Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV, Part Six

Shall attempt to wrap this non-chronological series about late night TV a la The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson up in an untidy way. This will be yet another too many clips, WAY too many clips proposition. Where to start? With a nod to The Story Of Late Night, the 2021 CNN series directed by John Ealer. The six episode series is overall good, the utterly inexplicable omission of The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson notwithstanding.





The guy who sat behind the coveted desk for the greatest number of late night shows was (drum roll). . . Jay Leno.



He didn't just helm The Tonight Show from May 25, 1992 to May 29, 2009 and from March 1, 2010 to February 6, 2014, Jay guest hosted for Johnny 333 times; the second and third most prolific Tonight Show guest hosts were Joan Rivers with 201 shows and Joey Bishop with 177.



Tonight Shows featuring Johnny Carson and Jay Leno together could be pretty darn hilarious.



We’re okay with Jay, like him best as a stand-up comedian (and also enjoy his recent videos about classic cars). With his hosting literally hundreds of Tonight Shows is it possible to forget how good Jay was at stand-up? Yes.





Jay and Jerry Seinfeld were the hardest working stand-up comics in showbiz and toured ALL THE TIME back in the 1970's and early 1980's.



In succeeding The King Of Late Night, Jay Leno ended up in the same boat as Shemp Howard, who followed Curly in The Three Stooges. No matter how good his version of The Tonight Show was, Jay was destined to be compared to Johnny Carson. Both Shemp and Jay make this comedy fan laugh, but that's the breaks.



Believe it or not, Jay frequently appeared on Late Night With David Letterman in the early to mid-1980's, as he did on The Tonight Show.



There's one compilation of Jay on Letterman in the early 1980's we didn't post because it was three hours long. Meanwhile, Mr. Letterman, who thought he would be the successor to Johnny Carson, has had plenty to say over the decades about his relationship with NBC and Jay Leno.







Further late-night wars involving NBC and The Tonight Show engulfed Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien (spotlighted in Part Four of this series).







Notably, Conan, a writer for SNL and The Simpsons prior to hosting late night shows, brought Robert Smigel of Triumph The Insult Comic Dog fame with him as part of a crew of ace writers that included Brian Stack, Brian McCann, Mike Sweeney, Dan Cronin, Berkley Johnson and Matt O' Brien.

At least Conan got Norm to appear on his last Tonight Show!



The knowledgeable pop culture aficionados who produce the Late Night Saga videos at the Fanboy Films YouTube channel elaborate in detail on this.



Jay, interviewed by fellow comic Howie Mandel, elaborates:



And then there was The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn. Don’t know what Mr. Kilborn, host of The Daily Show from 1996-1998 and The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn from 1999 to 2004 is doing these days. Had Kilborn, the snarkiest snark other than David Spade, been in showbiz 30 years earlier, one could envision him as a guest host for Johnny Carson. And, yes, that's right, he preceded Jon Stewart AND Craig Ferguson as host of their respective shows.











While Mr. Kilborn is a talented fellow, at this blog we are partial to The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.



Craig Ferguson, with Conan O' Brien our favorite of the latter-day late night hosts, took The Late Late Show into ultra-zany and uncharted territory.















Especially like appearances by Lewis Black, another outstanding stand-up comedian, on The Late Late Show.



And, speaking of outstanding stand-up comedians, all appearances of Robin Williams on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson are must-see TV.







While Mr. Ferguson has been off the air for a decade, he has very enthusiastic fans on YouTube. There's the Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson Archive channel as well as as a slew of playlists of Craig Ferguson shows from the YouTube poster named Fergufool. Currently, Craig has his own You Tube channel, where he posts his stand-up specials - the latest is great - and entertaining interviews.

With that, we call this a wrap, having gone as far into modern day 21st century entertainment as this blog ever goes. Won't be covering the more recent series (Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, James Corden), the non-Tonight Show style programs that ran on late night (Later With Bob Costas, and Late Late Show With Tom Snyder) or sketch comedy shows - Fridays, SNL, SCTV - that aired at 11:30 p.m.

Alas, an accurate and complete history of late night TV, sadly, not unlike a history of silent movies, would demand that all those shows that ended up dumped in the East River show up again in pristine condition. After all, Groucho, Ernie Kovacs, Mort Sahl and Bob Newhart all hosted!

How do we finish this series? With The Tonight Show Band playing Johnny Carson’s favorite tune, Here’s That Rainy Day.



Thanks for the laughs, all of you!

