TFTP Late Night: "The Tonight Show" from NBC (Apr. 22, 1964)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Jake Ehrlich'
Length - 27:06

Existing footage from the first decade of Johnny Carson's tenure on "The Tonight Show" (from his start in late-1962 until the show moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1972) is very scarce now, due to the fact that NBC at the time routinely erased the recordings. So being able to see an excerpt as long as this one, especially in color (even if the color is compromised technically), is pretty rare.

The guest in this extended clip is attorney and author Jake Ehrlich Sr., who at the time of this 1964 episode had just come out with a legal book titled "A Reasonable Doubt". Johnny and Mr. Ehrlich engage in an extensive back and forth--with Ehrlich carrying the bulk of the conversation--about a variety of legal topics, with an emphasis on the Fifth Amendment. In the mid-1960s, "The Tonight Show" was still 90 minutes in length and the last segments of an episode were often taken up by an extended chat with an author; it's hard to imagine a late-night talk show these days doing so.

TFTP Late Night: Early Clips from "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" from NBC (1962/1964)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Sir Raymond Bell' (top), 'Johnny Carson' (bottom)
Length - 0:34 (top), 1:11 (bottom)

As part of TFTP's continuing series of posts on the history and evolution of "The Tonight Show" (see here, here, here, and here), these two clips feature moments from the first couple of years of Johnny Carson's tenure as the show's host. There is very little footage that remains from these years, as NBC destroyed copies of pretty much all of the episodes from Carson's first decade as host.

The first (very brief) clip above is from a little over three months into Carson's stint, in about late-December of 1962, and relates to Johnny's best moments to that point as "Tonight Show" host. The second clip (from the official Carson Productions archive) is from a 1964 episode in which Zsa Zsa Gabor rips Johnny's pants off in a sketch that has Carson doing a now-questionable impression of a Charlie Chan-like character (with a joke about Zsa Zsa from a much later episode thrown in at the end).

TFTP Late Night: "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" premiere episode (audio only) from NBC (Oct. 1, 1962)

Posted to YouTube by user 'TheNlsnn'
Length - 3:00

In the past few months, TFTP has featured a lot of items related to the early years of "The Tonight Show": the premiere episode of "The Tonight Show" with first host Steve Allen, the final episode of "The Tonight Show" with second host Jack Paar, and a Jerry Lewis-hosted episode of "The Tonight Show" from the interim between Paar and Johnny Carson. Today, we have an audio-only clip of the first few minutes of Carson's first episode from Oct. 1, 1962. (This is another case where only the audio survives, not the entire episode.)

There had been an interim of several months between the final Paar episode (in March of 1962) and this first Carson episode (due to Carson needing to complete his contract as host of the ABC game show "Who Do You Trust?")--an interim that Carson refers to in his comments in this clip. The person Carson is conversing with in the first part of the clip is comic Groucho Marx, who had come on first to introduce Carson in his first episode as host of "The Tonight Show". Carson, in addition to commenting on the publicity build-up resulting from the months-long interim, also summarizes in perfect Carson form his reaction to the pressure of the high-profile gig.

TFTP's Monochrome March, On This Day: "The Tonight Show" w/ Jack Paar - audio only (Mar. 29, 1962)

Posted to YouTube by user 'epaddon'
Length - 1:14:44

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

It Was 56 Years Ago Today: We finish Monochrome March today with an item that is not a monochrome program per se, but the audio from a monochrome program--Jack Paar's final episode as host of the "Tonight Show", which aired 56 years ago today on March 29, 1962.

Many programs from the earliest period of TV history do not survive, but there are others for which the full program does not survive but the audio track does survive--and this last Paar "Tonight Show" episode is one of those. The program's audio above accompanies still images that attempt to illustrate what is going on in the audio track. Perhaps unsurprisingly given Paar's reputation, he spends a good chunk of this final episode settling scores, including with columnists Walter Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen and those who criticized his visits to Cuba during his "Tonight Show" run (which took place as that country was undergoing revolution). Of course, a farewell show being what it is, there are plenty of testimonials to Paar as well, including from the likes of Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy, Billy Graham, George Burns, Jack Benny, and Bob Hope.

