Smack dab in the middle of the generation that watched Carson, Cavett and Letterman, as a frequently embarrassed boomer, most definitely got carried away in Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV Part One, but didn't even come close to running every compelling piece. Invariably, the need to actually finish the post someday took precedence - and didn't include at least a baker's dozen clips, starting with Jack Parr on The Dick Cavett Show.
So, here is yet another near-unending cornucopia of clips respectfully tipping our checkered caps (no doubt worn by Lloyd Hamilton and/or Curly Howard) to the heroes of late night, beginning with the debut episode of Late Night With David Letterman.
Big thanks to the Duke Mitchell Film Club for posting the following. Where's Sammy Petrillo?
The king of scathing one-liners, Don Rickles, insult comic of insult comics, found his way to ALL the late night shows, including a very funny Dick Ebersol-era episode of Saturday Night Live.
Particularly hilarious was a January 1984 Tonight Show hosted by Joan Rivers featuring a guest appearance by Rickles, the only standup comedian (along with Rodney Dangerfield) who could match Joan for speed, ferocity and intensity of jokes. Looks like Don and Joan had a blast!
Steve Allen talked 1950's Tonight Show on a memorable episode of Late Night With David Letterman.
Don't know if the following was from Steve's late night show or his prime time program but who cares. . . he's actually interviewing freakin' Jack Kerouac! That said, Dick Cavett interviewed Allen Ginsburg on his late-night show.
It said something about 1960's TV that John & Jane Q. Public could turn on the orthicon tube and see interviews with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg and Groucho Marx. Alas, Chico and Harpo had passed away by then.
Love the concept of booking Groucho and Debbie Reynolds (whose nightclub act was filled with jokes, comedy bits and celeb impressions) on the same show!
The sheer number of complete episodes of The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson available on YouTube is downright shocking, especially considering how many of the 1960's shows remain on the lost film list with LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT and Ernie Kovacs' DuMont Network series. While we didn't find any, unfortunately, with Groucho Marx as the guest host, it is a delight to see these early 1970's Tonight Shows, featuring Johnny at the peak of his comedic powers.
Today's post is a near-unending cornucopia of clips on the topic of (drum roll). . . late-night television, the medium exemplified by Steve Allen, Jack Parr, Johnny Carson and David Letterman.
As the medium has a 75+ year history extending back to the Harry Truman administration, it will not be possible to profile all the Heroes Of Late Night TV in this post, so this shall be merely Part One. There are SO MANY CLIPS we don't know where to start!
Broadway Open House, the briefly but tremendously popular show starring Jerry Lester and blonde bombshell comedienne Dagmar, which alternated in the early days of late-night on NBC with The Morey Amsterdam Show (not his subsequent 1950's program on the DuMont Network), originated late-night TV.
1954, notable for many things, including tons of excellent jazz, blues and early rock n' roll recordings, was the year The Tonight Show, hosted by Steve Allen, debuted.
At one point, Steve Allen alternated on Tonight with guest host
Ernie Kovacs in 1956. Unfortunately, as of this writing, there are no excerpts from the Ernie Kovacs Tonight Shows on YouTube, Venmo, Daily Motion, although several of the shows exist. Ernie and Steve share a seriously wacky sense of humor with their successors from decades later, David Letterman and Conan O'Brien.
Allen periodically appeared as a guest on talk shows for many decades after hosting his last Tonight Show in January 1957 and going on to several prime time comedy programs, the best known featuring Louis "Heigh Ho Steverino" Nye, Don Knotts, Tom Poston, Pat Harrington and Bill Dana.
Following Steve Allen as host in 1957: Jack Parr, a host on radio and daytime TV prior to The Tonight Show.
His first Tonight Show announcer, before Hugh Downs, was none other than the excellent movie comedian Franklin Pangborn (note: apologies for the quality of the following clip - it's the only one this blogger could find of Pangborn introducing Jack Parr).
Rather amazingly, kinescopes of Parr's 1957-1962 Tonight Shows exist.
