airport just after he got off a plane from Mexico. I, uh, did not know it ’til this trip out here that there’s a primary race for mayor coming up soon in Los Angeles, right? And I saw a lot of signs today that said, “Return Mayor Yorty.” And unfortunately for Mayor Yorty, the signs were at L.A. He runs through his jokes with almost no pause, save for the occasional double-take or smoker’s cough.Ĭonsider for example the first few minutes of Carson’s monologue: The pace of the show is unhurried-after all, they had more than an hour to fill-though Carson himself is quick-witted, tossing out clever ad-libs with impeccable timing. He was already a confident performer then, bantering easily with his guests and sidekicks, maintaining a conversational tone more common to a morning show or a radio show than to late-night. Though it’s only a fraction of the whole, preserved with little context or comment, the 3/6/69 show offers at least a hint at what The Tonight Show was like seven years after Carson took the helm. And it also includes the entirety of that infamous Dean Martin/George Gobel interview, which starts out loopy, then spins out of control. The existing portion includes Carson’s monologue, a musical performance by drummers Buddy Rich and Louis Bellson, and snippets of interviews with Laugh-In’s Judy Carne and the legendary Bob Hope, who was meant to do a surprise drop-in, but ended up sticking around for the rest of the night. At one point, Carson even refers to a sketch that was part of the telecast, but not part of this package. ![]() Even accounting for commercials, a lot is clearly missing. In 1969, The Tonight Show ran for 90 minutes, and there are only 38 minutes of footage on the DVD. But for a long time, the only extended sample of the ’60s Tonight Show that the general public had access to was an episode released on DVD as “Return To Studio One.” It’s a show from March 6th, 1969, recorded during one of Carson’s periodic visits to Los Angeles, before the show relocated there permanently in 1972 and it only survives because it was transferred to film for the Armed Forces Network.īut even this film doesn’t capture the full show. On Saturday Night Live, Dana Carvey riffed on the drunken anarchy of The Tonight Show in its ’60s and ’70s heyday, as reflected in those specials.īut for me, sitting through the same clips year after year-of Carson getting peed on by visiting zoo animals, or Ed Ames lodging a tomahawk in a dummy’s crotch, or Dean Martin flicking ashes into George Gobel’s cup-was a crash course in late-night history, and a small sample of what I imagined to be a loaded cache of broadcasting gold.Ī recent box set collects a handful of those (now heavily edited) broadcasts, a handful more are available MOD, and some others are available on YouTube or from other fan sources. ![]() The Simpsons did the same, with Krusty The Clown as Carson. Garry Shandling produced a prototype of The Larry Sanders Show on Showtime in the form of a fake anniversary special, spoofing the era-signifiers and “wild” highlights. Eventually, comedians began to make fun of the anniversary specials the way they were making fun of everything else about Carson and The Tonight Show. As someone born eight years into the Carson era of The Tonight Show, someone who wasn’t allowed to stay up late enough to watch until it had been on the air for nearly two decades, Carson’s annual prime-time reminiscences were an integral part of my TV scholarship.
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