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 Comedy: "The George Burns Special" from CBS (1976)

Posted to YouTube by user 'balsamwoods'
Length - 50:35

George Burns was 80 years old at the time of this CBS special in 1976. He'd been in show business for decades, including in the pioneering TV sitcom he starred in with his wife Gracie Allen in the 1950s and which was featured on TFTP back in January. This special (his first since 1959, as he notes in his opening monologue) came as he was making a bit of a comeback due to his Oscar-winning performance in the film "The Sunshine Boys" in 1975--and as he settled into the final phase of his career, which was mainly a schtick on his increasingly advancing age.

Much of the special consists of Burns standing and puffing on his cigar while offering quips (many of them about his increasingly advancing age) and short renditions of old-timey musical numbers in his syncopated spoke-sung style. These are punctuated by all the other segments of the special: his introduction of the Osmond Brothers, who lip-sync a song; his playing straight man to Madeline Kahn, who takes the ditzy female role that Gracie Allen had played; his banter with Walter Matthau (again with Burns playing straight man); his interplay with Johnny Carson, who comically attempts to provide Burns with an opening act for his special; and his introduction of Chita Rivera, who sings "All That Jazz" from her hit Broadway show "Chicago".

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 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".