One of this writer's favorite Jack Parr Tonight Show guests is the acerbic composer-pianist-writer and occasional actor Oscar Levant.
Another is the highly original improvisational comic Jonathan Winters, a frequent guest on The Tonight Show With Jack Parr.
There was no small amount of drama as Jack Parr walked off the Tonight Show in 1960 and eventually returned for two more seasons, with his last episode airing on March 30, 1962.
Carson had to complete his commitment to Who Do You Trust, a game show he was hosting, before he could succeed Parr as host in the fall.
Here, Dick Cavett recalls his years as a writer for Jack Parr, and how much he enjoyed Groucho Marx' appearances on the show.
Johnny Carson's first Tonight Show as host aired on October 1, 1962.
It's quite remarkable that they exist, given that Edie Adams, film, video and comedy preservation HERO, didn't personally rescue and preserve the existing Tonight Show tapes, as was done with the Ernie Kovacs shows.
The other two key figures in 1960's late-night television were diametric opposites: Joey Bishop and Dick Cavett.
The former, the sole teetotaler Rat Packer and star of a successful and funny sitcom that featured fellow comedians Corbett Monica, Guy Marks, and Joe Besser, was a frequent guest host for The Tonight Show in the 1960's and early 1970's.
Here's a Rat Packin' episode of Joey's late night show with guest stars Sammy Davis, Jr. and Peter Lawford.
The Dick Cavett Show, both the ABC late-night program and his subsequent interview show on PBS, merit seven or eight blog posts apiece. He merits an additional post for being the first guest on the debut episode of Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast!
We applaud Mr. Cavett for donating tapes of his many shows to the Library Of Congress.
As far as the late-night version of The Dick Cavett Show is concerned, an important sub-topic is how Cavett clearly aspired to something beyond mere showbiz entertainment and tackled the issues of the day in a way that we would NEVER, EVER see now.
Mr. Cavett, the Nebraska-born whitest dude of all of us took on the topic of racism and its accompanying religion of white supremacy in his 1960's late night shows.
Since bigotry, barbarism and cruelty remains a boffo cash cow for the vicious and amoral, this topic remains a third rail in horrifying 2025. Does it take courage to interview someone possessing such powerful intellect as James Baldwin did, knowing he could easily make you look like a blithering idiot at any moment? Yep.
Mr. Cavett nervously stumbled at several points in the interviews and flat-out admitted when he didn't understand questions and responses.
Cavett also liked jazz and rock n' roll as much as any television host until Letterman and Paul Shaffer came along.
Two of the most prolific Tonight Show guest hosts in the 1960's were Bob Newhart and Joan Rivers. Get Joan on the airwaves with Betty White and laughs shall follow!
Joan, veteran of Second City and countless standup gigs, could get Johnny ROFL!
Back in the mid-1970's, saw Bill Cosby, a comic Louis C.K. is truly ecstatic has not yet died, guest host the Johnny Carson Tonight Show and perform some extremely zany sketch comedy, the kind of material Eddie Murphy would brilliantly take to the next level just a few years later, for much of the show's 90 minutes. Eddie, not surprisingly killed on ALL the late night talk shows, as he did on Saturday Night Live.
Also guest hosting often: Garry Shandling, David Brenner, Joey Bishop and. . . that's right, Jerry Lewis. Here's Jerry with the most ubiquitous standup comedian on TV not named Alan King from the early 1950's through the 1970's, Jack Carter.
During the transition between Parr and Carson in 1962, Jerry guest hosted for Johnny, as did Groucho Marx, Art Linkletter, Donald O'Connor, Joey Bishop, Hugh Downs, and Mort Sahl and got chart-topping Neilsen ratings, so ABC-TV, with high hopes to replicate the late night magic of Parr and Carson in prime time, signed him for an ambitious 2 hour Saturday night program with elements of both the traditional variety program a la Ed Sullivan and the Tonight-style talk show.
