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
Arthur Godfrey and His Friends nomination for an Emmy Award in 1953 for Best Variety Program. Arthur Godfrey and His Friends Arthur Godfrey and His Friends is an American television variety show hosted by Arthur Godfrey. The hour-long series aired on CBS Television from January 1949 to June 1957 (as "The Arthur Godfrey Show" after September 1956), then again as a half-hour show from September 1958 to April 1959. Many of Godfrey's musical acts were culled from "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts", which was airing on CBS at the same time. Among the more popular of his singers were Frank Parker, Marion Marlowe, Janette Davis, Julius