From 1948 through 1962, variety show host Ed Sullivan was the face and voice of Lincoln-Mercury on television. Here’s Ed pitching the new 1954 Mercury line.
Ed Sullivan, America’s favorite TV host, does not appear on screen in this 1954 commercial spot, but there is no mistaking his unique voice and staccato delivery, imitated to this day by generations of by impressionists (professional and otherwise). Countless entertainers were introduced to American households on Sullivan’s Sunday night CBS variety show, from Itzak Perlman to Elvis Presley to the Beatles. And from 1948 to 1962 on his show, Sullivan was the official television spokesman for the Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford Motor Company, in much the same way as Groucho Marx for DeSoto or Dinah Shore for Chevrolet.
Mercury had plenty of news for the 1954 model year, including an up-to-date ball-joint front suspension and a larger, 256 CID version of FoMoCo’s brand-new Y-block overhead-valve V8. (Read about the Y-Block V8 family here.) Toward the end of our spot, Sullivan includes a plug for the innovative Sun Valley hardtop, which sported a transparent roof panel of tinted plexiglass—a feature shared with a Ford sibling model, the Crestline Skyliner. It was a really big shoo, we could say. Video below.
Ford in general had a banner year in ’54. Its cars and trucks all were in their prime. While I’d never kick a ’54 Mercury off my driveway, I admit to being partial to the Fords. Just the same, the Mercury offerings were great cars.
Now for Ed Sullivan: My family tuned into him on Sunday nights for as long as we had a TV (1955 onward). I find it a little difficult to see him as a spokesman for some of these products but I have to say that he didn’t promote anything that he did NOT like. I remember him in an ad promoting EXPO ’67: ‘This is a Really Big SHEW.’ That moniker stuck, and there were a lot of modified versions of that. The Flintstones had a takeoff on that with ‘Ed SULLY-stone,’ who promoted ‘Tonight’s Really Big Shew…’
I had a four-door ’54 Monterey in college in the Sixties. While I’d have preferred a hardtop or convertible, the Merc was gorgeous. White cabin and metallic emerald green body, with cream and green leather and fabric interior. With her manual transmission and V-8 she was a comfortable town ride and powerful highway cruiser. One of the cars I wish I’d kept!