Comedians Who Were On The Ed Sullivan Show

The Ed Sullivan Show is a major part of comedy history. The variety show aired from 1948 to to 1971.   Originally called  Toast of The Town,  the show was watched by millions of families every Sunday night at 8PM. Ed himself was a controversial figure. The Museum of Broadcast Communications webpage is a good resource to learn about him.  Impersonators would make fun of his stiff and seemingly humorless personality, yet at the same time it was that very personality that allowed him to " get out of the way" and make the perfomers the stars of his show. No one can doubt his influence and his ability to understand talent and show business.  Below is a list of comedians, comedy teams, impressionists, and other perfomers who primarily used comedy in their acts. All of them appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Some of the performers are mentioned on other parts of  Laughpath, but many are not.  In an effort to present them to you, we have used different sources. In some case you will find videos from YouTube, in others newspaper or magazine articles, IMDb pages, Wikipedia, and sometimes the obituaries of the comedian.  When the perfomer's name is followed by an * , there is a video of an actual Ed Sullivan Show performance. There are numerous videos that include other performers. This page was fun to develop and contains much show business history.  Enjoy!