There is a complete episode of The Jerry Lewis Show on YouTube. It's known to music fans for an appearance by the great Sam Cooke. Historian Kliph Nesteroff, writer of several superlative books as well as the History Of Comedy documentary series, penned a superb piece about Jerry's short-lived 1963 variety show, as well as the late-night successes of Steve Allen, Jack Parr and Johnny Carson, for WFMU's Beware Of The Blog.
Before moving on from The King Of Late Night to another potentate of Late Night, one who could be imagined saying "at least I'm not an impotentate" - David Letterman.
There's a decade between Cavett's late night show and the debut of Late Night With David Letterman in February 1982. David Letterman and his team of writers, led by Merrill Markoe, crafted a franchise which was both more sophisticated and goofier than Carson. Letterman started on NBC, after guest hosting for Johnny Carson numerous times in 1980-1981, with a morning show that was enjoyably unorthodox and almost as wacky as the Ernie Kovacs morning show extravaganzas.
Much appreciated the Late Night With David Letterman focus on spotlighting three generations of comedians. Love seeing the likes of Bob & Ray, the Pythons and the stalwarts of Second City on with Dave? In the words of former San Francisco Giants outfielder Hunter Pence, YES! YES! YES!
So now, after Jack Parr's 1983 appearance on Late Night With David Letterman, Part One of Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV closes. We respectfully doff a battered top hat worn by either Dagmar, Jerry Lester or Milton Delugg from Broadway Open House to Don Giller, source of Dave clips galore, as well as Dick Cavett, whoever found all those 1960's Tonight Shows and the knowledgeable 20th century pop culture aficionados who produced the 70 Years Of The Tonight Show videos seen in this post.
No doubt my pals and longtime colleagues/collaborators across the country in the San Francisco Bay Area presented a splendid KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival last night at Foothill College.
For today's blog post, here are films I would have LOVED to acquired on 16mm film, "The Vinyl Of Visuals," and presented as part of a KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival at Foothill College's Room 5015. A.K.A. hours of movie fun, all projected using the intrepid Kodak Pageant 250 series machines by equally intrepid Psychotronix Film Festival projectionist and co-producer Sci Fi Bob Ekman.
Granted, this is without the continuity, flow, rhythm, audience response and sounds of a beautiful Kodak Pageant 250S - and my friends Robert Emmett, Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Scott Moon, KFJC sound board aces Austin Space and Grawer, and a display of cool movie posters courtesy of Gary Hascall, the movie poster and 1964 Ford Mustang king. That said, have never shown any of the following celluloid in this post at a KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival.
First and foremost, here's Joi Lansing!
Have I wanted wanted wanted to acquire 16mm theatrical trailers for the following film and Las Vegas Hillbillys?" Yes.
It wouldn't be a Psychotronix Film Festival without a Z-movie trailer featuring Sonny Tufts!
Or coming detractions from a science fiction epic missing one important thing: a budget.
There's at least one early 1930's Fleischer Studios cartoon never shown at the Psychotronix Film Festival. . . this one!
Am a fan of seeing cigarette commercials and car ads go over with a modern-day audience. Since I can watch vintage 1950's ads for hours on end and be entertained, must be reminded to not put 15 of them in a row and lose the entire audience!
Scopitones, anyone? C'est le Mashed Potatoes?
Hoped to buy Neil Sedaka's Scopitone, but nobody ever sells their 16mm prints.
Not surprisingly, this catchy hit by the always-upbeat Sedaka, assisted by The Scopitone Dancers, easily exemplifies the 1960's style swing of the Scopitone brand: silly and sexy!
Been seeking this Soundie starring The International Sweethearts of Rhythm.
Have run a few Coronet films in these shows, but not this one, What To Do On A Date (1950).
Castle Films sold 16mm blue track I.B. Technicolor prints of Walter Lantz Studio cartoons. Could only find a B&W print of this Swing Symphony, directed by Shamus Culhane and featuring the outstanding animation of Pat Matthews. Still holding out for a blue track Technicolor print!
We've shown lots of extra-cheesy TV ads, but none of the following commercials.
