Here's one you probably won't want to watch in full — it runs 88 minutes — but you might care to sample. It's Bob Hope's 1967 Christmas Special, chronicling his tour that year to entertain our troops overseas. There was some controversy about these shows a few years after this…about whether Hope was doing them because he cared about the soldiers or because he pocketed a helluva lot of money from the TV specials that resulted. I recall the debates were generally based on the premise that it had to be either/or; that both could not possibly be true to some extent.
I always thought the joy of the soldiers was pretty much the answer. If it could make that many servicemen and women happy, who cared about Mr. Hope's motives? As it turned out, I later spoke to a couple of folks who went on one or more of these tours and they all said Hope's attitude was along the lines of "I gotta do this…those boys'll be so disappointed if I don't." The money was kind of a happy bonus. I'll also add for what it's worth that even if there was no financial reward, very few entertainers would ever have turned down the chance to headline or even be a part of something like this…
