Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: DINAH SHORE NEW YEARS EVE 1961

How do you ring in an Overlooked New Year?  Gut Lombardo?  Too stiff and wishy-washy.  Xavier Cugat?  Too much coochie-coochie.  Dick Clark?  He stopped rocking in the 60s.  Ryan Seacrest?  Come on, give me a break!

But Dinah?  She can be a keeper.  Talented and with a sense of humor.  And her guests on December 31, 1961 included Ginger Rogers, George Burns, and Nat King Cole.  1962 looks pretty bright with these folks ushering it in.

Of course 1962 did give us the Cuban missile crisis and the death of Marilyn Monroe and riots in Mississippi when James Meredith wanted to enroll at Ole Miss, as well as the first Wal-Mart and the first Kmart (which might or might not have been a good thing, depending on your viewpoint).  On the plus side, the Beatles released their first recording, Sean Connery became Bond, James Bond, Johnny Carson took over the Tonight Show while the Dick van Dyke Show made us laugh, To Kill a Mockingbird made all want to be like Gregory Peck (actually Atticus Finch), the European Space Agency was formed, Telstar was launched, and Mariner 2's journey to Venus was the first planetary probe.  1962 also receives bouquets and/or brickbats for introducing the silicon breast implant.

On a personal note, I began to discover girls.  My appreciation of the non-Y chromosome gender has never flagged in the ensuing years.  Yes, I owe a lot to 1962.

So let's celebrate the coming of 1962 and the going of 1961 with Dinah and the gang.

And to all of you, "Mmwahh!"*

https://archive.org/details/DinahShoreNewYearsEve1961

*That's the sound of Dinah smacking kisses at you.  Or at least the best I can do.

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