The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis

Welcome Home Elvis was a 1960 television special on ABC starring Frank Sinatra and featuring Elvis Presley in his first televised appearance since coming home from his military service in Germany. The special was officially titled It's Nice to Go Traveling, but is more commonly known as Welcome Home Elvis having featured Elvis on his first TV appearance in three years. This was also Frank Sinatra's fourth and final television special that he did for sponsor Timex.

The special also featured Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Nancy Sinatra, who later starred with Elvis in his 1968 film Speedway.

Elvis performed "Fame and Fortune" and "Stuck on You", which were the two sides of his first post-army single. He also performed a duet with Sinatra. Elvis performed Sinatra's classic "Witchcraft" while Frank performed the Elvis classic "Love Me Tender". None of these performances were released on record until the 1980s. Presley also sang a verse during the opening production number, "It's Nice to Go Traveling", which has yet to be commercially released. The remainder of the special consisted of performances by the additional guest stars.

Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. sing a duet together in this show: Shall We Dance, after Davis did some impersonations. Davis also sang "There's A Boat Dat's Leaving Soon For New York" earlier that show. The show was a great success grabbing 41.5 percent of the ratings. Excerpts from this show appear in Warner Bros.' 1981 documentary film This Is Elvis.

On July 15, 1959 it was announced that Presley, upon his release from the US Army, would be making his first television appearance on Frank Sinatra's fourth and final Timex-sponsored variety show. For the special, originally titled Frank Sinatra's Welcome Home Party for Elvis Presley, he would receive $125,000, an unheard of sum at the time for a single television appearance. Sinatra was not happy about the amount, knowing full well that even he was not being paid that much for the whole show. He accepted, however, that Presley's appearance would attract huge ratings for his show, something that his three previous specials had failed to do. Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, also made it very clear that this sum was for only two songs, approximately 6–8 minutes. Parker had hoped that showcasing Presley on Sinatra's show would re-introduce him to an older audience, an audience that would be less likely to forget him in favor of the next teen idol. The television special would bring together two of the music world's biggest stars, each with their own legendary titles; Sinatra was known as the Voice and Presley was known as the King. Realizing how big an opportunity this was for his client, Parker was intent on seeing things run as smoothly as possible.

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