What is "variety show"

Variety show \Variety show\ A stage entertainment, live or televised, of successive separate performances, usually songs, dances, acrobatic feats, dramatic sketches, exhibitions of trained animals, or any specialties. When performed live in a theater, it was often called a vaudeville show, but when television became a dominant form of entertainment live vaudeville performances almost completely ceased.

n. A theatrical entertainment featuring a succession of short, unrelated performances by singers, dancers, comedians, acrobats, magicians etc

n. a show consisting of a series of short unrelated performances [syn: variety]

A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts (hence the name), especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and is normally introduced by a compère (master of ceremonies) or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. The variety format made its way from Victorian era stage to radio to television. Variety shows were a staple of anglophone television from its early days (late 1940s) into the 1980s.

While still widespread in some parts of the world, the proliferation of multichannel television and evolving viewer tastes affected the popularity of variety shows in the United States. Despite this, their influence has still had a major effect on late night television whose late night talk shows and NBC's comedy series Saturday Night Live (which originally premiered in 1975) have remained popular fixtures of North American television.