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
Steve Smith (comedian) Steve Smith (comedian) Steven "Steve" Smith Jr., (born December 24, 1945) is a Canadian-American actor, writer and comedian. He is best known as the co-creator and star of the sketch comedy show "The Red Green Show", for which he portrayed the title character. Smith was born in Toronto. Before turning to comedy, he studied engineering at the University of Waterloo and then worked a variety of jobs. In 1979, he began to produce, write, and star in "Smith & Smith", a sketch comedy series with a cast consisting of Smith and his wife, Morag Smith. The show was produced for