andrea Doria shipwreck. Although the Italian embassy condemned the comic skit as a "bad thing: people died," Allen recalls the incident as among the most amusing of his life. Other sections of the book are not as abrasive, but the cumulative effect of the performer's self-aggrandizing strains one's patience.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The versatile author, pianist, actor, composer, comedian, philosopher, and more here takes readers on a journey through his offbeat broadcasting experiences, from local radio to the golden years of television and beyond. He offers irresistible reminiscences of comic routines and bizarre stunts played with such memorable golden-age personalities as Bill Dana, Tom Poston, and Don Knotts. Creator of the original Tonight show, Allen also makes serious observations on the emerging talk show form and closes with reflections on the current state of the art. Except for a too-lengthy account of a 1980s comedy project gone awry, this is fast-paced, genial fun that also provides a true insider's view of TV. For circulating libraries.
- Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, N.J.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Allen's 38th book, by his reckoning, and perhaps his best. This is the history of Allen's ``professional adventures in broadcasting, and not a revelation of my experiences as pianist, composer, author, public citizen, lover, husband or father.'' With all this, according to Allen, covered elsewhere, what's left? But sticking simply to his various shows as he faced the radio mike or TV camera allows Allen to skim the cream from 50 years of lightweight chat and comedy routines and keep his reminiscences under tight rein while moving at a gallop. With material groomed to shine, he often comes off better here than he does while wryly improvising on TV. Allen's opening is hilarious, as he recalls feeding fake commercials into the hands of unwitting announcers who find themselves speaking rotund babble on live air. Also great fun is his baldfaced stupidity as a teenager when he, his mother, and his aunt are playing cards in their Chicago hotel room and hear from a CBS radio announcer that Mars has invaded the Earth (``Gosh!'' Allen cries)--they head instantly for church and some heavy prayer, with stunned Allen still crying ``Gosh!'' We follow him through his early days as a flummoxing TV sportscaster for wrestling matches (``Leone now has his kelman frammised over the arm of Hayes' kronkheit...Ladies and gentlemen, the zime is going absolutely mctavish!''). Bored by the idea of being a deejay on his Breaking the Records radio show, Allen breaks old records rather than play them and gets a huge audience by talking without music. When his guest Doris Day fails to show up, he interviews the audience instead and invents the talk show. Allen's original Tonight Show format was much broader than today's and even took on the Mafia--here, he tells of happy/sad moments with Errol Flynn and Jack Kerouac. Better than nostalgia, sometimes serious, and often genuinely funny. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Allen writes as he talks--with rich good humor and an awful lot of wisdom. There is pleasure in his company." -- The San Diego Union-Tribune

Steve Allen writes about his experience as creator and first host of the Tonight Show in an anecdote-packed, nostalgic autobiography which is also a history of television's Golden Age. The best of all his books!