Get ready to spend some time watching videos. In 1962, Norman Jewison produced and directed a wonderful one-hour TV special about the work of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. It was hosted by Maurice Chevalier and featured Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, Robert Goulet and Stanley Holloway. This aired on 2/11/62 when Lerner and Loewe were represented on Broadway by My Fair Lady — it closed in September of that year — and Camelot, which ran until the following January. I believe Burton had just departed the cast of Camelot when this special aired while Andrews and Goulet followed soon after.
I mention this because I believe that the musical numbers in this show were authentic re-creations of what was on the stage with those two shows using the same sets, costumes and staging…and probably the singers and dancers who were then in those productions. In this clip, you'll see Mr. Holloway perform "Get Me to the Church On Time" the same way (I bet) he did in on stage a few years earlier in New York.
You'll also see a sketch which was obviously written by Lerner, who famously complained about the kind of theatrical rabble depicted. The lady in the sketch is Frances Sternhagen and you'll also recognize a very young Charles Nelson Reilly who at the time was featured on Broadway in the original production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Oh — and the first voice you hear will be that of Paul Frees. Frees was based in L.A. at the time and I have no idea why he did the announce for a show produced in New York. Perhaps Jewison brought it back out here to edit…
Now here with slightly worse video is the musical number that the sketch leads into. The person who posted this on YouTube said it was from The Ed Sullivan Show but they're wrong. It's from that special…
And while we're at it, here's another seven and a half minutes from the same special. In this, you get to see Richard Burton perform the closing of Act One of Camelot with what I assume are the costumes, sets and supporting players then doing it on Broadway. An amazing bit of theatrical history…