How Did They Know?

I have a question for first generation American Beatle fans. Before the
Beatles arrival, how did so many kids, as well as adults, learn that
they were going to be on Ed Sullivan? They also somehow knew the date

Yourimageunreels...

saki...

The CBS report aired in the evening of November 21, actually. NBC and
ABC had also sent film crews to England (as CBS had done for their
report) but had planned to air their stories on Nov. 22...which, for
obvious reasons, didn't air.

The first U.S. print report I've been able to find on the Fabs was Nov.
4, 1963 in the New York Times, a short piece (barely more than a couple
lines) about fans rioting after concerts.

abe slaney...

Thanks for the correction. Boy, I wonder if there are any records of
that broadcast. A little blurb about the President's upcoming trip to
Dallas, a little blurb about a curious singing group from England (of
all places)...

saki...

CBS actually has this clip in its archives. They made it available
about a year ago (Dec. 2003) via their website to commemorate its
fortieth year.

I'd read transcripts of the clip before but had never seen it.
Interesting what a leisurely report it was; they devoted about five
minutes to the Beatles.

With only 3 networks back in 1964---and with Ed Sullian being as popular
as he was, it wasn't hard to find out. Not as much was going on back
then...like today. This is most likely a forge, and I ain't saying no

TAR...

Three *major* networks, anyway. I guess Ed Sullivan was promoting this
show for a while.

more.

TAR...

No, Jeff, it's really me.

DanKaye...

Right. Most kids sat around and watched Ed with their parents, back
then. It had something for everybody. Topo Gigo the little mouse,
jugglers, acrobats, singers, magicians, comedians, dancers, you name
it.

Back then there were few shows on, and tv was a big deal, and families
sat around watching shows together in the evenings; shows like Bonanza
and The Flintstones and Ed Sullivan...

I was 11 when the Beatles appeared on the Sullivan show, and I
remember the date (Feb. 9, 1964) because it was my dad's birthday, and
I recall him being "disgusted" with the 4 mop tops, which was the
beginning of the wedge that developed between my parents generation
and the hippie generation. (yes, I know the hippies came later, but we
were starting down the road to being the "counter culture" in Feb. or
1964).

Seth Jackson...

Actually, my dad used to talk to us with disgust about beatniks well
before the hippie thing came around.

He also was disgusted with the moptops, who, according to him, looked
like girls. He also said that the Beatles weren't music, just noise,
and that within one year, we wouldn't even remember who they were.
Nice call, dad!

Yourimageunreels...

How did your father feel about the Beatles later on? My parents Loved
them. Strange thing is though, I don't recall anyone in school..ever
talking about them, until I asked. No kid, all through school ever
admitted to liking the Beatles.

Seth Jackson...

He never liked them.

Recently, my mother came to visit, and when she heard my kids playing
the Beatles, she said that she'd always loved the Beatles. Believe it
or not, that was the first time I'd ever heard her express that. All
those years, I had no idea that she even liked them.

marcus_gen...

Wait a minute...did your Dad know my 8th grade Social Studies teacher?
;-)

[I asked for and got an electric guitar and amp the next Christmas,
the most memorable and meaningful gift of my childhood years.
(although I had gotten a cheap toy drum set a couple years earlier
that I never learned to play)]

I don't recall exactly how I knew about the Beatles appearing on the
show, but I do recall waiting for it and being excited about it, so I
must have heard it on the radio, because I listened to AM radio
constantly back in those days.

Lookingglass...

I'm sorry your Dad didn't appreciate the Beatles... my MOM loved them. I was
15.

dave (...it's you she's thinking of and she told me what to say...)

Yourimageunreels...

Yes it was, and the Sullivan show was a big deal back then. Many age
groups watched it..with the variety of acts on the show, and it ran
either before or after "Lassie." Back in
the 60's and 70's, kids actually had something in common to talk
about..before classes begun.

Chris Jepson...

They still do -- it's called "American Idol."
(I do know what you mean... back then there were few choices, so it was
more common to have a TV program that was watched by most people. But
it still happens sometimes.)

Chris Jepson

Yourimageunreels...

Chris, we didn't get ABC to watch "The Brady Bunch." Did you get all 3
networks? We currently have the same thing today.

and time of their arrival at the airport. Apparently, the mania began
before they even set foot on our soil. Did people only hear these
upcoming events through their local pop music radio stations, or did
they also report this in newspapers, etc. Why did so many people, young
and old, care to watch 4 unknown boys from Liverpool?

Yourimageunreels...

=A0>>=A0- Donna

Eric Ramon...

