Lenny Bruce doing his famous airplane glue bit on the Steve Allen Show in 1958. A classic. I’ve heard this routine on record and read it on the page, but I’ve never seen Lenny perform it live.

Thanks to Josie for uploading this to Youtube.
 

 
A young Frank Zappa makes his TV debut playing the bicycle on The Steve Allen Show.
 

 
More Frank Zappa after the jump…
 

 
Jack Kerouac reads from Visions of Cody on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show in 1959. This clip is taken from the documentary film, Whatever Happened to Keroauc? It’s often mislabeled as being a reading from On The Road, but it’s not (to add further to the confusion, there is a close up of On The Road’s cover as Steve Allen is speaking).
 

 
Milton Berle and Steve Allen, as protest singers Monty Mad and Billy Bitter, crack some exceedingly unhip jokes in this goofy TV skit. Spike Priggen of Bedazzled TV dug this rarity up from somewhere. I can’t find any info about it on the internet.

The real thrill in this for me is seeing Lloyd Thaxton. Lloyd hosted a TV dance party in the 60’s that I would devotedly watch every weekday afternoon. Paul Revere and The Raiders, The Byrds, Sonny and Cher, The Kinks, Jan and Dean, the Beau Brummels and dozens of other great bands appeared on Thaxton’s show. It was teenage bliss. It’s weird, but there are no Thaxton videos on Youtube. Spike, you got some? Are they gone forever?