The Big Show

The Big Show is an American comedy-variety-musical television series produced and broadcast by NBC for several months in 1980.

The series aimed to revitalize the moribund variety television genre, which had been in a downward spiral since the cancellations of The Ed Sullivan Show and The Carol Burnett Show a few years earlier. The Big Show took its title seriously, using a huge stage set and filling a 90-minute time-slot, with at least one two-hour installment broadcast.

Although the first broadcast received high ratings, poor reviews and low ratings of succeeding episodes resulted in the program being cancelled after only a few months. The series nonetheless was nominated for six Emmy Awards, winning for Outstanding Costume Design.