Saluting The Music Of Late Night TV

John P Filo/CBS

As Steve Allen was a pianist/composer/bandleader who doubled as a comedian, music was a key ingredient in The Tonight Show from the beginning. Calypso group Tiger Boy performs in the following 1956 Tonight Show, beginning at 21:03.



Don't find many complete shows from Steve Allen's Tonight Show tenure or those hosted by Ernie Kovacs on Archive.org, YouTube, Vimeo, Daily Motion. There MUST be musical interludes in the Kovacs episodes! Skitch Henderson led the NBC orchestra at that time and into the Jack Parr and Johnny Carson eras. Doc Severinson and Tommy Newsom followed. The big band was patterned on the ensembles led by Count Basie, Quincy Jones, and (later) Thad Jones & Mel Lewis.





Dizzy Gillespie had an excellent time playing his compositions with the Tonight Show band.





All that said, as much as the Tonight Show band exemplified the Atomic Mr. Basie approach, periodically Johnny had a musical guest on who was not from the big band tradition.



Never to be outdone, Late Night With David Letterman countered with The World's Most Dangerous Band.









Numerous rock, soul, pop and jazz greats performed on David Letterman's NBC and CBS shows. This included the recently departed metal man Ozzy Osbourne & Black Sabbath.



Did the music represented on Letterman run the freakin' gamut? Yes.









Could this band back Keith Emerson and McCoy Tyner? Yes - watch this!



It is not particularly surprising that with The World's Most Dangerous Band took to jazz in a big way. Bassist Will Lee toured with one of our favorites from the jazz universe, Horace Silver.



No doubt, several of musical director Paul Shaffer's heroes got to be on the show.







A memorable spinoff from the NBC incarnation of Late Night With David Letterman involved frequent Letterman guest, session man supreme and Gil Evans Orchestra stalwart David Sanborn, along with Letterman Show bandmates, and would represent something approximating a gold standard in presenting music on late-night television. That was Sunday Night A.K.A. Michelob Presents Night Music. We'll never see its like again.



Can't post the entire series here in this post, so check out this playlist. Would buy a Blu-ray of the complete series, pretty much the last gasp of jazz music on American television (even in late night), if possible.



Am a bit disappointed not to find more clips from The Arsenio Hall Show, which brought quite a variety of music to TV during its late 1980's - early 1990's heydey.










Tend to associate Dick Cavett's late-night program more with rock music than jazz, but, what do you know, here's Buddy Rich, frequent guest of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, bringing that big band sound to The Dick Cavett Show.



In closing, am not quite sure this fits into the late night theme, as Dick Cavett had moved out of the 11:30 p.m. Tonight Show time slot fairly early in his TV career. In any case, this must be one of the earliest instances of David Bowie on American television and precedes his 1979 appearance on Saturday Night Live.



Mr. Cavett did a good job interviewing Miles Davis here. If the guests on his late night and subsequent PBS shows were any indication, Dick Cavett was an enthusiastic aficionado of jazz and rock music.



As expected, could barely scratch the surface of this topic, the mighty music of late night TV, in this post!



Happy to offer a little taste of the goodness that was available on the ol' boob tube way back when.

Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV, Part Five - OOPS!

This entry in Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV focuses mostly on much-ballyhooed and anticipated shows that for one reason or another, didn't make it, got steamrollered during that 1980's stretch when Johnny Carson was still king.

Throughout his 1980's NBC years and into his time hosting The Late Show at CBS, David Letterman continued to redefine late-night, presenting a different style of comedy from Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.

David Letterman booked guests seldom seen on the Tonight Shows hosted by Steve Allen, Jack Parr and Johnny Carson.

Some of the late-night train wrecks ended up profiled on 13 Week Theatre, journalist, radio show host and pop culture historian Pab Sungenis' series on TV shows that ignominiously crashed and burned.

In 1984, Jerry Lewis tried again to take on Johnny Carson, at least make a bit of a dent in The Tonight Show's rule, with comedian/musician Charlie Callas as his sidekick.

The Jerry Lewis Show succeeded Thicke Of The Night, Metromedia's syndicated late-night show starring producer, songwriter and Fernwood 2 Night/America 2 Night writer Alan Thicke.

Thicke Of The Night regulars including actress Chloe Webb and comics Richard Belzer, Gilbert Gottfried and Charles Fleischer. It got spoofed mercilessly by SCTV as Maudlin O' The Night. The late great Joe Flaherty as Sammy Maudlin darn near kills himself to entertain his fans!



