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 On This Day: "The Hollywood Palace" from ABC (May 27, 1966)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Hollywood Palace'

It Was 50 Years Ago Today: "Hollywood Palace" was one of the great all-purpose variety shows of the 1960s, an ABC stalwart for most of the decade (from 1964-1970), for most of it anchoring ABC's Saturday night schedule. This episode, aired 50 years ago today on May 27, 1966, is from the program's third season, the season's next-to-last episode.

"Hollywood Palace" was much like the "Ed Sullivan Show" in that it was a true variety show--in addition to sundry musical acts and comedians, the program featured acrobats, puppeteers, clowns, sports figures, and all manner of actors and celebrities. Act after act was packed into each episode--the first quarter of this episode features an opening song by guest host Judy Garland, acrobats The Roselle Troupe (performing an aerial act outside the theater in a parking lot), and two songs by Johnny Rivers (including "Secret Agent Man"). The rest of the show features clown Charlie Cairoli, another song by Garland, comedian Jack Carter, actor/singer Van Johnson, a duet between Garland and Johnson (in clown make-up!), and pantomimists The Black Theatre of Prague.

"Hollywood Palace" did not have a regular host, opting for a different guest host for each episode, although some hosts returned again and again. This episode is the second Garland-hosted one just in this season, and Bing Crosby returned repeatedly in the show's six-year run (including in the next episode after this one, as previewed by Garland at episode's end). This particular episode has as its main sponsor "investor-owned electric and power companies", and so filmed commercials related to the electric industry are sprinkled throughout the first half of the episode.