TFTP Late Night: "The Jack Paar Tonight Show" from NBC (Sep. 21, 1960)

Posted to YouTube by user 'therealdrfilm'
Length - 18:46

For this second "TFTP Late Night" post, after the inaugural "Late Night" post featuring Steve Allen's "Tonight Show", we have the second "Tonight Show" host, Jack Paar. Paar became "Tonight Show" host in 1957 and remained until mid-1962. Paar had a sometimes rocky tenure as host that included a famous walk-out for a period of several days in 1960 in protest over NBC's censoring of a joke about a water closet.

This clip is from later that same year, Sept. 21, 1960. By this time, the title of the program had shifted from "Tonight Starring Jack Paar" to "The Jack Paar Tonight Show". The clip begins with comic Charley Weaver doing a somewhat indecipherable bit with the show's orchestra. Then Paar converses with stand-up comic Shelly Berman (in an unusual seating arrangement in which Berman sits to Paar's left at the desk, which was also used by Johnny Carson in his earliest "Tonight Show" years). Weaver, actress Hermione Gingold, and Paar sidekick (pre-"Today Show", pre-"20/20") Hugh Downs all join the conversation pell-mell, offering a good example of the more freewheeling format of early late-night talk shows (and especially of Paar's "Tonight Show").

Although this clip is in black and white, Paar supposedly had started just a few days before this episode to tape his program in color. Unfortunately, this means we are deprived of knowing the color of the seemingly random fez hat Paar is wearing.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "Video Village" from CBS (Sep. 16, 1960)

Posted to YouTube by user 'videoarchives1000'
Length (total) - 29:28

TFTP's Monochrome Monday brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week....

"Video Village" is one of the more interesting game shows in TV history. It's basically a life-size board game--with the contestants themselves as the pawns marking where they are on the board. The show's set is a large representation of an undulating ribbon of game spaces, each space indicating a different kind of action--some with cash prizes, some located in front of mock storefronts with merchandise prizes, some dictating certain types of movements (e.g., trading places with the other contestant), some sending the contestant to jail (like in Monopoly, but with an actual mock jail cell).

The program, from game-show impresarios Heatter-Quigley (best known for "Hollywood Squares"), had both daytime and prime-time versions that debuted within days of each other in July 1960. The daytime edition lasted for two years, until June 1962, but the prime-time version only made it a few months, until September 12, 1960, with the episode featured above. Jack Narz hosted both versions until the prime-time run ended; Monty Hall took over the daytime version thereafter; Red Rowe substituted for this final prime-time episode.