Since Jerry Lewis was quite funny riffing with Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo on a November 1983 episode of Saturday Night Live and did excellent work playing a Carson-style host stalked by a psychopath played by Robert DeNiro in Martin Scorsese's The King Of Comedy, the notion that Jerry could succeed in late-night is not all that far fetched.

While the possibility that Jerry's ultra-goofy slapstick take on The Tonight Show might actually work does not seem entirely preposterous, his show crashed and burned and was cancelled after five episodes.



Too bad Charlie Callas, a professional jazz musician and big band drummer who was a comedian/impressionist on the side, didn't play drums on The Jerry Lewis Show.



Somebody somewhere in the CBS network boardrooms had the notion that Wheel Of Fortune co-host Pat Sajak would be a good late night ringmaster and give Johnny Carson a run for his money. Whoever it was must have been a friend of Ed Grimley! After all, Pat must be a decent guy I must say.



The Pat Sajak Show ran on CBS from 1989-1990. Some of the Pat Sajak shows are up on YouTube and elicit the response "what were they thinking?"



The Pat Sajak Show would be the CBS network's last effort at late night until David Letterman was convinced to bring his show from NBC in 1993. It wasn't the first, as in 1969-1972, vocalist and entertainer Merv Griffin hosted a late-night show on CBS, no doubt a response to his extremely popular weekday afternoon program. Inexplicably, have found absolutely no clips of late-night Merv on YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo, etc.



Arguably, even worse than Pat Sajak - I must say - as late night host was Chevy Chase.



His 1993 late night show most assuredly was from Pimento U. . . old P.U. That said, there are enjoyable individual bits here and there in the premiere episode, such as the scat-singing musical interlude a la Lambert, Hendricks & Ross and Eddie Jefferson starting at 11:37. Perhaps what Chevy really wanted was to play some jazz!



Late-night found its way to the Fox Network when the Lex Luthor-like Australian publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch shelled out $255 million in 1985 for a 50% interest in TCF Holdings, the parent company of the 20th Century Fox film studio.

The new FBN's first program, before The Tracey Ullmann Show, Married With Children, etc. was The Late Show with Joan Rivers. This made sense as an entry into the late-night sweepstakes, as Joan consistently killed both as Tonight Show guest and Tonight Show guest host.



Fox, then known as FBC, outbid NBC, which had offered Joan Rivers a one-year contract as Tonight Show guest host, while giving her a shot at hosting her own late-night series.

This ended up as the first late night wars donnybrook after Jack Parr walked off The Tonight Show in 1960 and caused a permanent rift between Johnny Carson and Joan Rivers. After seeing her work on numerous shows over decades, now regard Joan Rivers, a versatile comedy writer, improv performer (Second City Chicago) and unstoppable one-liner ace a la Rodney Dangerfield, as under-rated.



While the late night TV fans here contend that Joan Rivers presided over a very good, entertaining and funny show, it was considered a flop back in the 1980's. Johnny Carson, seriously ticked off over her signing with Fox, had something of a blacklist going and made it emphatically clear that those who appeared on The Late Show with Joan Rivers would never work in showbiz or appear on The Tonight Show again!





Did The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers merit an episode of 13 Week Theatre? Maybe, maybe not, but one wonders what would have happened had Joan informed Johnny about the offer from Fox, especially how they substantially outbid NBC while giving her a late-night show - and received the King Of Late Night's blessing.



One reason among many to like Joan Rivers is that Pee-wee Herman, late lamented comic and cast member from The Groundlings, was a frequent guest on her Late Show.



Pee-wee Herman actually guest-hosted The Late Show. Have not yet found any clips of Groucho or Mort Sahl hosting The Tonight Show, but much enjoy seeing Pee-wee, a funny and original comedian, in the Jack Parr/Johnny Carson chair.



One of Joan's guest hosts was actor and comedian Arsenio Hall, who, after Fox sacked Ms. Rivers, hosted for 13 weeks with great success and high ratings. He turned Fox down to work with Eddie Murphy on his 1988 feature Coming To America. Arsenio's stretch as successful late-night host would come later - and not with the Fox Network.







The Arsenio Hall Show was such a big hit that Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman spoofed it on Saturday Night Live as The Carsenio Hall Show. Arsenio's show, especially in its late 1980s early 1990s heydey, was very good and presented music rarely seen on late night, from hard rock to hip hop to jazz.



