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Carson’s Debut: ‘Tonight Show’, October 1, 1962

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

Carson’s Debut: ‘Tonight Show’, October 1, 1962


The “official” guests that night were Joan Crawford (seen here), Mel Brooks, Tony Bennett and Rudy Vallee. His “unofficial” guest was Groucho Marx who (as you can hear in the audio clip above) actually introduced Johnny for the first time…Ed introduced Carson for a second time that night with the now famous “Here’s Johnny” line. How is this possible? Here’s how. When Carson took over the show, it was 105 minutes long with two introductions. The main body of the show was 90 minutes from the 11:30 EST start, but since many local stations were still only doing a 15 minute news cast, an into was also done at 11:15 and this segment included the monologue. Starting with Paar, the show went to videotape on January 12, 1959 and it rolled at 11:15 with stations allowed to join at either the 15 or 30 minute marks till January 1967 when the show open moved to 11;30 at Carson’s insistence. He had been quite annoyed that most major market viewers were not seeing the monologue as they were running half hour news shows, so starting in February of 65, Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson (the original band leader) did 15 minutes of banter till the official 90 minute format kicked in. I think Grouch had was the last fill in guest host before Johnny took over. Paar left in March of ’62 and there was a long list of guest hosts who filled the void for eight months.

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12 responses to “Carson’s Debut: ‘Tonight Show’, October 1, 1962”

  1. Richard Wirth

    The show departed 30 Rock from Studio 6B in 1972 for the move to California. 42 years later, it returns to 6B at the conclusion of the Winter Olympics…

  2. Penny Gaffney

    And an OU GRAD ( I forget her name went on to work as a booker in 1970).Then a former classmate of mine from Rocky River High became Ex/VP of Late Night Programming. He went to Miami but we’ll forgive him. And didn’t some of the guys from OU do summer relief engineering on that show?

  3. Mark Moore

    I guess if it was 1980 when Carson shortened the show to 1 hour, I was 12, but I still remember reading the newspaper article announcing the change, with Carson standing next to a giant hourglass.

  4. Mark Vidonic

    Thanks, Dennis, I wasn’t sure if I remembered right.

  5. Tim Stepich

    @Gary the show went down to an hour in 1980. It was a shame because the 90 min. version was more laid back, and IMO, more fun.

  6. Rob Kates

    Forty seven stories below ground in a Kansas salt mine lies some of the most precious treasures in the history of American television. This is where you would find 4,000 hours worth of episodes of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Late night TV fans can get more information here: http://rwkates2001.wix.com/late-night-tv

  7. Eric Fournier

    Et que dire de Jack Paar, pour moi l’inventeur du Tonight show 🙂

  8. Gary Walters

    When did Tonight time shift to both a reduced one hour format, and hit the clock at 11:35pm ET? SNL hits at 11:30pm ET and goes to 1am.

  9. Leon Zetekoff

    You would think that there would be kines as well

  10. Mark Vidonic

    Correct me if I’m wrong though, I thought the earlier machines also had issues where if the tape wasn’t played on the machine on which it was recorded, it couldn’t work.

  11. William David French Jr

    Sad that the tape was erased and reused. It wasn’t until 1972, after moving the show to California, that Carson got control over the few remaining tapes tapes and put them in storage with future tapes of the show. He also gained a certain level of ownership over he skits and monologues.

  12. Glenn Mack

    Nice unfinished carpet and hinged riser. Lol.

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