TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

The short run ATV series in 1967 was not only well liked in the UK, but led to a couple of specials on American TV. On 4th January 1969 he stars in a one-off Saturday Stars show for ATV, but didn't get another shot at his own series until the following year.

Another one-off show followed on Boxing Day 1969 with guests Tom Jones, Dionne Warwick and Jose Feliciano, while rival Tom Jones has his series safely parked on a Sunday evening.

The series proper kicked off on Sunday 5th April 1970 with the usual ATV/ITC blend of British acts that America is familiar with and American acts that no-one else is familiar with making it a puzzling view much of the time outside of the USA. The usual ATV support team of producer Colin Clews, Jack Parnell and His Orchestra, The Paddy Stone Dancers and The Mike Sammes Singers were in attendance. Humperdinck was also allowed to bring Arthur Greenslade who had been arranging his Decca recordings, while Humperdinck's manager Gordon Mills bagged an Executive Producer credit.

The time slot of 10.25 - 11.25 pm was not what a star of Humperdinck calibre could have wanted or expected, leading to suspicion that the show had been dumped. Tom Jones' show ran from 9.00 - 10.00 pm, which suggests that the Jones/Humperdinck rivalry had found Engelbert in second place again.

However, he was given the cover of the TV Times for the second show, and found that it had been moved to the more respectable time slot of 9.10 - 10.10 pm, but like the last series the show was hindered by being broadcast on different days in different ITV regions.

Despite the scheduling problems it was a solid show with lots of famous guests like Paul Anka, Ray Charles, Lou Rawls, Lulu, Tony Bennett, Tommy Roe and many others, but suffered from many of the malaise that riddled USA variety specials of the time, stars who weren't stars and dreadful comedy skits which left the star embarrassed. Tom Jones made damned sure to avoid this kind of stuff.

The show finished in the summer and his contract with ATV was not renewed, leading to a stint with the BBC and ZDF in West Germany in 1972.

THE ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK SHOW

ATV

5th April 1970 - 26th July 1970