Almost Show Time
Almost Show Time
During warm up, Johnny takes a look at the audience. It doesn’t look like it, but there are 465 seats here in Studio 1.
By the mid-1970s Tonight was the most profitable show on television, making NBC $50 to $60 million ($178,163,000 to $213,796,000 today) each year. Carson influenced the scheduling of reruns (which typically aired under the title The Best of Carson) in the mid-1970s. In order to work fewer days each week Carson began to petition network executives in 1974 that reruns on the weekends be discontinued, in favor of showing them on one or more nights during the week. In response to his demands, NBC began planning a new comedy/variety series to feed to affiliates on Saturday nights that debuted in October 1975 and is still airing today: Saturday Night Live. Five years later, Carson renewed his contract with the stipulation that the show lose its last half hour; Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow expanded to 90 minutes in order to fill the resulting schedule gap. Although a year and a half later, Tomorrow gave way to the hour-long Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1993), The Tonight Show remains one hour in length.
I doubt this was a warm up. Was in-studio several times, and Johnny never appeared before Ed introduced him. In fact, sometimes Ed would imply there would be a guest host. It wasn’t till he said, “Here’s Johnny!” that the audience went crazy seeing HIM come through the curtain. Typically, he’d chat with the audience briefly during the first break–I think that is what we’re seeing here.
Carson was at his best when adlibbing.
Here is a good look at the audience in November 1977 – Carson was caught off guard by a contestant in Stump The Band http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qispn29ZAn4