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As Dead Elvis: Did Vegas have a national talk show?

My dad insists there was a national talk show called The Las Vegas Show in the mid- or late ’60s. Yet I couldn’t find any info when I did research on the web. Could it just have been a one-off special?

Gotta say, this was a tough one. Yet some diligent digging came up with an answer: There really was a national talk show called The Las Vegas Show, and it aired briefly in the spring of 1967.

The story behind it is kind of interesting. The show, which ran for just a month—from May 1-June 3—was hosted by Bill Dana, a comic who was best known in the ’60s as his alter ego, Jose Jimenez. It was filmed at the Hacienda and was the sole attempt of a millionaire named Daniel H. Overmyer to start a fledging fourth network called the United Network, which was a loose collection of independent stations in cities such as New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

It kick-started the careers of such third-tier performers as Jo Anne Worley and Jack Sheldon, and despite being picked up by a even a few CBS affiliates nationwide, the show and the network, which was heavily in debt, fell away very quickly. Footage of this curio is hard to find, so if you come across a tape, send one to the King.

Thank you very much.

E-mail your questions to askdeadelvis@lasvegasweekly.com

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