Watching All Of Woody Allen’s Films In Order: Prehistory

Now, obviously by concentrating on the films, I've neglected to mention Woody's long career before Clive Donner made a mess of What's New Pussycat. Luckily, the WFMU's excellent Beware of the Blog has a new article covering that whole era from the records to the television appearances and writing through to Men in Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story:

"Allen had his first Ed Sullivan appearance in 1962. He would appear regularly but had an amusing dust up with the famous host in 1966. During the afternoon rehearsal, Sullivan, notorious for his stone faced reactions and stonewalling of certain comedic material, shot down one of Allen's bits. Woody had been fooling around during his run through, not wanting to waste his act on a small crowd of distracted crew members and the tough crowd of Ed Sullivan. At one point during his piece he inserted the phrase "orgasmic insurance," which he had not actually planned on saying during the broadcast. Sullivan stopped the rehearsal and gave Allen a tongue lashing. The host of America's most popular variety show turned red and flustered, "It's an attitude like yours that is responsible for young men burning their draft cards!"

Here's a random clip from UK television recorded a couple of years later: