MovieChat Forums > Toast of the Town (1948) Discussion > Episode 16.28, Apr 14 1963 How Ironic!

Episode 16.28, Apr 14 1963 How Ironic!

posted 15 years ago by Chesterfield_Invincible
3 replies | jump to latest

This particular episode was produced in London, and Ed had as his guests for the "yung'sters" Cliff Richard, The Shadows, and Frank Ifield (Jolly What!). But if Ed was going to have something for the "yung'sters", he should have looked no further than the latest popular British act of the moment: The Beatles. They had already reached #1 with "Please Please Me" (#2 if you count Record Retailer), and just a few days earlier had released what was to be their second UK #1 "From Me To You", while their first LP "Please Please Me", released just 23 days before was rocketing its way to the top of the UK LP charts (which it achieved on May 11, and stayed there for six months). How he could have ignored this phenom when it was errupting right under his very nose is a little hard to believe! The Beatles could have done the Sullivan show nearly a full year earlier, and we Americans could have had them sooner!!!!!

[–] movieghoul 15 years ago

Yes, but possibly the Beatles and their manager realized that it wasn't in their best interests to be just one of several Brit acts on the show. Also, Please, Please Me is not a great choice to be the iconic first US hit.

And don't knock Frank Ifield, who to my knowledge, was the first Brit to have a top ten US hit, in 1962.

[–] Truman-11 14 years ago

In the IMdB trivia section it says the Fab Four only appeared after a lot of negotiations with their manager, Brian Epstein. Evidently those negotiations weren't done yet.

[–] hifijohn 10 years ago

that generation was too old to understand something new and revolutionary as rock music, remember even when the beatles came to the us they had a hard time getting a record contract because all the record execs thought that rock music was a passing fad.