Johnny Carson Returns: Antenna TV to Air Full ‘Tonight Show’ Episodes

Tonight's episode is from January 1st 1982! I was in my senior year of high school.

In the Pacific Northwest they are showing it at 8:00 PMwith an encore presentation at 11:00 PM. Tonight at 1o:30 PM is a 30 minute special to inaugurate the presentations, probably a kind of best of.

Weeknights will be 1 hr shows from the 80s and early 90s, and weekend shows will be 1 and a half hour episodes from the 70s.

 

Looks no musical guests will be shown at all. Note for DVR folks you may have to set it for record new and repeat eps. My Comcast DVR doesn't recognize these shows as first airs on Antenna.

 

Very excited for this. Recently got rid of cable and have an indoor antenna that receives the big 4 affiliates (and sub-channels) very well here in Columbus. Antenna TV was a big draw for me. And it's free.

 

That's not what we have been told, but it really does make sense. To me you have a couple of problems, one it's tricky to get rights to all the musical guests, two you need to cut down the show to give enough room for the modern amount of comercials or even a little more since it probably needs even more income for the station to justify the expense of the shows. Getting rid of the musical numbers would seem to solve both of theses problems.

 

Well, this is unfortunate, but consistent with what I predicted (see previous post). The non-singing appearances would all be covered by the standard broadcast licenses that these people singed before appearing on the show, but any singing segments would require sync licenses, which most likely were not negotiated for future formats/in perpetuity, and as a result each would have to be negotiated individually (and sometimes at great cost). They'd probably pay for a sync license for the Tonight Show Theme (used too often and just one negotiation), but beyond that, life would be a lot easier by just deleting all the other singing performances.

 

I'm not surprised either about the music segments being cut, but am looking forward to seeing this show again after so many years. He had some great guests!

 

For those of us who aren't getting the show, could someone please report how it looks and what they're doing with the titles, music and intro...

 

Ed's vocal introductions are gone, other than "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" After the show cuts to Johnny coming out onstage, a title on the screen reads "JOHNNY CARSON."

 

PM me if you want to see a sample.

 

considering the show is titled "Johnny Carson" I doubt that...

 

So the background I heard about Eddie Murphy's first appearance on the tonight show:
Forgot where I read it, but Johnny wanted Eddie to do standup and not sit down.
But, behind the scenes, Eddie stated he was a star on SNL and demanded that he could sit down with Johnny.
So when Johnny's behind the scenes people relented, that's when Eddie came on.
To be fair, Eddie was right. He already was a budding star on SNL.

 

Only shows hosted by Johnny will air. No guest host episodes

 

Steve Allen was not a guest host. He was the originator of the show! Having said that, I highly doubt if they will show any of his episodes.

 

This is what I have for Sunday:

 

My TiVo says Saturday is from January 1975 and Sunday is from 5/22/1974.

 

I am aware of that. Its only going to be shows of Johnny hosting. No Steve Allen nor Jack Paar.

 

They are planning on airing shows from the same time of year that we are going through, just like I do with my Jack Benny Podcast. This works really well to make the listener/watcher feel more resonance with the episode. It worked great tonight with Johnny commenting on the Rose parade, New Years parties, and even mentioning how strange it will be in the future saying 2000 or 2005 and such. Perfect pick for a first show.

 

Eddie Murphy even does a bit about a black president of the United States.

 

The episode they aired tonight was released on DVD on the Eddie Murphy Guest Series set. So I guess they'll most definitely be using already released shows in their lineups. Still though, with 365 shows coming up there will be a lot of new episodes.

Nice touch that they chose shows that are relevant to the particular day it airs. Tonight's show was from the first of the year so it was cool to have Johnny make New Year's Eve related jokes.

 

Last nights show was a good one with Johnny in his later prime from January 1, 1982. He had predictions from psychics for 1982 that were hilarious. McClain Stevenson was funny. He made some bad jokes but kept moving on. He was a good guest. Eddie did stuff in 1982 that was pretty risqué at the time. He did his bit on Buckwheat and his relatives with funny names like cereal. It was a great set.

As i was watching Johnny's monologue, I kept thinking that there's no one who has or could do what Johnny did. He was one of a kind. I saw him with Jack Benny on Jack's show on another channel after the Tonight Show was over and Johnny sang a song and riffed with Jack, who we know he loved and admired. It was interesting stuff.

As far as he picture quality, it was very good. The was a show before the Tonight Show that showed Johnny's thinking about the future by buying an underground series of storage for all his shows from 1972 on. They've all been digitized. The show looked great; not perfect, but very good. The shows they're doing look like any one could be a Best Of for a day off by Johnny. I'll certainly keep watching. Great stuff!

 

Stayed up and watched it last night. Loved it!

 

Those of us with Direct won't see it.