Will return next weekend with a look at the music of late night TV.

Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV, Part Four - Conan O' Brien

Thinking of the latter day post-Johnny Carson kings of late night TV today. In the God-forsaken 21st century, with late night TV and numerous other things we cherish clearly transitioning to the going-going-gone category, our favorite of the post-Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night With David Letterman shows is Late Night With Conan O'Brien.











While Joan Rivers, Arsenio Hall and Jay Leno certainly had their moments as late night TV hosts, the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog finds Late Night With Conan O'Brien funnier than just about all the competition, with the exception of Craig Ferguson.

Kicking this cornucopia of Conan clips off: appearances on Late Night With Conan O' Brien by the greatest standup comic not named Jonathan Winters, Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Robin Williams, Bill Hicks, Gilbert Gottfried, Stephen Wright or Mitch Hedberg to ever appear on late night - Norm MacDonald!









Late Night With Conan O'Brien employed a bunch of the very best writers in late-night TV, featured some of the most unabashedly absurdist stuff the comedy and classic television mavens here have ever seen. It's not an accident that there's a photo of Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams on the wall behind Conan.



Often, the writers, all comedy performers from improv and stand-up, were featured in sketches. Two writer/performers we find devastatingly funny: the Brians, Stack (from Second City Chicago) and McCann.





There's something about Brian Stack's florid character The Interrupter that cracks me up.











While it's tough to pick a favorite from the many Brian McCann sketches, we particularly love his where's my kayak bit.







As much as we enjoy Ed McMahon from The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, unquestionably Andy Richter is, with apologies to John Candy as William B. Williams on THE SAMMY MAUDLIN SHOW, the funniest individual to be a late-night show sidekick BY FAR.



An Andy Richter fan has done us the favor of compiling his many great moments from Late Night With Conan O'Brien.









Andy Richter definitely is the SIDEKICK GOAT and his Three Questions podcast is always worth a listen.



This writer shall be needing laughs big time, with recent passings of old friends from the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as the losses of musicians as founder of heavy metal Ozzy Osborne and flugelhornist Chuck Mangoine. Will be revisiting Conan's shows, ANY program featuring Brian Stack and Brian McCann, and also re-watching that hilarious episode, the first of season 27, of South Park, the funniest comedy I've seen from Messrs Parker & Stone since the scenes in Team America World Police involving Kim Jung Un.

Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV, Part Three - The Comedians

In the oddest of odd coincidences, our comedy-centric beat recently has been focused on late night TV - and behold, big time changes are underway in that world.

The latest and not greatest is that Stephen Colbert has been canned by the pathetic craven cowards and greedy bastards at CBS and Paramount. CBS' not so grand poobahs, very likely smarting over Colbert's criticism of the pending merger of Paramount Media and Skydance Global, will pull the plug on the show when the Late Show host's contract expires next May.

That said, as we stifle no small degree of anger, disgust, contempt and revulsion towards CBS, Paramount, Shari Redstone and the Ellisons (Larry and David), we continue our series Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV.

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was the biggest thing in showbiz, so big that The Beach Boys devoted a song to him. This ditty is as catchy as can be and even the nasal vocals of Mike Love are enjoyable! We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog agree wholeheartedly with Brian Wilson's assessment, as Johnny was the coolest guy ever, especially in his 1960's and 1970's heydey as The King Of Late Night. Reportedly, Johnny HATED the song, but what the heck, it's our blog, so here it is.



There are innumerable extremely funny Carson clips, even with so many of the 1960's shows still missing - WAY too many Tonight Shows were taped over.



Herrrrrrrrre's Johnny, first with vocalist and actor (then on the Daniel Boone TV series), Ed Ames.



Can't believe I forgot all about Johnny's hilarious routine with Jack "Joe Friday" Webb from a 1968 Tonight Show. As Webb's radio shows (Pat Novak For Hire and Dragnet) and his guest star appearance on an episode of All Star Revue starring the wacky Ritz Brothers indicate, he possessed a wry sense of humor.



Do we miss the ridiculously talented Betty White, always flat-out hilarious on The Tonight Show with Johnny and other hosts? Yes. Did Betty ever get the opportunity to be a Tonight Show guest host? I don't know, but that would have been great.



Today we pay tribute to the many terrific stand-up comedians seen frequently on Carson and Letterman (note with the exception of Groucho, there weren't tons of comics on Dick Cavett's show, at least in his 1960's and early 1970's incarnation which aired between 10:00 p.m. and late night).



