More popular than Jesus group, but was persuaded to stay on the condition that the Beatles would from now on focus solely on their work as recording artists. After a break, they reconvened in November 1966 to begin recording "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", which was a major critical and commercial success when released in June 1967. Lennon was asked about the controversy during a trip to Canada in 1969. He repeated his opinion that the Beatles were more influential on young people than Christ, adding that some ministers had agreed with him. He called the protestors in the US "fascist Christians", saying
An Evening with Fred Astaire "Another Evening with Fred Astaire". Not all media coverage was so positive however. After the show won an unprecedented nine Emmy awards, Ed Sullivan queried whether Astaire should have been awarded the Best Actor Award. Astaire promptly offered to return the award protesting: "I'm an actor, and this Emmy is for a performance by an actor, isn't it? When I do a difficult pantomime in a dance which tells a story, what do they think it is? Tiddlywinks?". He kept the award, but when "Variety" reported that MCA had lost $75,000 on the show he retorted angrily: "Kindly retract erroneous