Johnny Carson briefly quit The Tonight Show in 1967. News to me - does anyone remember this?

I was researching on an archival newspaper site, and stumbled across several articles about Johnny Carson quitting The Tonight Show in 1967. Apparently NBC was broadcasting reruns of The Tonight Show - some several months old - during an AFTRA strike, which Carson believed violated his contract.

This would be in April 1967. It looks like NBC resorted to their Summer 1962 strategy and had several guest hosts (Bob Newhart, Jimmy Dean, etc.) host the program. Does anyone remember this period of The Tonight Show? Were the substitute host shows as bad as I imagine?

 

I can't see Bob Newhart guest hosting anything being bad... And Jimmy Dean, while I'm not sure how he'd do in a "Tonight Show" setting, I'd imagine he would have been an okay fit, as he had experience as a host of his own program...

 

The Flying Wallenda's and the King Family also were hosts.

 

Probably a 90 minute informercial selling Sausages

 

I liked it when they varied the guest hosts. You got to see some decent newcomers and those who hadn't hosted before - I remember liking David Letterman a lot - even if it was at the expense of having to watch some clinkers now and then. I hated having to watch Joey Bishop every time Carson was gone. I seem to recall Joan Rivers getting the gig a lot in the early days. I can't say that I enjoyed those shows either. I likely just stopped watching them after a point.

 

This was before my time, but from what I've read he didn't exactly "quit", but used the "contract violation" loophole to get a better deal. He got such a raise and increase in control that Henny Youngman quipped "Johnny's so in charge at NBC that General Sarnoff is now Colonel Sarnoff".

Like a previous poster, I too preferred the format of many guest hosts to one or two regulars. It didn't help that I couldn't stand Joan Rivers, and didn't watch those unless she had an interesting musical guest (that last point was the only one in her favor -- she definitely loosened up the musical guest list from Vegas lounge acts to current rock stars).

The great thing about guest hosts was the variety. In the '70s I recall seeing Jerry Lewis, George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Burt Reynolds, Maclean Stevenson -- who during one Carson renegotiation was rumored to be NBC's designated successor; Ed McMahon's stated choice, Richard Dawson, I only found adequate.

I specifically recall a few interesting things w/ guest hosts: Jerry Lewis interviewing Otto Preminger, who claimed things called cassettes would soon be watched in people's homes, while Lewis insisted he was crazy; Orson Welles (!) talking to Vincent Price about his stage role as Oscar Wilde and asking "Have you read the book by his manager about his American tour?". Can you imagine that exchange taking place on late night TV now?

Perhaps the diversity of guest hosts is best shown by the fact that Peter Bogdanovich hosted - not once, but twice.

If you want to analyze it maybe the guest host was the last gasp of the sophisticated NY panel show idea of What's My Line, which had publisher Bennett Cerf, poet Louis Untermeyer, producer Stanley Kramer (at least once), and novelist-playwright Gore Vidal as panelists. But this would be replaced by a host-comic reading pre-chosen questions and working in as may planned jokes as possible in between the guest's plugs.

I always hoped the gust host would come back, and Letterman briefly revived it during his illness and recuperation -- I recall Nathan Lane and Elvis Costello (singing "Allison" with rewritten lyrics as "Letterman") doing one-shots. But it was only temporary. It seems that reruns get ratings almost as high as the new shows -- at no cost.

 

Once upon a time I remember someone as witty and cultured as Calvin Trillin making the talk show rounds. I don't know if such is common anymore.

 

Carl Sagan became a star thanks to his Tonight Show appearances (Carson was an amateur astronomer) which helped get Cosmos off the ground.

Buckley and Vidal were frequent Carson guests (but not together!), as was George Plimpton. I recall seeing Truman Capote -- he was on TV so much he eventually became one of Rich Little's impressions -- Garson Kanin, Clement Freud... This sort of literate guest survived to a degree on Letterman's NBC show, but gradually disappeared after that.

I think Carson't type of guest definitely changed with the advent of Tom Snyder's Tomorrow in 1973. In 1967 Carson actually had Jim Garrison on to discuss the JFK assassination (audio survives). That's the sort of guest Snyder would have booked in the '70s.

