Berle began his professional career at age five, working in motion pictures at Biograph Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He appeared as the child on Marie Dressler’s lap in Charlie Chaplin’s Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914), was tossed from a train by Pearl White in The Perils of Pauline (1914), and appeared in some 50 films with stars such as Douglas Fairbanks, Mabel Normand, and Marion Davies. Berle’s first stage role was in 1920, in Shubert’s Atlantic City, New Jersey, revival of Floradora, which eventually moved to Broadway. Soon after, a vaudeville sketch with Jack Duffy launched Berle’s career as a comedian. Signed as a replacement for Jack Haley at the Palace, Berle was a smash hit and was held over ten weeks. He then headlined in top nightclubs and theaters across the country, returning to Broadway in 1932 to star in Earl Carroll’s Vanities, the first of several musical shows in which he appeared.

Berle’s reputation for stealing material from other comedians was already part of his persona by this time, engineered in part as a publicity ploy; Walter Winchell labeled him “The Thief of Bad Gags.” Berle debuted on radio in 1934, and during the 1940s he hosted several shows, including the comedy-variety show Texaco Star Theater. He remained on radio (including the radio version of Texaco) until the 1948–49 season, and he was also very successful as a writer of Tin Pan Alley fare. His many songs include “Sam, You Made the Pants Too Long.”

On June 8, 1948, Berle reprised his role from radio, serving as host for the premiere episode of the TV version of The Texaco Star Theater. However, the show as yet had no set format and rotated several emcees during the summer of 1948. Originally signed to a four-week contract, Berle was finally named permanent host for the season premiere that fall. He and the show were an immediate smash, with ratings as high as 80 the first season. Ad-libbing at the end of a 1949 episode, Berle called himself “Uncle Miltie,” endearing himself to kids and creating a permanent moniker. The show received a 1949 Emmy for Best Kinescope Show (the Television Academy was then a West Coast entity in the era before coast-to-coast linkup), and Berle won as Most Outstanding Kinescoped Personality. For the next eight years, the nation seemingly shut down on Tuesday evenings during Berle’s time slot. The name of the program changed in 1953 to the Buick-Berle Show, becoming known from 1954 as The Milton Berle Show.

These shows were pitched at an aggressive, anything-for-a-laugh level, which perfectly suited Berle’s comic style and profile. This approach also tended to make his programs very visual. Slapstick routines, outrageous costumes (Berle often appeared in drag), and various ludicrous skits became trademarks of his television humor. Audiences across the United States wanted to see what Berle would do next, and he quite obviously thrived on this anticipation. From his malaprop greetings (e.g., “Hello, ladies and germs”) to the frenetic, relentless pacing of his jokes and rejoinders and even in his reputation for stealing and recycling material, Berle presented himself as one part buffoon and one part consummate, professional entertainer, a kind of veteran of the Borscht Belt trenches. However, even within his shows’ sanctioned exhibitionism, some of Berle’s behavior could cross the line from affability to effrontery. At its worst, the underlying tone of the Berle programs could appear to be one of contempt should the audience not respond approvingly. In some cases, the program exhibited a surprising degree of self-consciousness about TV itself; Texaco’s original commercial spokesman, Sid Stone, would sometimes hawk his products until driven from the stage by a cop. However, the uneven balance of excess and decorum proved wildly successful.

Featuring such broad and noisy comedy but also multiple guest stars and (for the time) lavish variety-show production values, Berle’s shows are credited with spurring the sale of TV sets in the United States, especially to working-class homes. When he first went on the air, less than 500,000 sets had been sold nationwide; when he left The Milton Berle Show in 1956, after nearly 500 live shows, that number had increased to nearly 30 million. Berle was signed to an unprecedented $6 million, 30-year exclusive contract with the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1951, guaranteed $200,000 per year in addition to the salaries from his sponsors. Renegotiated in 1966, his annual payments were reduced to $120,000, but Berle could work on other networks.

After his Tuesday night run ended in 1956, Berle hosted three subsequent series and made many appearances on other comedy and variety shows. He received numerous tributes as a television pioneer. In dramatic roles, he received an Emmy nomination for “Doyle Against the House,” an episode of The Dick Powell Show (1961), and was notable in his role as a blind survivor of an airplane crash in the first American Broadcasting Company (ABC) movie of the week, Seven in Darkness (1969). He guest starred on many television series, including The Big Valley, and when he was 87 years old, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for his guest role as a former vaudeville star afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease on the FOX drama Beverly Hills 90210. Doyen of the famous comedians’ fraternity, the Friars Club, Berle also sporadically appeared on stage through the 1990s. However, it is the early Berle shows that remain the expression of Mr. Television, the expression of a medium that had not yet set its boundaries in such rigid fashion. In those earlier moments, huge numbers of Americans could settle themselves before the screen, welcome their outrageous “Uncle” into the living room, leave him behind for a week, and know that he would return once again when asked.