Retro : Shew Stoppers : BROADWAY SPARKLES ON A VIDEO OF ‘ED SULLIVAN SHOW’ TUNES

The long-running CBS musical variety series “The Ed Sullivan Show” (originally called “Toast of the Town”) was more than Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Topo Gigio, Senor Wences, acrobats, spinning plates, dog acts, comics and actors reading excerpts from the Bible.

The series, which aired from 1948 to 1971, was the first to bring the best of Broadway theater to network television. And the new Walt Disney Home Video, “The Best of the Broadway Musicals” ($20), features 12 really big shew-stopping Broadway musical numbers that were performed live on “Ed Sullivan” back in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

The lineup features:

“There’s No Business Like Show Business” from “Annie Get Your Gun,” performed by Ethel Merman.

“Oklahoma!” from “Oklahoma!,” performed by John Raitt (who also narrates the video), Celeste Holm, Florence Henderson, Barbara Cook and Richard Collet.

“I Can’t Say No” from “Oklahoma!,” performed by Holm.

“I Enjoy Being a Girl” from “Flower Drum Song,” performed by Pat Suzuki.

“Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” performed by Carol Channing.

“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” from “My Fair Lady,” performed by Julie Andrews.

“Tonight” from “West Side Story,” performed by Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert.

“What Do the Simple Folk Do” from “Camelot,” performed by Julie Andrews and Richard Burton.

“Who Can I Turn To?” from “The Roar of the Greasepaint--The Smell of the Crowd,” performed by Anthony Newley.

“I’m a Brass Band” from “Sweet Charity,” performed by Gwen Verdon.

“The Impossible Dream” from “The Man of La Mancha,” performed by Richard Kiley.

“Before the Parade Passes By” from “Hello, Dolly!,” performed by Pearl Bailey.

“We really tried to take the best musical from each year and try to represent all the biggest stars of Broadway,” says Greg Vines, the video’s producer.

“We wanted to do a nice mix,” adds Andrew Solt, the executive producer, director and writer of “The Best of the Broadway Musicals.” Solt also owns “The Ed Sullivan Show” library.

The segments featured on the video were culled from more than 1,000 hours of Sullivan shows. Out of those 1,000 hours, Vines says, “We have compiled about 20 or 25 hours worth of just Broadway numbers. That’s not always the original cast doing them, but with the original cast we probably have anywhere from six or eight hours.”

Also included are tributes to composers Lerner and Loewe and Irving Berlin. “Harold Arlen was on the show,” Solt says. “Cole Porter appeared in 1952. It was one of his few TV appearances.”

Sullivan, Solt says, did a big service for the Broadway theater. “He was getting people to see the shows. When (people) from middle America came to town, they would buy tickets to the shows. Broadway producers realized this was good for business and they were more than willing to bring their stars and their musical numbers on the show. It was good for everybody.”

The Broadway theater, Solt adds, also impressed Sullivan. “He was impressed with people with real talent and, being a New Yorker, I think Broadway was of interest to him. What really turned him on was Broadway and the big singers of his era. He would go to nightclubs and hang out until 3 or 4 in the morning, then go home and have a lamb chop at noon. He had a very interesting lifestyle.”

During the run of the series, Sullivan also wrote his popular syndicated column “Little Old New York.” “He kept his column, which was a power base for him while he did his show, because he always knew if people turned him down time and time again to be on the Sullivan show,” Solt says, “eventually their names would be in the column in a negative way.”

Solt and Vines say it was quite easy to obtain clearances from music publishers and the talent to use their clips. “When we went to Julie Andrews,” Solt relates, “and gave her a copy of the tape and said, ‘Here are six songs from ‘My Fair Lady,’ she was beside herself. She didn’t get the movie role and here was the only living proof of her in this role, which made her career. There was no other filmic representation of it. It was great that this stuff exists.”