Johnny Carson's Tonight evolved into a showcase for stand-up comedians.



George Carlin, with Richard Pryor the best of the monologists, actually guest hosted The Tonight Show, as did Groucho Marx, Mort Sahl and Bob Newhart.



Johnny often featured his contemporaries in the standup world: Jackie Mason, Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart and, especially, Rodney Dangerfield.













Richard Pryor, most trenchant of all stand-up philosophers, was a frequent guest on both the Carson and Letterman shows.





As was Stephen Wright.





One of the outstanding albeit lesser-known stand-up philosophers was the excellent Native American comedian and actor Charlie Hill, featured along with Robin Williams on The Richard Pryor Show.



Among the satirists seen on Late Night With David Letterman: Bill Hicks (1962-1994).





Sam Kinison, friend and cohort of Bill Hicks, brought his incendiary Pentecostal preacher persona and severe fallout from multiple bad marriages to the stand-up world.



In another galaxy of the stand-up comedy universe: Mitch Hedberg (1968-2005).





And then there was Norm, like Mitch Hedberg an original thinker with a singular view of the world.



Here, David Letterman pays tribute to his friend (and friend of all late-night TV shows) Robin Williams.



Robin cracked up Johnny and David and thus got dozens of appearances on their shows.





Here's the monologue that got Stephen Colbert, here sporting a mustache reminiscent of the octogenarian version of Groucho Marx, fired. Colbert is correct in his assessment that CBS' craven 16 million settlement of a frivolous lawsuit by Off-Brand Orbán was, indeed, a BIG FAT BRIBE.



Desperately hoping the merger will get FCC approval, CBS announced that the decision to cancel Late Night With Stephen Colbert is for "financial reasons." Even given that high-rated late night TV shows don't bring in anywhere near the dough-re-me they did in the past, ESPECIALLY during the 1960's heydey of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, to suggest that this decision is not at all politically motivated remains laughable.

The behavior of CBS/Paramount over the potential merger with Sundance (producers of dumb, lousy action flicks) and the pusillanimous actions of the cowards at Columbia University and the Paul Weiss law firm, alas, is par for the course these days.

And, yes, Your Correspondent makes this observation even after having listened to Keith Olbermann's extended excoriation of Colbert, the guy who followed David Letterman at the CBS Late Show franchise. It would be an understatement to suggest that Mr. Olbermann, both the most erudite and scathing of commentators, vehemently dislikes Mr. Colbert.

At CBS, 60 Minutes, the show the "don't you mess with me" likes of Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley and Harry Reasoner worked on, will be next to go.

The quislings, having caved to make sure the merger goes through, will not be presenting anything remotely resembling journalism a la 20th century CBS stalwarts Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid, William L. Shirer, Howard K. Smith and Walter Cronkite anytime soon.

That's because in 2025, plummeting television viewership and the related popularity of streaming with young viewers has dramatically reduced the potential for TV shows, including news-related programs which in the past were loss leaders for the networks, to make not just the big bucks but ANY bucks.

As far as the Paramount/CBS 16 million bribe by brazen, lily-livered and yellow-bellied appeasers of fascists is concerned, no doubt those pocket-lining Teapot Dome boys of 100+ years ago would say "geeeeees, Louise, can you guys tone down the sleazy corruption, graft and grift just a smidge?"

Rant over! In closing, thanks, readers, for your patience. After realizing that it appears to be the end of the road for the format which began with Steve Allen and hit its high water mark with Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett and David Letterman - while admitting that his own viewing of Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live over the past decade has invariably been via YouTube, NOT at time of broadcast - we shall return next weekend with the fourth installment of Saluting The Heroes Of Late Night TV.

It's Our 1400th Post - Yay!

Shutterstock #202057080097

After almost 19 years writing Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, this is post #1400.

While, admittedly and embarrassingly, I deleted at least two or three posts due to laughably egregious errors, shall proclaim this Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog entry to officially be the 14 hundredth! Yay!

How does the blogmeister feel about writing post #1400? Feel like Virginia O'Brien, the deadpan diva, in this great song from PANAMA HATTIE, which should begin with her slapping overbearing Red Skelton across his overacting kisser (and, bear in mind, we like him as Red Skeleton in the Tex Avery MGM cartoon WHO KILLED WHO).



So this blog shall celebrate post #1400 without bubbly (thanks T2 diabetes, ya rat bastard). We'll start with some supercharged improvisational proto-metal British rock from Deep Purple, live in Belgium. Yes, indeedy, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord and Ian Paice had chops.