Paar had been "Tonight Show" host for almost five years by March of 1962, having started in July of 1957 (succeeding first "Tonight" host Steve Allen). Paar's tenure on the "Tonight Show" had been famously rocky, and included a walkout of the show for several days in 1960 as a result of a dispute with NBC about censorship of jokes. (He quips in the monologue of this episode that the NBC legal department was having a luau to celebrate his leaving the program.) Paar was leaving at this particular time to launch a prime-time variety show on NBC that started in the fall of 1962. That program ran until 1965, and for a few years after Paar made an occasional TV special, but then he appeared on TV infrequently for the remainder of his life, which lasted until 2004.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "The Tonight Show" w/ guest host Jerry Lewis from NBC (Jul. 2, 1962)

Posted to YouTube by user 'givethechanceakid'
Length - 18:26

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

After Jack Paar left the "Tonight Show" in early-1962, there was an interim period of several months before new host Johnny Carson could begin due to previous contractual commitments Carson had. During this period, guest hosts filled in using the Paar "Tonight Show" set and personnel, including sidekick Hugh Downs and bandleader Skitch Henderson. The clip above is from one of those interim episodes, from July of 1962, hosted by comic Jerry Lewis.

"The Tonight Show" was ninety minutes long in those days and was much more freewheeling and loose in structure--tendencies that are loudly on display in this Lewis-hosted episode. Large chunks of the episode are devoted to Lewis and Downs playing memory games, an avocation of Lewis's. The first part of the clip above shows Lewis guessing the items (written on a chalkboard) that had been compiled from audience suggestions in the previous segment. Then, Lewis recites items from a list he had put into a sealed envelope.

Lewis finally introduces a guest, fellow comic Jack Carter, and the two engage in frantic banter and horseplay before settling down into what at least resembles an interview. (It's not long before this breaks out again into horseplay and antics.) The general melee of this clip and the episode it came from represents perhaps Lewis's lack of commitment to the program, as a transient guest host, or perhaps Lewis was just unable to contain himself, but this episode represents a high point in the lack of structure in early television.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "The Steve Allen Show" from NBC (Jul. 1, 1956)

Posted to YouTube by user 'balsamwoods'
Length - 58:23

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

This episode of "The Steve Allen Show" is the famous one where Elvis Presley, in one of his first appearances on national television, was forced to sing "Hound Dog" to a hound dog. Steve Allen was famous for denigrating and ridiculing rock music. His disregard for rock--right up until the end of his life in 2000--became a real blind spot for him, as his attempts to (he thought) expose the ridiculousness of the form instead made him look ridiculous. This was the context in which he made Presley serenade the hound dog in this episode.

Allen's prime-time variety show had premiered just a month before this July 1956 episode. He had been host of NBC's "Tonight" since 1954 (the premiere episode of which was featured on TFTP recently), and he did double duty on "Tonight" and this Sunday night variety show until he left "Tonight" in 1957. The Sunday night show competed with the "Ed Sullivan Show" and this booking of Presley was undoubtedly an attempt to score an early ratings victory. (Presley, of course, would soon after make an even more famous appearance on Sullivan's program.)

The episode above begins with a bit between Allen and fellow variety host Milton Berle before going on to a musical number of the song "Picnic", a humorous sit-down interview with then-newcomer Andy Griffith, a viking-themed number by Allen show regulars Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and a bit by Allen (of questionable taste to us now) where he lampoons an Indian yogi. Allen and guest Imogene Coca play a married couple in a sketch that sends up the "realism" seen in recent Hollywood movies, and finally three-quarters of the way through the episode Elvis makes his appearance.