Donna, if you'd been listening to the Singing Nun and Bobby Vinton and
then heard the Beatles you'd want to know everything you could about
them. By the time they arrived in February everyone in the US had

Ehtue...

LOL. You got that right!

known about them for a month or so. Articles had been appearing in the
New York Times for several months, starting with little filler items,
then getting bigger as they got more and more famous in England. But I
think it was mostly radio that got the info out.

Ehtue...

They were a big hit on the radio before the Sullivan show.

Imagine, if you will, you hear a song on the radio and you think
"that's exactly how music should sound", then you hear another song and
you think the same thing and it's by the same group...then another,
then another. All within a week or so! It was pretty clear that
something was going on, something major.

TAR...

Oh, I knew something major was going on solely by the reaction of my
sister and her friends. There was always music playing in my house.
Sometime before Ed Sullivan, she pointed out a Beatles song on the
radio. I don't remember which song it was, but I knew that it had a
completely different sound from any other music that I had heard
before. It was alive, you know? After all these years, I still
remember that moment in the kitchen, amazed by this new type of music
that came from the little radio on top of the refrigerator.

Seth Jackson...

I was 9 at the time, and I had a brother who was 2 years older. All I
remember is that, about 2 weeks before the show, my brother started
talking about the Beatles being on Ed Sullivan, and then suddenly
seeing these posters appearing all around town. I don't recall
whether or not I'd heard the songs on the radio prior to the show, but
I do remember the tremendous anticipation of their appearance.

Seeing them on Ed Sullivan was a revelation.

TAR...

Did they show their photos in these posters and newspapers? Did people
know about their "moptops" before they appeared on Ed Sullivan? Did
they know anything about their personalities, or hear their speaking
voices before their American debut? To me, it was like an explosion...
everything at once. But I was too young to have been aware of what was
taking place in the media before their TV appearance that night.

Seth Jackson...

Being 9 years old, I didn't see anything in the newspapers. The
posters showed the same picture that was on the cover of "Meet the
Beatles". I knew nothing about them other than they were supposed to
be something to get excited about. And, as it turned out, they were.

saki...

There were several stories about the Beatles' upcoming Sullivan show around
December in the New York Times entertainment section. Note also that Time,
Life and Newsweek all had photo and story layouts on the Beatles during the
week of November 15-19, 1963. The New York Times ran a major feature on the
Fabs in its magazine dated Dec. 1, 1963.

I don't personally remember seeing those at the time (I was nine too!) but
their music was everywhere on the radio by the end of December. It was the
music itself that first hooked me, not their image or the mania.

- Donna

marcus_gen...

My awareness of The Beatles was a bit different than other kids in
their teens at the time. I was 13 years old, but very "uncool". I
didn't listen to the radio, had no idea what other kids were listening
to etc. However, I was a big fan, along with my parents, of the Friday
night "Jack Paar Show" on NBC. My introduction to The Beatles was a
short film clip shown by Jack on his program on the night of January 3,
1964. I was mesmerized...by the concert footage of The Beatles singing
"She Loves You"...the girls screaming, the mop top haircuts in an age
of greasy kid-stuff comb-backs, and most of all, the music. I had
never heard any song sound so good in my entire life. Someone in this
thread stated that it was music the way it should sound. And I think
that is pehaps the best summary of how many teens felt when they heard
their first Beatles song, and the next one...and the next one. It is
not an understatement to say that their overall sound was unlike
anything that had come before.

And I was hooked once I heard "She Loves You" which is still a very
loved and magical song. I have never tired of hearing it for the past
42 years. Once I saw them on the Paar show, I started hearing my 8th

Seth Jackson...

Absolutely. I still have to think hard to remember that "I Wanna Hold
Your Hand" was their breakout single in the US, and not "She Loves
You", because the latter is the song that really hooked me more than
any other. What an electrifying tune. Not that IWHYH isn't great,
too.

What I remember more that the Sullivan show itself was the next
morning walking to school. There were big groups of girls walking in
big groups together singing "She Loves You" over and over again on
their way to classes.

grade classmates talk about The Beatles, and how they were coming to
America(this was in late January, about a week or so before they
arrived). I found out that The Beatles were going to be on the Ed
Sullivan Show, and learned where all the cool NYC radio stations were.
From that point on...I was Beatles fan.

Lookingglass...

That's the Jack Parr show I saw Marcus... I remember... all these years
later... :^)

dave (...looking through a glass onion...)

TAR...

So the Beatles made you cool. :)

I would love to see a copy of that Jack Paar segment... not only for the
footage of the band, but I'd also like to know what he said about them.
I wonder if it's floating around anywhere.

- Donna

Dale Houstman...

