October 1, 1962…Johnny Carson Takes Over “Tonight”& 10 Years LATER!
At the video clip above is the audio of the first 3 minutes of the debut show with Groucho Marx introducing Johnny. The video of those first three minutes has been lost but below, we have the next best thing…rare pictures from that night!
Groucho, among a long list of other comedians, had guest hosted the show in the few months between Paar’s retirement and the expiration of Carson’s “no compete” contract with ABC. The guests that night in NBC’s Studio 6B were Joan Crawford, Mel Brooks, Tony Bennett and Rudy Vallee.
NBC’s Rare Gift To Carson On The 10th Anniversay Show Here is a clip you have probably never seen. The video below is qued up to play NBC’s surprise gift, but this is the FULL 10th Anniversary show on October 1, 1972 with guests Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, George Burns, Jack Benny and Dinah Shore. You will be surprised by the unique token of appreciation from NBC. -Bobby Ellerbee
If you’re a Carson fan like me, you’ll enjoy this great tidbit on the history of his memorable theme song.
To me, that is the coolest anniversary gift ever!
And 54 years later, half that guest list is still active!
As usual that was great
One day it’ll turn up – hopefully in our lifetime! A copy could be someone’s closet, under the bed, or in stashed away in a garage…
It wasn’t just a Burbank phenomenon. NBC News in NY decided to dump tens of thousands of feet of news film that was taking up space. An employee named Sherman Grinberg asked if he could purchase the lot, and was told he could have it for free if he’d remove it. He did, and went into business selling NBC’s own footage back to them for years. And former news president Reuven Frank recalled that on the day that JFK was assassinated, it was discovered that NBC’s videotape of his inaugural address had been recycled.
The story of how and why the first 10 years of the TONIGHT SHOW tapes were erased is an interesting one. I heard one version of the story from a longtime Burbank NBC tape op. The short story is they needed that warehouse space for more offices, so all the tapes were trucked to a landfill and dumped. Because they many were low-band mono 3M 179 and 379 tapes, they opted not to reuse them for 1970s high-band color. The management justified it by saying “all the good bits were already saved for the Anniversary shows,” but Carson vented his spleen when he found out about it months after the fact.
Bobby, did Johnny make any remarks after the Kennedy assasination like David Letterman did after 9/11 and if so is there a clip anywhere online?