Presley, after a brief introductory chat with Allen, gamely and in good humor performs "Hound Dog" to the hound dog, wearing a tuxedo to boot. Presley returns, along with Griffith and Coca and host Allen, in a show-closing musical comedy sketch that sends up country and western music.

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: "The Morning Show" w/ Jack Paar from CBS (c. 1956)

Posted to YouTube by user 'tvdays'
Length - 13:05

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

Before he became the second host of "The Tonight Show" in 1957, Jack Paar was host of the first early morning news program on CBS. After NBC premiered the "Today" show, CBS felt compelled to compete in the new early morning period, and so "The Morning Show" launched in March of 1954. For its first year the program was hosted by newsman (and future CBS anchor) Walter Cronkite, who was succeeded by Paar in 1955.

Paar had begun his career in radio as a substitute host on shows like "The Breakfast Club" and as a humorous disc jockey in local radio, and those influences show in this clip from during Paar's stint as host of "The Morning Show". Sitting at a nondescript desk with clock behind him on the wall, Paar leads a light banter with the camera and with his stable of regulars. These regulars (including musician Jose Melis and singer Rosemary Clooney) engage with Paar in a long spoof ad for selling air, while both Melis and Clooney offer musical performances that help to punctuate Paar's banter. Charles Collingwood reads the news in a curious style in front of a mock-wood-paneled-study backdrop (while discreetly putting out a cigarette).

This easy banter carried over into the rest of the TV shows Paar hosted in his career, including the "Tonight Show" and his 1960s prime-time variety show. To some extent, this type of light back and forth had a lasting influence on the network morning show as well, probably in larger proportion than Paar's relatively short (only about two year) stint as "Morning Show" host would suggest.

TFTP Late Night: "The Tonight Show" w/ Steve Allen, premiere episode from NBC (Sep. 27, 1954)

Posted to YouTube by user 'CatThatHasNoName'
Length - 1:48

"The Tonight Show", now hosted by Jimmy Fallon, has a long and venerable history of over 60 years, less than half of which now was hosted by the "King of Late Night" Johnny Carson. The program's first host, from 1954-1957, was comedian Steve Allen. For the inaugural "TFTP Late Night" post, which will periodically highlight programs from the late-night daypart of TV, we bring you this short clip from Allen's first "Tonight" show on September 27, 1954.

At the very beginning, the program was referred to as "Tonight!" (complete with exclamation point); Allen's tenure later took on the name "Tonight Starring Steve Allen". A late-night network TV program was still a novelty when "Tonight!" went on the air--the only previous attempt was the short-lived "Broadway Open House" in 1950-51. This explains Allen's joking in this clip about the theatre "sleeping" 800; people were not used to watching TV at that hour.

Although not evident in this clip, much of the structure of the late-night TV talk show was established by Allen during his "Tonight" stint, including the desk, the monologue, comedic sketches, interviews with guests, and musical numbers. We do see here Allen's easygoing manner and sharp wit, which helped him to establish the late-night talk show as a durable television genre.

TFTP Late Night: "The Tonight Show" (Sep. 27, 1970) w/ Mel Brooks

Posted to YouTube by user 'Johnny Carson'

Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" is a TFTP favorite (as is Carson's pre-"Tonight Show" career), so here is our first post from "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". This September 1970 clip features Mel Brooks doing an impression of an Indian ichthyologist (which is a scientist who studies fish, in case you didn't know). Brooks was known for his characters using a wide variety of different kinds of accents, although this one is not one of his better ones.

More interesting is the overall ambiance and look of the "Tonight Show" in this era. This is from the pre-1972 New York period of Carson's "Tonight Show"--before the show moved to LA and a period for which surviving episodes and clips are rare compared to later years--so it's a nice glimpse of the show's early years. The multi-hued background and orange chairs set the tone for what was at the time still the early years of color television. This clip is from the official YouTube account for Johnny Carson's estate, which has posted quite a few more clips and many full episodes of "The Tonight Show".