The question of how so many people knew that the Beatles were coming and
were excited about it, and the question of why there were so many who
knew exactly when and where the plane was landing are really two
different (if related) queries. Why anyone would ask the first one is
beyond me: why would Sullivan - a shrewd judge of popular taste and
entertainment - have booked The Boys unless there was already a lot of
keen interest being displayed? Because he liked long-haired English
boys? At any rate, a film of the Beatles had already been shown on the
Jack Paar show, not to mention the record play. The second "poser" is -
from what I recall - partly answered by even an amateur understanding of
how promotion works; people were "informed." This isn't to say the
reaction on the tarmac wasn't genuine: not much excitment for the
Beatles had to be faked amongst a certain age group of radio listeners.
But those kids didn't simply wander out onto the landing area. Even in
those pre-9/11 days, airport security wasn't THAT lax. It was arranged.

marcus_gen...

Yes, Cronkite was the first to show it, a brief report by one of their
CBS correspondents in England. My sister, age 11 at the time, saw the
CBS news feature, but never told me she saw it until after I found out
about The Beatles. She didn't see the Paar show.

Obviously we weren't good at communicating with one another. ;-)

Ehtue...

Yup. Once I Want To Hold Your Hand broke, a flood came after. A perfect
storm.

ian...

"A Perect Stormm" is the right characterisation... I think I'll borrow
that one :-)

Eric Ramon...

Capitol spent a lot of money on promotion too. Once upon a time kids
hung out in record stores for as long as the owners would let them.
There was a 4 page promotional newspaper that Capitol gave to the
record stores with pictures and stories of the fabulous Beatles. A
cynic might say it was the extravagant publicity that made them but I
thought it was more of a public service. :-)

marcus_gen...

The publicity campaign wasn't really necessary. Their music sold them.

Lookingglass...

I absolutely agree... But I don't recall ever hearing their music until
after that Jack Parr show...THAT got my attention. I can't remember when I

Yourimageunreels...

Yep, and I even got teased about liking the Beatles in high school. The
other kids had moved on to hard rock.

first heard them on the radio, but initially it must have been during the
onslaught of publicity to bring it to our attention. After I HEARD the
music, I didn't need the publicity any more... the music sold me. I don't
know what my reaction would have been without my attention being focused by
the publicity... but I think I would have picked up on it... I was a
"classical" music kind of guy... not much for rock&roll... that is until the
BEATLES.

dave (...if you want to dance with me...)

Lookingglass...

...BINGO............ 8*)

dave (...it's got a back beat you can't lose it...)

marcus_gen...

Both were released before the first Ed Sullivan Show. "Meet The
Beatles" came out a week before "Introducing The Beatles" in January
1964.

TAR...

That's weird. I believed that "Meet the Beatles" came right after the
show. I just did a Yahoo search and I read that it was released in the
US on February 20. Another site said that it was released here "a mere
11 days after" they appeared on Ed Sullivan. But I don't doubt that you
had it before the first performance. Marcus also confirmed it. I
suppose that some of the information in cyberspace is inaccurate.

donz5...

Correct: Meet was released January 20, Introducing Jan. 27.

- Donna

Danny Caccavo...

But it sure didn't hurt....

Chris Jepson...

Man, I can remember when UHF was the hot new thing... when "Channel 39"
sounded as bizarre as "39 o'clock" or "the 39th of January"... (hack,
wheeze)

Chris Jepson

TAR...

It was on UHF that I saw the twin towers burning. I didn't have cable
at the time, and didn't know why none of the TV stations were coming
in. UHF was fuzzy and in spanish. I thought they were showing two
smoke stacks. I felt my blood draining as I realized what I was really
looking at.

Yourimageunreels...

Oh yeah, Chris, I remember UHF But no channel 39. It was channel 27
here, but the station didn't come in very well, and it was in town. The
Rabbit ears didn't help much.
I think the station asked for money all the time, and there was no
reason to donate to a station you could barely see.

Imagine if all those kids hadn't been bussed out to the airport...

marcus_gen...

Did I miss the "tongue-in-cheek" emoticon in that last sentence?

Seth Jackson...

The publicity didn't hurt. The music sold the Beatles because people
were listening.

DanKaye...

Radio. VJ and Swan had released several great songs, and so by the
time they were on Ed Sullivan we had already heard about them, and the
Ed Sullivan show was promoted as their big "1st appearance" on tv,
even though Jack Parr - I think it was - had already featured a news
clip about them on his show.

R.A.G. Seely...

This is probably a good time to mention Bruce Spizer's book "The
Beatles are Coming!", which does about as good a job of answering
that question as anything you're likely to find. And it has a lot of
nice pictures as well.