Cartoons Saturday!

A dozen or so political potshots--plus when Ed Sullivan killed Buddy Holly's guitar.

Our weekly special, plus this little historical musical tidbit that I just learned about: On January 26, 1958, Buddy Holly and the Crickets made their second and final appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. They were scheduled to perform “Oh, Boy!,” but Sullivan told them to replace it because it was too noisy. Holly refused. At rehearsal the Crickets were absent and Ed asked where they were. Buddy said, “I don’t know. No telling.” Sullivan replied, “Well, I guess The Crickets are not too excited to be on the Ed Sullivan Show,” to which Holly replied, “I hope they’re damn more excited than I am.” So Ed cut the Crickets’ gig from two songs to one, and pronounced Holly’s name when he introduced them as “Buddy Hollet and his Crickets.” Far worse, the feed for Holly’s electric guitar was turned off. See the results below. Buddy and the Crickets were so well received that Sullivan invited them back, but Holly’s response was that Sullivan didn’t have enough money for that. Allegedly. Enjoy, then maybe subscribe, it’s still free (for now).

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.