The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show else." Harris and Faye stayed with NBC rather than succumb to the CBS talent raids of the late 1940s that began when Benny was lured to CBS and took a few NBC stars (including George Burns and Gracie Allen) with him. NBC offered the couple (as well as Fred Allen) a lucrative new deal to stay, though occasionally Harris would allude to Benny's network switch on the Harris-Faye show. (Typically, Harris would crack an odd joke and then say, "I gotta give this one to Jackson! It might bring him back to NBC.") Despite the network conflict and a grueling
Variety show viewer tastes have affected the popularity of variety shows in the United States. Despite this, their influence has still had a major effect on late night television whose late night talk shows and NBC's variety series "Saturday Night Live" (which originally premiered in 1975) have remained popular fixtures of North American television. The live entertainment style known as music hall in the United Kingdom and vaudeville in the United States can be considered a direct predecessor of the "variety show" format. Variety in the UK evolved in theatres and music halls, and later in Working Men's Clubs. British performers who