That I know of, these are the only two remaining camera cards from the wonderful era of THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JACK PAAR. These were mounted on an easle in the studio and during the show, one of the RCA TK41 color cameras in NBC Studio 6B would shoot this full screen when the show went to, and returned from commercial breaks. Network spots rolled over this and often, there were only a couple of network spots in the break and then time for local spots, which would also play over this, BUT there were times when smaller market stations didn’t have spots sold, SO the locals would return to these cards and the audio of the band, which was led by Jack’s army buddy, pianist Jose Melis. The band would play under it until the end of the stop set and the show resumed. Next stop set, differnt card.

I am very pleased to have these in my collection and wish to thank Gary Morgan in New York, for donating these. Gary acquired both of these in 1964 while attending the RCA television school in New York City. Seems that one day, one of the NBC art department people came to guest lecture and brought these cards with him. By now, Johnny Carson was hosting so there was no more use for these little gems.

By the way,  when Paar’s show became a smash hit, NBC renamed it “The Jack Paar Tonight Show”. When he moved to prime-time in 1962, NBC called his show “The Jack Paar Program” and as these say “show”, there may be some confusion as to which Paar program we are talking about. To clear things up, after 1959 (2 years into Paar’s Tonight Show hosting) the program became commonly reffered to as The Jack Paar Show, even at NBC.