Today's hat tip goes to one of a favorite comedian and wordsmiths from my misspent youth, a TV producer who was also a lyricist, musician, satirist and prolific recording artist, the great Allan Sherman (1924-1973).
Here, Allan Sherman is the guest on The Mike Douglas Show, a very popular 1960's - early 1970s daytime TV variety program.
Allan goes international with British pop group Herman's Hermits.
Mr. Sherman was a frequent guest on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Dean Martin Show in 1965-1968.
Well, whatdaya know - found The Allan Sherman Show (1968) on Internet Archive - yippee kai-yoh kai-yay!
Love seeing Allan Sherman meet Hans Conreid in a Jay Ward Production! Allan enters at 13:52, after Fractured Flickers has thoroughly spoofed cowboy William S. Hart.
The latest Allan Sherman material this scribe has seen is the following 1970 appearance at UCLA.
We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog respectfully tip our hats to Allan Sherman - and an old friend who gave us a splendid 120 minute cassette of the song parody king in concert way back when. Miss you!
In a few weeks (on August 28), a new movie based on Warner Brothers Animation and desert dwellers Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner hits movie theaters.
While well aware that Warner Brothers Animation and Road Runner stalwarts Chuck Jones, Mike Maltese, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris, Phil Monroe and Ben Washam are long gone, this trailer looks pretty darn good. Nonetheless, the Coyote vs. ACME preview emphatically sparks an uncontrollable urge to watch Road Runner cartoons!
Will's over-the-top performance in the Fly High Duluth sketch is a personal favorite and the ultimate statement on bad bands, enhanced by Fred Armisen as the group's animated and overenthusiastic drummer. Love the fact that both host Scarlett Johansson and the entire SNL cast are involved.
When everyday life, the annoyances of old age and unrelentingly lousy 2026 get the gang here feeling down, a fantastic way to get to that better place involves vintage Warner Bros. cartoons from 1935-1955 and the both gloriously unhinged and intergalactic country singers Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad.
And, in closing, we respectfully tip our Michigan J. Frog top hats to the desert dwellers and all involved in making Warner Brothers cartoons and the high-wire sketch comedy at Second City, Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade, etc. Thanks to all who bring the laughs!
Indeed, laughs are getting harder and harder to find these days - and that brings us to Billy Crystal.
Billy, born on this day in 1948, was one of the last cuts from those scheduled to perform in the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975 and would be on the short list, along with Michael McKean, of those who hosted SNL before becoming a cast member.
Not that surprisingly, present-day comments regarding Mr. Crystal's stand-up act way back in the 1970's and 1980's demonstrate that many young people have no idea who Sammy Davis Jr and Muhammad Ali were. The superstardom of both Mr. Davis, the seriously driven entertainer/Rat Pack cornerstone and the heavyweight champ back in those days is downright difficult to explain to those 25 and under in 2026.
Suffice to say that while Billy Crystal has done a gazillion things in showbiz over the past five decades, the favorite of this blog remains his eulogy at Muhammad Ali's memorial service.
Billy started his career, way back before he started appearing in the Susan Harris Productions show Soap, with a very funny impression of Muhammad Ali. The pugilist/social activist saw it and the two became lifelong friends.
Before Billy hosted SNL in 1983, there was his prime-time Billy Crystal Comedy Hour, co-starring SCTV stalwarts John Candy, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.
We like Saturday Night Live season 10 a great deal, even given its reliance on pre-taped segments and the downright astonishing fact that producers Dick Ebersol and Bob Tischler opted NOT to have Geena Davis or Andrea Martin in the cast.
Guaranteed to leave young'uns completely, utterly baffled: the following spoof of the hit 1980's TV series that teamed formidable comic character actress and former SNL cast member Jane Curtin with Susan St. James, co-star of McMillan & Wife (who was married to SNL's second producer, Dick Ebersol). Here's hopin' Kate Hepburn and Muhammad Ali got the joke and at least found it somewhat funny.
Fernando may be my singular favorite Billy Crystal persona.
Another standout from SNL season 10: the masochistic night watchmen played by Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest.
Still find it amazing to see Crystal, Guest, Eddie Murphy, Martin Short and Rich Hall - yes, all of them - together in the Broadway Gumby Rose sketch.
We respectfully tip the Jimmie Hatlo hat and wish a Happy Birthday to Billy, with additional hat tips, kudos, bravos and huzzahs going to Muhammad Ali, Johnny Winter - and the YouTube channel Saturday Night Network for terrific summaries of each season of the show, plus interviews with cast members.
On January 30, 2026, an awful day capping yet another hideous week in a horrible year. . .
We got the sad news that Catherine O'Hara, one of our greatest comediennes, has passed at 71.
Loved her work over 50+ years!
Do we like ending this horrendous month saying farewell to comedy genius, improv champion and actress supreme Catherine O'Hara, most recently known for her role as Moira Rose on Schitt's Creek? NO!!!
There have been terrific tributes on the CBC.
First became aware of Ms. O'Hara through her stellar work on SCTV, my all-time favorite sketch comedy show.
It was always a pleasure to see Catherine on Late Night With David Letterman.
She was among the rare SCTV and SNL stars to be a guest star on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson.
And Stephen Colbert. . .
While Catherine O' Hara's best known role in movies is her memorable part as the absent-minded mom in John Hughes' Home Alone flicks, we remain absolutely floored by her acting in a bunch of terrific films directed and written by Christopher Guest and SCTV co-star Eugene Levy.
They feature an extremely talented stock company which includes Michael McKean and Harry Shearer (from This Is Spinal Tap and The Folksmen), Fred Willard, Parker Posey, Jennifer Coolidge, Jane Lynch, Bob Balaban and John Michael Higgins.
While it is tough to pick just one favorite among these films, the gang here is particularly partial to For Your Consideration.
Hoping the next time we post, it won't be more terrible news.
Until then, enjoy these excerpts from A Mighty Wind.
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 our favorite show of all the post-1990 late-night series, The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson notwithstanding.
The guy who sat behind the coveted host desk for the greatest number of late night shows other than Johnny Carson and David Letterman 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 Jay Leno’s Garage 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 Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons prior to hosting Late Night With Conan O’Brien, 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!
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.
Mr. Ferguson, in this writer's opinion the funniest 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.
While Mr. Ferguson, after ten seasons of his show, has been off the air for a decade, he still has very enthusiastic fans on YouTube. There is a 9 hour compilation of its highlights, playlists from the YouTube poster named Fergufool and the Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson Archive channel, which, among numerous clips, includes excellent comedy from season 7, season 8 and season 9 of the series.
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.
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.
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. While the comedians were big time heroes of late night TV, so were the incredible musicians who created these beautiful sounds!
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.