 

Great post. I see there's a lot of hosts and guests I took for granted back then (as well as a lot of topics that are much more interesting in retrospect). I've recorded some of the old Carson shows that are being re-run. I watched one with McLean Stevenson (one of my favorite guests back in the 1970s) and George Carlin. I think now that Stevenson would have made a great host. He had the type of jaded sarcasm that Letterman later popularized. I also was surprised how political Carlin was allowed to be.

 

Sagan was a must-see for me. I even wanted to be an astronomer for a time because of him. I'm sure I'm not the only one. My mother would take me to observatories - I still have the vision of Saturn and its ring (essentially a white circle with a white line through it) in my head - and I pasted glow-in-the-dark stars in the form of some constellations on my bedroom ceiling.

 

I also preferred the multiple guest hosts in Carson. It gave the show a variety and, frankly, a reason to tune in when Johnny was off. Like others have said, if you didn't like Joan there wasn't a reason to watch.

I know the pre-1973 shows are lost and I don't know what records exist, but it would be interesting seeing a list of all the guest hosts over the years. It would also be nice if the nephew would allow non Johnny shows to be in Antenna.

 

I think the current crop of talkshow hosts are also nervous that if they allow a guest host to be on their show during a vacation, it might give the network the idea that the star could be replaced by somebody cheaper, particularly if the ratings don't change much. I think this was a big reason why neither Leno nor Letterman ever (willingly) had a guest host, with the notable exception of the couple of weeks of Letterman's heart operation recovery.

I totally agree that it's unfortunate that the days of a real conversation happening on a talk show don't happen anymore. Now, it's just some vapid star hawking a new dumb movie, or a rock star promoting a new hit, or a comedian getting up and doing their 6 minutes to promote an HBO special. It's extremely rare you'll see a politician going on to talk about serious issues, or a literary author go on to talk in-depth about a book, or just people appearing to argue about what's happening in the world in general. Some of the best Jack Paar shows I can remember (only dimly, because I was just a little kid) were the wacky guests he had who weren't exactly celebrities, but were just funny as hell and could ad-lib all kinds of hilarious stuff. Comedy writer Jack Douglas and his Japanese wife Reiko were frequent guests who were really, really funny and interesting, mentioned frequently in Paar's books.

 

It was after this episode that NBC erased the majority of Carson's archives setting up the next blow up with Carson and costing them another bundle.

 

Sometimes Johnny was on vacation so long, that it seemed like he quit.

 

I remember in college during our binge watching Carson days, if there was a guest host, there'd usually be an exodus out. Someone really funny as a guest like Rickles, could make us watch.
Most people didn't like Rivers, I thought she was really funny until she came back as that horribly distorted monster whose only schtick was making offensive remarks about dresses. When her husband was alive, she could do some good stand up.

 

definitely!

 

I wonder just how many weeks of vacation he was taking toward the end of his career. Also, wasn't he just on 3 nights a week (Tues-Wed-Thurs?)

 

In the 1970s he apparently took time off so he could do other gigs. My mother saw him in Lake Tahoe when she attended a conference there.

 

Really? He did a stand up act? Like an hour? wow.

 

Yeah. I could ask her about it again, though she might not remember at this point. I just remember her saying at the time that it was more "off color" than his TV stuff.

I now recall another post in another thread indicating that Buddy Rich opened for Carson at one point. I'll have to ask my mother if she remembers seeing a drummer/band as well.

 

omg. I'd pay just to see Johnny demonstrate his lessons on Jack Benny's timing. Saw BR open for Hope.
He was the greatest.

 

I was 10 and have no memory of this. I was too young to watch the show regularly, but I definitely was aware of the show and watched it off and on. He came back and the rest is history.

 

Like on the Golden Girls --
Sophia: "Guess who's on Carson tonight?"
Dorothy: "Who?"
Sophia: "Carson."

 

Johnny gigged quite a lot in Vegas on the weekends. The Carson bio talks about it. He agreed to do it as of course everything was free and was treated like a king there. Some of the stories in the book takes place there.

 

I wonder why you don't see multiple guest hosts any more.

Are the current crop of hosts too insecure that somebody could take their spot?