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 jazz 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 Kovacs Tonight Shows on YouTube, Venmo, Daily Motion, although several exist. Ernie and Steve share a seriously wacky sense of humor with 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 his prime time comedy program featuring Don Knotts, Louis Nye, 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 Tonight Jack Parr 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. Dick Cavett remembers his years writing for 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's first Tonight Show as host aired on October 1, 1962.
Some 1960's episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson were not taped over to make shelf space! It's quite remarkable that they exist, given that Edie Adams 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, Don Adams, Joe Besser, Bill Dana and comic character actor Jonathan Harris, 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 sho 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 in 2025, nearly 60 years later.
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.
Is bigotry, barbarism and cruelty is a boffo cash cow for the totally amoral (and especially the apartheid boys) nearly seven decades later, this topic remains a third rail in vile, horrifying 2025.
Cavett nervously stumbled at several points in the interviews and flat-out admitted when he didn't understand questions and responses. Does it take courage to interview a powerful intellect on the level of James Baldwin, knowing he could easily make you look like a blithering idiot at any moment? Yep.
Dick Cavett also liked jazz and rock n' roll as much as any television host until Letterman and Paul Shaffer came along.
The most prolific Tonight Show guest hosts in the 1960's included Bob Newhart and Joan Rivers. Get Joan on the airwaves with Betty White and laughs shall follow.
Saw Bill Cosby, a comic Louis C.K. is truly ecstatic has not yet died, guest host the Johnny Carson Tonight Show and do 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 back in the 1970's. 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 Saturday night prime time, signed him for an ambitious 2 hour 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, known to music fans for an appearance by the great Sam Cooke. Comedy 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 show, as well as Steve Allen, Jack Parr and Johnny Carson, for WFMU's Beware Of The Blog.
And now, behold, a cornucopia of clips from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson!
Robin Williams!
George Carlin & Richard Pryor!
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 Kliph Nesteroff (for his lengthy interviews with many comics noted here), Dick Cavett and the 20th century pop culture aficionados who produced the 70 Years Of The Tonight Show videos seen in this post.
