February 9, 1964

Eighty days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, a pall still hung over the country, a sadness that seemed intensified by the cold, gray winter.  It was hard to feel joy in anything.  But, at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 9, 1964, 73 million Americans tuned into the live broadcast of the Ed Sullivan Show to watch a phenomenon they'd been hearing about to a greater or lesser degree:  a British band calling themselves The Beatles.

Brother Hackwhacker and I were among those 73 million (along with our parents).  This Hackwhacker must admit he was excited by the music and by the unorthodox appearance of the band.  (Excited doesn't even begin to describe the reaction of the girls in our high school classes the next morning - making it obligatory for us to act unimpressed).  The Beatles not only performed on the Sullivan show that Sunday, but also on the next two Sunday nights (manager Brian Epstein had seen to it that they got maximum exposure during their stay in America).  Here, to commemorate the milestone of The Beatles first performances in America 50 years ago is this compilation of their performances on the Sullivan show.  First, a few notes:

-- The video suffers from a misapplied image stabilizer, making it seem like the show was filmed in a Jello cube (to our friends in legal weed Washington and Colorado, dig it!).

-- Of course, the audience reaction shots throughout are priceless;  the girls are going nuts and the boys are sitting looking bewildered.  Check out the reaction of the adult lady at approximately 9:25.

-- The random club footage at approximately 10:50 with The Beatles at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City shows them relaxing after the show.

-- Hang in there until the end, where the boys are ripping it up on "Please Please Me" (approximately 24:30).

--  Tonight, for those of you in America, CBS (the same network that brought us the Ed Sullivan Show) will be broadcasting "The Night That Changed America:  A Grammy Salute to The Beatles," in, of course, Sullivan's old time slot, 8:00 p.m.

-- What a great, great live band.

BONUS:  Nik Cohn has a wonderful, evocative account of the Beatles' rise.