Madison Avenue Is Afraid Of The Dark

As the holidays overtake the sights and sounds of our culture in a seemingly endless loop, there are those aspects of it that have been expected and, more or less, iconic.

The Christmas songs as sung by Nat King Cole are one of those things.

Maybe you don’t play it in your home or your car, but it’s there.

It’s in the background of your favorite TV show’s holiday episode, it’s in the red, green and silver mazes that make up the malls of America. Like Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole’s voice lends itself to help evoking a charming, sentimental and harmonious feeling during the holidays.

Because of this, one might assume that Nat King Cole has always been part of the pop culture holiday iconography, like Rudolph and Yukon Cornelius or Charlie Brown and his pathetic tree. It’s beloved because it’s always been around and it’s always been around because it’s been so beloved.

Cole earned and fought to be in that soft spot of America’s heart.

Nat King Cole was more than just a great voice or piano player; he was more than just a handsome man who looked good in a suit; he was a ground-breaker and, ultimately, someone that got buried because of it.

“Hey, Nat. You should get your own show. It’ll be a goldmine. Ring a ding ding.”

Since the late 1940’s, Cole was a big name.

He had a long list of million-selling records and was one of the highest paid performers on the nightclub circuits. When television became the new big medium, many performers got their own shows. Whether you were a big-time host like Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason or Perry Como, one of the hotter guests to have on your variety show was none other than Nat King Cole. Audiences loved him, other performers loved him. Even the television cameras loved him. Cole’s presence and poise made him a natural to host his own show.

In an interview with Ebony in 1958, Cole referred to his experience on The Nat King Cole Show as his being, “…the Jackie Robinson of television.”

In the early 50’s, two shows had featured black emcees, but these were short-lived.  Cole, on the other hand, was a big time star. On the same level of Sinatra or Judy Garland, Cole hosting his own show was an expected win. If Madonna or Lady Gaga had their own shows, the networks would go nuts with dollar signs in their eyes.

The Nat King Cole Show lasted only 13 months.

With no sponsor willing to put their brand name on a show hosted by an African-American, NBC put up their own money to get the show off the ground. The idea was that, once the show began and the audiences embraced it, advertisers would jump on the bandwagon.

With Nelson Riddle as bandleader, The Nat King Cole Show premiered on November 5, 1956 with no commercials. Without sponsors, there are no commercials. Due partly to this, the show was only 15 minutes long, for the first few months. In July of 1957, it got a new night and a 30-minute slot. Still, there was no sponsor willing to back the show.

Industry A-listers, thrilled at the chance to appear on the show of someone they respected, appeared despite having to agree to being paid union scale. NBC couldn’t always afford a Peggy Lee, a Mel Torme or a Tony Bennett, but they could when these performers were happy to put their enormous fees aside in order to appear with Cole and support his show.

“Hmmm.” “Uh-hummm.” “Ah-hummm.” “Hmmm.”

The New York Times called the show “a refreshing musical diversion” with a host possessing “an amiable personality that comes across engagingly on the television screen.”

Despite improved ratings, no sponsors would come forward.

No national sponsor wanted to jeopardize their customers in the South by associating their product with Cole’s show. Even if the sponsors were in favor of Cole’s show, even if they themselves were disgusted by the racism of the period, they were businessmen first and foremost and losing sales due to bad PR is never good business.

Occasionally, some sponsors would underwrite the show in local markets, like Italian Swiss Colony Wine in San Francisco or Coca-Cola in Houston, but never was the show fully sponsored on a national level. NBC continued to pay for every aspect of it.

A one-sided duet with Errol Flynn.

NBC and Cole knew they were taking a chance, that they were trying to change what was socially acceptable in a rather conservative nation. It wasn’t NBC executives, but Cole himself who pulled the plug. He had known that the show was a grand experiment, but he also knew that some experiments fail. A lot of beakers have to be blown up before the right formula is found.

In an Ebony magazine article entitled “Why I Quit My TV Show,” Cole discussed his experience more candidly.

“For 13 months I was the Jackie Robinson of television. I was the pioneer, the test case,…. On my show rode the hopes and tears and dreams of millions of people…. Once a week for 64 consecutive weeks I went to bat for these people. I sacrificed and drove myself. I plowed part of my salary back into the show. I turned down $500,000 in dates in order to be on the scene. I did everything I could to make the show a success. And what happened? After a trailblazing year that shattered all the old bugaboos about Negroes on TV, I found myself standing there with the bat on my shoulder. The men who dictate what Americans see and hear didn’t want to play ball.”

The first successful television show that was hosted by an African-American wouldn’t come about until 1970 with The Flip Wilson Show.

Like Cole’s show, Flip Wilson’s aired on NBC. Unfortunately, Cole died in 1965 and never got to see someone else achieve the television success he himself had sought.

NBC and Cole had been doing the right thing, but they had been doing it at the wrong time. Of the advertisers at the time who weren’t willing to take a chance, Cole had said, “Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.”

Come on! Who could hate this face?