Steve Allen Presents The Hollywood Merit Awards.                                 

John Wayne and an all-star cast tell the story of America. 

Host: John Wayne.                        

John Wayne and an all-star cast tell the story of America. 

Host: John Wayne.      

Duplicate of 9357.       

John Wayne's first TV special is a journey through American history with music, comedy, and more than two-dozen guest stars.
John's guests include Jack Benny as a citizen asking George Washington (Lorne Greene) about that dollar he supposedly threw across the Potomac, Bob Hope and Ann-Margret entertaining the troops at Valley Forge, printer Red Skelton discussing dissent with apprentice Tom Smothers, Lucille Ball as Miss Liberty, and Bing Crosby as Mark Twain, philosophizing with freed slave Frederick Douglass (Roscoe Lee Browne).
Also: Michael Landon as Peter Minuit, buying Manhattan Island from Indian Dan Blocker, Dean Martin as inventor Eli Whitney, Celeste Holm and Dennis Weaver as the parents of young Abe Lincoln, brothers Rick and David Nelson fighting on opposite sides in the Civil War, Phyllis Diller as a 19th-century presidential candidate, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin as the Wright Brothers.
Songs: Johnny Cash: "Ribbon Of Steel," Glen Campbell: "This Is A Great Country," Roy Clark: "Oh Suzanna," Leslie Uggams: "Clementine," Doddletown Pipers: "The Declaration." All: "God Bless America."