Dolly was a television variety show that ran on ABC during the 1987-1988 season featuring Dolly Parton.

The show was, to date, network TV's last attempt at a "traditional" variety series, featuring music, comedy skits and various guest stars. It had been roughly a decade since the last successful variety series, The Carol Burnett Show, had gone off the air, and it was regarded as a gamble to try and revive the genre. Banking on Parton's talent and appeal, however, ABC paid the performer a reported $44 million for a two-year contract. It was acknowledged that a great deal of talent and work went into producing the show, but the initially high ratings during the first few episodes steadily declined, and despite many format changes and other attempts to create interest, ratings did not improve. Halfway through the run, Parton, who retained creative control over the show, took command and jettisoned many of the lavish, splashy segments that she felt were not working in favor of a more "down home" feel. By this time, however, many of the initial viewers had already stopped watching. Around this same time, Parton also hired then-relatively-unknown Brett Butler as one of the writers.

Guest stars included Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, Tyne Daly, Bruce Willis, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Petty, Tom Selleck, the Neville Brothers, Dudley Moore, and Oprah Winfrey.

The opening theme song was Parton's 1978 hit, "Baby I'm Burning" (later to be replaced with "Hoedown-Showdown"); as with her 1976 series, Parton closed each week with her signature song, "I Will Always Love You."

Though most of the show's episodes were filmed in ABC's studios in Los Angeles, a numbers of "special" episodes were filmed on location, including one in Hawaii, one in New Orleans, one in Nashville (featuring most of the cast of the Grand Old Opry), and a Thanksgiving episode in Parton's hometown of Sevierville, Tennessee, featuring most of her extended family.

Dolly! was a television variety show that aired during the 1976-1977 season and featured Dolly Parton.

In the mid-1970s, Parton was approached by Bill Graham, president of Show Biz, Inc., the same company that produced The Porter Wagoner Show (on which Parton had costarred for seven years), and soon afterward the syndicated variety show Dolly was born.

The show boasted an $85,000 per episode budget. A variety of country and Hollywood stars were scheduled to appear, including Karen Black, Tom T. Hall, Emmylou Harris, Captain Kangaroo, Ronnie Milsap, Anne Murray, Linda Ronstadt, KC & The Sunshine Band, and Anson Williams. According to her 1978 biography, Dolly by Alanna Nash, Parton spoke to Bob Dylan and he initially agreed to do the show, but eventually bowed out due to his discomfort with the television medium at the time.

Despite the work that went into the show and the diverse collection of guests, Parton was said to be less than pleased with the end product, as she found herself singing standards like "My Funny Valentine" (which she felt didn't suit her voice or musical style), and interacting with guests with whom she had little in common. She told Nash during a 1977 interview for the biography Dolly: The show lasted only one season despite very high ratings, falling apart when Parton asked out of her contract for a variety of reasons, including the toll that eighteen-hour days were taking on her vocal cords.

The show's opening theme was "Love Is Like A Butterfly" and the show's closing theme was "I Will Always Love You", both #1 hits for Dolly in 1974, both sung by Dolly on the show. During the opening credits, Dolly comes down from a swing and then comes out to sing a song. At the closing of the show, Dolly recites the recitation from "I Will Always Love You": "And I hope life treats you kind, and I hope that you have all you ever dream of. I wish you joy and lots and lots of happiness, but above all this, I wish you love, I love you" and then Dolly says "Good Night" and as the closing credits roll, Dolly sings the rest of the song.

Among the more well received installments, was one featuring the first televised performance of the "Trio" team: Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, a full decade before they released the first of their two critically-acclaimed albums.

The show also featured the first time Parton and Kenny Rogers had worked together; the two would top the country and pop charts in 1983 with their mega hit "Islands in the Stream".

As Dolly's career became more popular than ever, during the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, Dolly! was seen widely in reruns.

On February 27, 2007, Dolly! has been released onto DVD under the title of Dolly Parton And Friends, and features 6 episodes of the show, among these being the Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt episode where Dolly teamed with them for the first time, and the Kenny Rogers episode in which they teamed for the first time as well.

Dolly Parton rapidly rose to fame during the 1970s with her memorable country hits, including solo efforts and numerous duets with Porter Wagoner; she had earlier worked as Wagoner's featured singer on his TV series. "Dolly" was Parton's first solo TV effort, featuring a mix of country and popular music and comedy sketches. The show was only semi-successful in first-run syndication; however, "Dolly" would be repeated for many years (in syndication and later, cable) as Parton's star power rose exponentially in the late 1970s, with sold out concerts, starring movie roles and million-selling singles that charted on Billboard magazine's country singles and Hot 100 charts. Written by Brian Rathjen