The Garry Moore Show (1962)
Comedy legend Carol Burnett—who got her start on The Garry Moore Show—summarized the man behind the show: “He's not as well known today as he should be, but in the late 1950s Garry Moore was a television icon. A performer and producer, he hosted his own CBS daytime talk and variety show, and a nighttime game show called To Tell the Truth.”
From 1958 to 1964, The Garry Moore Show aired on CBS as a weekly hour-long evening series.
Garry Moore's May 29th show featured guests Barbra Streisand, Robert Goulet and comedy team [Marty] Allen and [Steve] Rossi. Carol Burnett and Durwad Kirby were Moore's “regulars” on the show.
Streisand told an interviewer in 1962: “That Garry Moore Show I did. That wasn't because of the reviews [of her Broadway show I Can Get It For You Wholesale]. That was because my agent dragged Garry's producer in to the theater to see me, and he liked me.”
Streisand and Robert Goulet drove out in a golf cart for the opening group number, “Teamwork.”
Barbra sang a smashing version of “When the Sun Comes Out” on a balcony set.
1929 was the highlighted year in a regular Garry Moore Show segment called “That Wonderful Year.” Barbra sang a slow-tempo version of “Happy Days Are Here Again.” This was Barbra's first time singing the song which would become one of her signature classics. On Moore's show, Barbra performed it as a woman who, after the stock market crashed, traded her earrings and furs for glasses of champagne. Additional lyrics to set up the scene were written by Ken and Mitzi Welch (“I'm broke, I'm poor, I'm back where I started ...”)
Regarding the origination of the slowed-down “Happy Days” arrangement … Irwin Kostal was the music director for The Garry Moore Show. He told writer Steven Suskin that orchestrator Sid Ramin and he had done an album in which they “reversed the traditional tempos of the selected songs.” Kostal said “it was my idea for Barbra to sing the song slowly.”
Finally, Streisand sang a few bars of “Moanin' Low” wrapped in a fur during a medley of songs from 1929.
[Barbra-Archives note: Streisand recorded a full version of “Moanin' Low” some ten years later for her Lazy Afternoon album with an arrangement by Rupert Holmes.]
End.
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