Hear there was a Wildroot Cream Oil ad in last night's program, but don't know WHICH of the hundreds of 1950's Wildroot commercials was on the bill. Still can't believe 1950's women actually liked those awful men's hairdos, invariably slicked down with Wildroot, Brylcreem, Vitalis or something else.
Scott Moon and Sci Fi Bob Ekman carry on the Psychotronix tradition with their shows at the Orinda Theatre. This curator/DIY programmer and co-founder of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, Paul F. Etcheverry a.k.a. Psychotronic Paul, left the Bay Area and moved to upstate New York in 2016.
This Saturday, June 28, 2025, from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM, in room 5015 on the Foothill College campus in the lovely Los Altos Hills, the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival will be back.
The fellas who have made this extravaganza happen since the last century will be on KFJC tomorrow night, Monday June 23, with host with the most Robert Emmett on Thoughtline on KFJC from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m, Pacific Standard Time.
"Psychotronix" is a variation on Michael Weldon's "Psychotronic History Of Cinema", the encyclopedia of all varieties of under-the-radar B-films: monster movies, horror films, science fiction, oddball comedies, rock 'n' roll clips, etc.
Our shows delve much more into the comedy, animation, musicals and vintage commercials end of 20th century entertainment than Weldon does, and has been closer to the sensibility of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
Yet another hallucinatory excursion through the always-irritated bowels of 20th century popular culture awaits the unsuspecting audience!
That means trailers from wretched movies, well-meaning 50's educational films, clips from schlocky drive-in movies with guys in stupid-looking robot and gorilla suits, vintage TV commercials and theatre ads, Scopitones, Soundies and other even more obscure musical shorts, surreal cartoon rarities and more.
The three amigos who founded this extravaganza back in 1992 are Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Robert Emmett of KFJC and yours truly, Paul F. Etcheverry. Fellow curator/showman/film buff/expert Scott Moon joined us in 1997.
The festival is also something of a reaction against all standard rules of film programming, none of which have any appeal whatsoever to all of us involved in presenting these shows.
Instead of devoting a screening to one director, one genre or one series, we throw a wide variety of films from different places, genres, techniques and time periods together.
The more obscure, the lower the budget, the more under-the-radar, the better.
If we can establish a subject link or a Monty Python-esque visual or verbal link between the segments, great, but this is not absolutely necessary.
Or to make a further Monty Python reference, this could be called the "And Now For Something Completely Different" approach to film programming.
The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival Saturday, June 28, 2025 Room 5015, A.K.A. Forum Classroom Foothill College campus 12345 El Monte Road
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 (El Monte exit off of Highway 280)
Admission: $5 donation benefits KFJC.
Showtime is 7:00 p.m.
Arrive early, as the shows often sell out. Doors open at 6:00 p.m.
Now, for a not especially entertaining finish to today's post - bear with me, readers, the following rant is admittedly more than a bit self-indulgent - must note that, after 32+ years of involvement in the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, this grizzled DIY programmer/curator will not be able to be there for the first time ever and has been acting A LOT like Debbie Downer since that became apparent.
Too bad Batman is not presently available to slap me and my passport-less self to just show up at JFK airport and hope hope hope TSA and the airline will let me board a flight.
The travel from where I live in upstate New York to the San Francisco Bay Area necessary to get to Foothill College will not happen. Hesitated to get the ball rolling on getting a new U.S. passport and passport card that would have enabled me to do air travel again. And, while a cross-country train travel itinerary each way would have been fun, for various reasons, that presented a non-option this time around.
Why the delay? Frankly, am, for the first time in my life, nervous about flying, due to the Department Of Grift & Exploitation's reckless, mindless and Draconian cuts to an already alarmingly understaffed FAA, followed by airline disasters in late January and February. Very much not eager to travel and both furious and outraged by the utter idiocy of firing air traffic controllers and other key FAA staff, opted not to fly to the Bay Area for family birthdays in April.
RE: the post-May 7 rules for boarding flights, e-mailed TSA a question about boarding with a non-certified copy of my birth certificate, driver's license (featuring a non-current address) and original social security card. The answer was NO, NO, and in case one even thinks of boarding a flight without Passport/Real ID, NO!
