now this is cool kids 31 years ago our first guest made his american debut on
this very stage right here in this theater as a member of the beatles
we couldn't be happier to have him back here tonight on candy and gum night ladies and
gentlemen please say hello to ringo starr nice to see you the crowd is so excited they turned black
and white all of a sudden welcome back to the ed sullivan theater 31 years ago most of these people
were born well hell before i was well well not quite let's let's talk about that experience i
mean what the i mean i living through that just as an observer an amazing phenomenon what was
it like when you guys came to the united states landed it i guess it was then idlewild therefore
yeah what was it like then from the ride in right here to the center of town crazy yeah
all right we'll be right back with ringo starr with some more of those fascinating details
uh it was pretty amazing uh you know because when we were booked to play on the ed sullivan
show we didn't really know where it was but we play anywhere sure and uh we had no
records here we had two records out and nobody wanted them so we were really nervous and uh
oh yes i know these are sad tales yes it is it's just too bad things didn't work out like this
anyway we got here and just with the madness of it all we landed with the number one record
and so there was like 50 000 kids at the airport which is very nice because we were used to that
and and the drive in uh you know it's just was craziness but what was great was that when we
got to the hotel because we come from england you know that one radio station and one tv channel
when we got there was all this media stuff and we were phoning the uh the uh the djs and then
listening to ourselves on the radios and all this thing was getting crazy and crazy then we got here
and uh you know not really knowing okay it's ed sullivan what's that really mean we didn't know
yeah did ed know you guys did you get a sense that he knew exactly i don't think he knew anybody he
didn't know anybody oh that's a sad comment about that well no it just wasn't there's ed right there
so i mean my memory of ed we came here and we said oh it's american we had all this craziness and
ed's gonna say yeah they are the greatest the best you know big big big build-up and it seemed like
it said uh here they are the beatles ringo there's some that i've wanted to ask you for
a uh uh a long long time it seemed to me when i first was aware of your group the beatles and
we would see you know pictures and magazines and newspapers and stuff about touring europe uh in
london and everywhere liverpool and once and it seemed to me then that the hair that we came to
identify so closely and readily with the beetles it was just like guys growing long hair sure and
then when you got to the united states it was like oh man look at that hair you know everybody had
kind of matching hair yeah so so i'm i'm like wondering what were you was that your actual
hair were you guys wearing like beetle wigs well that was our actual hair it was your actual hair
oh yeah we just screw it like that no yeah but do you think this is a cool audience
everybody always wonders you know what was it like when you did the installment show yeah
besides i was in the back somewhere down there yeah uh you know i thought if you were off to it
i could sort of maybe give you a moment's feeling how so what exactly are you doing i thought if we
could have the audience when i count to three and all the very high-pitched voices scream
no not yet not yet but do you think you could do that yeah but you have to help me out dave
but what do i have to do already it's gonna be good i want you just to do this because
the last couple of times i saw the show yeah i saw you sort of
complaining about you have some hair i have interesting hair well i got this for you
and so you don't feel alone so you know
let's go and stand down there and i'll give him one two three and
they're just gonna shrink the brains out paul are they paying me enough to do this
why don't we have paul come down too
thank you thank you very much
there you go paul now let's pack that camera back guys oh god come on dave it's sweeps week
we ain't in that better shape anthony
don't you feel good don't you feel good
thank you very much for my grandest moment of public humiliation nice to see you again