Upbeat (TV program)
US television program
Upbeat was a syndicated musical variety show produced in Cleveland, Ohio, at ABC affiliate WEWS-TV 5 that aired from 1964 to 1971 (the last five years airing nationally in first run syndication). Upbeat was a showcase for top music acts of the 1960s, featuring performances by a who's-who of future inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many now-legendary Motown and R&B artists who appeared on Upbeat were in Cleveland to perform at the influential nightclub Leo's Casino, or else had come into town on tour or were en route to New York City to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show.
History
Originally titled as The Big 5 Show, the series began as a local program when it premiered in 1964, the name was a reference to WEWS Channel 5 and the 5 to 6 p.m. time slot on Saturday afternoons. When the program became syndicated nationally, the name of the show was changed to Upbeat, and as stations had the option of airing the program at different times, the program's title change was necessary.
The introduction of the program commenced with a studio musician shouting "hey let's go with the Upbeat show!" as the in-house band, Dave C and the Sharptones, would play the introductory theme song with the program's main title logo, slowly exploding and coming back together again in a quasi-animated frame by frame fashion as the performers were announced for that particular episode. The series was aired in black and white from 1964 until 1967, then broadcast in color from 1967 until the series demise in 1971.
The program's host, Don Webster, was a familiar face to WEWS viewers. In addition to hosting "Upbeat," Webster was also WEWS' weatherman on their nightly newscasts.
“Upbeat (TV program)” enters the record as uS television program. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Upbeat, program and television can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7898194. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1971 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Upbeat (TV program)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.