Does this member of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Fest crew desperately need a working Star Trek teleportation device so he can join his pals at Foothill College Room 5015 bearing boxes of 16mm reels on Saturday?
Yes! Where are Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Uhuru, Sulu and Chekov when you need them?
With apologies to author Judith Viorst for stealing her phrase, it has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad stretch of days in an what has been an unrelentingly godawful year thus far. Just when a momentary respite from the unending horrid, vile, appalling, sickening, disgusting, horrifying current events is desperately needed, there's the news that Sly Stone and Brian Wilson, two GIANTS, innovative composer/arranger/performer/bandeaders gifted in leading one's heart, soul and consciousness to a better place, passed within the same 48 hours. . . WHAT? THAT CAN'T BE!
At least Sly lived long enough to finish his memoirs and receive rousing recognition from music fans and prominent musicians in the last decade of his life.
Sly Stone, a brilliant musician and arranger who's on the funk Mount Rushmore with James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, George Clinton and Prince (wonder if Prince met Sly), sure made the rounds in his heydey. His importance cannot be overstated. Must buy this release of a set Sly and his first version of The Family Stone performed in my old stomping grounds, Redwood City, CA. Sly was already a bonafide Bay Area celebrity from his successful stints as a deejay on KSOL and KDIA.
Sly & The Family Stone, featuring Larry Graham (electric bass), Cynthia Robinson (trumpet), Rose Stone (keyboards, vocals), Freddie Stone (electric guitar), Greg Arrico (drums) and Jerry Martini (saxophones), were a devastating powerhouse band from the git-go.
Here's Sly with Dick Cavett.
And David Letterman. . .
Sly & The Family Stone were inducted into The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 1993 at long last - and that was overdue. Sly makes an appearance at the end of the clip, following his bandmates, including the outstanding vocalist-bandleader-songwriter-bassist Larry Graham.
As all who have seen the fantastic Summer Of Soul can attest, Questlove is a superlative documentary filmmaker.
This music aficionado's favorite Sly record? The 1973 album FRESH, which presents a stripped-down yet ingenious version of the essential sound, minimalistic and beautiful.
Another composer/pianist/arranger/bandleader of astounding abilities was Brian Wilson, the master of symphonic pop.
While I knew he was seriously ill and that Brian's wife Melinda passed last year, this still came as a shock.
Indeed, when heard on headphones, the "pocket symphonies" on the original SMILE sessions can be quite astonishing.
After The Beach Boys hit a lengthy stretch of creative stagnation following the departure of Carl Wilson and the untimely, tragic passing of Dennis Wilson, Brian quite fortunately got to enjoy an extended comeback in the 1990's and oughts, backed by The Wondermints (Darian Sahanaja, Mike D'Amico, Probyn Gregory and the late Nick Walusko), percussionist Nelson Bragg, multi-instrumentalist Paul von Mertens and the late, great Beach Boys tours veteran Geoffrey Foskett.
In this clip, Brian's pal Sir Paul McCartney inducted him into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame.
Much enjoy this tune Brian and Burt wrote together.
Here's a documentary, Pet Stories, about the making of Pet Sounds, which, along with the 1966-1967 Smile sessions, remains this music fan's favorite Brian Wilson/Beach Boys album.
Much enjoy the interviews in which Brian talks music!
In closing, this blogger got a chance to meet Brian and his bandmate and the aforementioned "CEO of falsetto" Geoff Foskett at a record signing in San Francisco, made sure to tell him that his music got me through tough times. Brian's response: a smile and "thanks, man!"
Unfortunately, I never got to see Sly Stone in concert - he retired right before I started seeing tons of live music performances - or meet him. Sly did occasionally do interviews, but one would imagine that due to the many bad things that happened to him and individuals who did him wrong over the decades, perhaps he'd be a tad reticent. Thankfully, Sly's three children did a great deal to assist him.
All the thanks in the universe to all the master musicians noted in this post!
