Variety show Stan Laurel revisited his music hall days when he performed at the "Royal Variety" show. In the United States, former vaudeville performers such as the Marx Brothers, George Burns and Gracie Allen, W. C. Fields, and Jack Benny honed their skills in the Borscht Belt before moving to talkies, to radio shows, and then to television shows, including variety shows. Variety shows were among the first programs to be featured on television during the experimental mechanical television era. Variety shows hosted by Helen Haynes and Harriet Lee are recorded in contemporary newspapers in 1931 and 1932; because of technical limits
The Carol Burnett Show starring the comedian Buddy Hackett. In 1959, she became a regular supporting cast member on the CBS-TV variety series "The Garry Moore Show". Departing the Moore Show in the spring of 1962, she pursued other projects in film, Broadway productions, and headlining her own television specials. Burnett signed a contract with CBS for 10 years which required her to do two guest appearances and a special a year. Within the first five years of this contract, she had the option to "push the button", a phrase the programming executives used, and be put on the air in 30 one-hour variety