How will we celebrate the silver screen stuff we love, while also kicking ourselves for missing the 80th anniversary of the execution of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci on April 28. With a respectful nod to the enduring classic movie genre that broke big time during World War II, film noir.





On Noir Alley, our favorite Turner Classic Movies show by far, the Czar Of Noir elaborates:



The Burt Lancaster starring vehicle Brute Force is an inspired cross between Jimmy Cagney style caper thriller and film noir.



Nearly eight decades after noir's heydey, celluloid heroes Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame still bring the heat.



Don't recall any other noirs featuring larger-than-life Charles Laughton (except the harrowing tale of evil he directed, Night Of The Hunter), but the following classic, THE BIG CLOCK, is a chiaroscuro dilly and post 1400 worthy.



Prominent in the "silver screen stuff we love" category is silent era comedy. Here are several all-time favorites from all-time favorite silent movie comedians, starting with Buster Keaton in ONE WEEK.







Next up: vintage musical short subjects from way back when Sammy Davis, Jr. thrilled vaudeville as a ridiculously talented child entertainer and Frank Sinatra was studying the phrasing of Bing Crosby and Russ Colombo. Especially love those pre-Code musical short subjects, especially Vitaphone's Melody Masters series.



Here, in the 1932 Vitaphone musical classic, The Yacht Party, the mindblowingly limber Melissa Mason does her best terpsichorean triple-jointed impersonation of the even more mindblowingly limber and quadruple-jointed comedienne Charlotte Greenwood. All we can say is "go, Melissa, go!"



The following Vitaphone 1-reelers present absolutely amazing and talent-filled mini musicals, the glaring preponderance of 1920's and early 1930's style racial stereotype bits notwithstanding. That's The Spirit stars the comedy team of Flournoy Miller & Mantan Moreland (yes, that guy, Sidney Toler's sidekick in Charlie Chan flicks), The Washboard Serenaders, powerhouse singer/tapdancer/actress Cora La Redd and Noble Sissle's red-hot swing band.

Alas, as there was still a color line, big time, in 1932, Cora La Redd, who would have mopped up the floor with all tapdancers not named Eleanor Powell and given the Sophie Tuckers of the world a run for their money, did not subsequently get to appear, even briefly, in RKO, Paramount and MGM musicals.



Backing actress of stage and screen, vocalist and dancer Nina Mae McKinney, star of King Vidor's Hallelujah, Eubie Blake's band headlined the following 1932 Vitaphone short. The super-talented kids whose exceptional dancing brings this Vitaphone Melody Master to a rousing finish: The Nicholas Brothers.



Another of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog's all-time favorite films is Smash Your Baggage (1932), starring Small's Paradise Entertainers. Jazz legend Roy Eldridge is in the band!



And then there are pre-Code feature films!





Lupe Velez rocks the pre-Code opus The Half Naked Truth, directed by Gregory LaCava.



Lupe's co-star in this terrific comedy is the fast talking EPITOME of pre-Code. . . the one, the only Lee Tracy.



Also on hand: the familiar croaking voice of Eugene Palette.



Of course, the pre-Code flick we REALLY want to see is Convention City (1933).



The phrase pre-Code and the names of splendid actresses, Aline MacMahon and Ann Dvorak mean the gang here is watching this movie! And it features screen immortal Lyle Talbot, two decades before Plan 9 From Outer Space, as an oily rat bastard!



Of course, we also love pre-Code cartoons, even those Ub Iwerks Studio productions starring Willie Whopper!



Watching Iwerks Studio cartoons, must extend kudos, bravos and huzzahs to animators Grim Natwick, Shamus Culhane, Berny Wolf and music director Carl Stalling.



Also love the very pre-Code version of Tom & Jerry by New York's Van Beuren Studio.

Any Fleischer Talkartoon featuring Betty Boop, Koko and Bimbo is sure to be a winner.



Always liked this 1932 Screen Song featuring Betty Boop as a mermaid and using a certain Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby ditty from the Marx Brothers opus Horse Feathers.



What's the best way to finish post #1400? Warner Brothers cartoons!



Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog extends multiple hat tips to the directors of these cartoons, Bob Clampett and Frank "Tish Tash" Tashlin. Love those guys!

It's the sincere hope of the gang here that we shall be lucky enough to still be alive, kicking (even slowly) and blogging for post #1500 down the road.