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
Variety show being produced were of remarkably poor quality (see, for instance, the infamous "Pink Lady and Jeff"), hastening the format's demise. Since "Pink Lady", only a few traditional variety shows have been attempted by major networks: these include "Dolly" (starring Dolly Parton), which ran for 23 episodes on the ABC during the 1987–'88 season; a revival of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" from 1988 to 1989; a revival of "The Carol Burnett Show", which was broadcast by CBS for nine episodes in 1991; and the first incarnation of "The Wayne Brady Show", which was telecast by ABC in August 2001. By