This made me really, really sad. I loved 'The Mike Douglas Show', and I watched it every day when I should have been in school.

According to this article on CNN.com:

Mike Douglas, who drew on his affable personality and singing talent during 21 years as a talk show host, died Friday on his 81st birthday, his wife said.

He died at 5:30 a.m. in a Palm Beach Gardens hospital, said his wife, Genevieve Douglas. She wasn't sure of the cause, but said he had been admitted Thursday.

Douglas became dehydrated on the golf course a few weeks ago and had been treated on and off since. "He was coming along fine, we thought. It was really a shock," she said. "We never anticipated this to happen."

I always felt that it was such a great music show -- the kind of music variety show that you just don't see anymore. The days of incredibly talented musicians entertaining for an hour seem so, so long ago. Here's a great quote from Mike Douglas that nicely sums up what made the 'The Mike Douglas Show' so great:

Douglas' afternoon show, which aired from 1961 to 1982, featured his ballad and big-band singing style, other musicians, comedians, sports figures and political personalities, including seven former, sitting or future presidents.

"People still believe 'The Mike Douglas Show' was a talk show, and I never correct them, but I don't think so," Douglas said in his 1999 memoir, "I'll Be Right Back: Memories of TV's Greatest Talk Show."

"It was really a music show, with a whole lot of talk and laughter in between numbers."

Douglas did about 6,000 syndicated shows, most 90 minutes long, and estimated that at its peak the show was seen in about 230 cities.

I noticed that some of the Lennon/Ono episodes are available on VHS, but I sure hope they come out with an "ultimate DVD collection" soon...

However, King World Syndication does have a great 'The Mike Douglas Show' Web site, which says:

The Mike Douglas Show archives are currently being licensed for professional use in television programs, DVDs, and documentaries.

Out of the 4000+ shows Mike hosted, only a small number have been remastered from the original 2" tapes. The majority of the programs listed on this website have been remastered, but many more episodes and guests are available as well.

Screening tapes of already-remastered programs can be provided to interested parties at a cost of $95 per 90-minute episode. Fees for licensing of clips will be determined separately on a case-by-case basis.

If an episode has not been transferred from it's 2" master tape, the cost for a screener is $200 per program, exclusive of licensing costs.

Contact Donna Fields at (212) 817-5601 for more information. Professional inquiries only, please.

There are some amazing clips on the King World site, including a great Liza track, some priceless stuff with Tiger Wood when he was 2, and lots of other great stars.

Here's a last little bit on Mike Douglas from his entry on Wikipedia:

He next surfaced in 1961 in Cleveland, where a onetime Chicago colleague hired him for $400 a week as an afternoon television talk-show host at WKYC-TV, then known as KYW-TV. The show rapidly gained popularity, and ultimately, national syndication in August 1963 on five Westinghouse-owned stations. It stopped broadcasting live in 1965 after guest Zsa Zsa Gabor used inappropriate language on the air. As KYW-TV's owner, Group W, successfully had a station swap with NBC overturned by the FCC, the program moved to Philadelphia in June 1965 with KYW itself - though WKYC in Cleveland continued to carry the program for many years afterward.

Guests ranged from Truman Capote and Richard Nixon to The Rolling Stones and Herman's Hermits. The show helped introduce entertainers such as Barbra Streisand and Aretha Franklin. Regrettably, footage of Streisand's appearance, like many others of this era, was discarded by WKYC-TV.

After the move to Philadelphia, Douglas also attempted to revive his own singing career, logging his lone Top 40 single as a solo artist, "The Men In My Little Girl's Life" in 1966.

By 1967, The Mike Douglas Show was broadcasting to 171 markets and 6,000,000 viewers each day, mostly women at home. It earned $10.5 million from advertisers, while its host was paid more than $500,000. In 1967, the program received the first Emmy Award for Individual Achievement in Daytime Television from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

In July 1978, the talk show's home base was transferred to Los Angeles, where it remained until finally going off the air in 1981. A second series, The Mike Douglas Entertainment Hour, ended production in 1982.

Goodbye Mr. Douglas...

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