Elvis Presley may have been the star attraction of this 1960 ABC special, and he was paid $125,000 for six minutes of performance. However, I found myself riveted to Rat Pack members who appeared on this show, as well as Nancy Sinatra.
The Rat Pack meets Elvis. It's always amazing to see the knives come out when fans of one icon-Elvis or Sinatra or the Beatles.
I have never understood, and probably will never understand, the Elvis Presley cult. I can't see how anybody could watch this show and not see that Frank Sinatra had more talent in his toenail than Elvis had in his entire body.
Often overshadowed or blinded by the sheer and incomparable brilliance associated with his own legendary and meteoric explosion on the music scene just years earlier in 1956, Elvis Presley remains the only entertainer in history to this day that experienced successes so big, and so far beyond the TV ratings generated by any other individual recording artist to have ever appeared through the medium, creating an unheard of phenomenon in which those performances which rank the lowest in Presley's appearance history ( though still considered as major successes by anyone's standards )would be, by far, the most gigantic ratings never ever even considered possible in the realm of possibilities and wildest dreams of any other performer. With appearances on The Ed Sullivan show so gigantic in the scales of success and influence that he would from that point forward forever be remembered in the perceptions and memories of those many millions his performances inspired as a performer with talents bordering on the supernatural and possibilities in terms of popularity and success which knew no bounds.
The teenage girls of the 50s mourned when they were deprived of Elvis Presley for two years as the Pelvis from Tupelo got that letter from the president that the country needed his services. So Ike had Elvis stationed in Germany and when he got home his popularity hadn't diminished a bit.
Sinatra's March 26, 1960 Timex special "Welcome Home Elvis" was designed to welcome "The Boy" home from Germany. This short TV appearance confirmed to all that he never missed a beat while in the army.
