Looking to duplicate the success they'd enjoyed with This is Tom Jones, ABC & ITC added another British singer to the network's roster with The Engelbert Humperdinck Show, which lasted six months total during the 1969-70 season.
Humperdinck, who'd scored his first major hit with "Release Me" in 1967, did the standard comedy-variety show of the day, and in the following clip, it seems as though the producers sought to emulate the formula that made Carol Burnett's CBS show so successful, if not skewering it at the same time. Here, Humperdinck shares the stage with fellow Brit Dusty Springfield and comedy icon Jonathan Winters.
So why did it fail? Perhaps the same problem that faced a number of different television genres in those days, gluttony. There were quite a few variety shows at the time, and ABC, in particular, would bid Tom Jones farewell not too long after this series ended, as well.
No rating. No memory of seeing the show.
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