Kids came home to Mike Douglas after school. It was a friendly show.
Kids came home to Mike Douglas after school. It was a friendly show.
Another childhood memory.
I miss variety shows.
Tiger Woods' first TV appearance was on the Mike Douglas show when Tiger was 3, I believe.
Mike Douglas was a good troop. His shows were entertaining and polite.
Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and the Cleveland Press were my mom's afternoons, God Rest her soul!
The show originated in Cleveland for awhile, then Philly if I recall. RIP, Mike.
hmm. I figured him for a pipesmoker.
I never missed it. I watched it everyday after school. From Tiny Tim to the Absent Minded Professor to Phyllis Diller, it was a very entertaining show for adults and kids.
Mike Douglas
AKA Michael Delaney Dowd, Jr.
Born: 11-Aug-1925
Birthplace: Chicago
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Host of 1970s Mike Douglas Show
Military service: US Navy (WWII, served on V-12 program, Oklahoma)
At 15, Mike Dowd was already a professional singer, earning free room and board plus $35 a week for singing pop standards on a cruise ship that sailed between Cleveland and Buffalo. Douglas served in the Navy during World War II, then signed with Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge. It was Kysor who gave Dowd his new name, without warning, by introducing him one night as Mike Douglas. When Walt Disney heard Douglas' singing, and asked him to croon as Prince Charming in Cinderella. Douglas later worked as a "staff singer" at NBC, before being offered his own show at a Cleveland TV station. It started in December 1961, but was quickly successful and syndicated, and relocated to Philadelphia from 1965-78, then Burbank from 1978-82. It was the top-rated daytime talk show during most of its run.
On one program, Barry Goldwater played his trombone, and on another, a 3-year-old golf prodigy named Tiger Woods putted on stage. Douglas often had co-hosts who would spend an entire week on his show, everyone from Barbra Streisand to Sammy Davis, Jr. to Joan Crawford and Joyce Randolph. Co-hosts helped interview guests in exchange for spending an entire week -- instead of just a few minutes -- plugging their latest projects.
In 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono co-hosted for a week, with guests including Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin, Ralph Nader, and George Carlin. Douglas squirmed and his staff struggled to keep political discourse to a minimum, and Lennon was told he could not perform the song "Gimme Some Truth", because it included an unflattering allusion to President Richard Nixon. In addition, he had to sit through Douglas' syrupy renditions of "Michelle" and "I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends". It was generally considered Douglas' finest week, and drew huge ratings. Backstage, though, producers and staff remember it as "a week everyone was very relieved to see end". The Mike Douglas Show was not normally a comfortable place for newfangled 1970s perspectives; its producer was a young Roger Ailes, who went on to craft Fox News as a right-wing TV beacon.
I guess he won't be "right back".
Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and Dinah Shore all had great experience from the big band days and had to work their way up. Today, they grab them off the street.
The Lord be with him.
His song "The men in my little girl's life" still gets me.
He came years after Ishkabibble.
I did enjoy watching his show in the afternoons though.
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Here's a couple of neat clips of Mike from Youtube:
Mike doing a duet with Freda Payne.
Mike inteviewing the one and only Johnny Cash.