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 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 Variety: "The Jack Paar Program" with Bob Newhart from NBC (May 28, 1965)

Posted to YouTube by user 'StandApartComedy'

Bob Newhart, before becoming an icon of 1970s and 1980s sitcoms, was a stand-up comic best known for his mock telephone conversations. Jack Paar, after his stint as the host of "The Tonight Show" ended in 1962, hosted a prime-time variety show for a few years on Friday nights on NBC.

This clip is a stand-up appearance by Newhart on one of the final episodes of Paar's prime-time show, which ended in June of 1965. In his introduction, Paar exclaims his appreciation of Newhart's comedy, and Newhart provides a bit that was another of his signature types: assuming the identity of a particular kind of character (here a flight attendant) and mining the character's situation for comedy.