The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar
Encyclopedia
Tonight Starring Jack Paar is an American talk show hosted by Jack Paar
under The Tonight Show
franchise from 1957 to 1962. It originally aired during late-night
.
During its run it was broadcast from Studio 6B (formerly known as the Texaco Star Theatre) inside the RCA Building
. The same studio would also host early episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
. Its theme song was an instrumental version of "Everything's Coming Up Roses
," and the closing theme was "So Until I See You" by Al Lerner
.
, to a talk/variety show format as it had been during Steve Allen's tenure as host
. Jack Paar
became the new solo host of the show. Under Paar, most of the NBC affiliates which had dropped the show during the ill-fated run of America After Dark began airing the show once again. Paar's era began the practice of branding the series after the host, and as such the program, though officially still called Tonight, was marketed as The Jack Paar Show. A combo band conducted by Paar's Army buddy pianist Jose Melis
filled commercial breaks and backed musical entertainers. Paar also introduced the idea of having guest hosts; one of these early hosts was Johnny Carson
. In the late 1950s, it was one of the first regularly scheduled shows to be videotaped in color. Paar hosted the program from 1957 to 1962.
Paar's original announcer was actor Franklin Pangborn
, but he was fired after only a few weeks for not showing enough "spontaneous enthusiasm". His replacement was Hugh Downs
, who stayed with Paar to the end.
At first, the show was called "Tonight Starring Jack Paar"; after 1959 it was officially known as The Jack Paar Show (or The Jack Paar Tonight Show, a phrasing which led to the name "The Tonight Show," as opposed to simply "Tonight," being adopted permanently after Paar's departure). On September 19, 1960, the series became one of the first regularly scheduled videotaped programs in color. Only a few minutes of video of Paar's talk host career in color are known to exist today; NBC's policy at the time was to preserve programming on black-and-white kinescopes, but this policy only applied to prime time programming, and as such, the videotapes of most of Paar's Tonight Show appearances were taped over and no longer exist
, a policy that continued through the first ten years of Johnny Carson's subsequent hosting of the same series.
It was during Paar's stint as host that The Tonight Show first became an entertainment juggernaut; Paar generated the most obsessive fascination and curiosity from press and public of anyone who ever hosted the show. Paar strove for compelling conversation as well as humor; his guests tended to be literate raconteurs such as Peter Ustinov
or intellectuals such as William F. Buckley, Jr.
, as opposed to just actors or other performers selling their current work, while Paar himself earned a reputation as a superb storyteller.
He also surrounded himself with a memorable group of regulars and semi-regulars, including Cliff Arquette
(as the homespun "Charlie Weaver"), author-illustrator Alexander King
, Tedi Thurman
(NBC's sultry "Miss Monitor") and comedy actresses Peggy Cass
and Dody Goodman
. Paar's oft repeated expression, I kid you not (something Humphrey Bogart
as Capt. Philip Queeg uttered often in The Caine Mutiny
), became a national catchphrase. In 1959, Paar's gag writer Jack Douglas
became a bestselling author (My Brother Was an Only Child, A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Grave: An Autobiography) after his regular appearances with Paar. Douglas' Japanese wife Reiko often appeared, as did Hungarian beauty queen Zsa Zsa Gabor
, French comedienne Genevieve and several British performers appeared as well; Paar enjoyed conversing with foreigners and knew their accents would spice up the proceedings.
In 1957 and 1958, The Jack Paar Tonight Show was awarded the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series
.
n leader Fidel Castro
. Later that year, during the show's regular swing through the West Coast, Paar again made the front pages of the national newspapers by asking a visibly-inebriated Mickey Rooney
to leave the program during the December 1 telecast. Two years later, he broadcast his show from Berlin just as the Berlin Wall
was going up. Paar also engaged in a number of public feuds, one of them with CBS luminary Ed Sullivan
, and another with Walter Winchell
. The latter feud "effectively ended Winchell's career", beginning a shift in power from print to television.
s that are tame by today's standards, but too much for the network to bear in 1960:
NBC censors replaced that section of the show with news coverage and failed to inform Paar of their decision. On February 11, 1960, Jack Paar quit the show. As he left his desk in the middle of the program, he said, "I am leaving The Tonight Show. There must be a better way of, uh, making a living than this." Although Paar had earlier told his announcer Hugh Downs
of his intention to quit the show, Downs at first thought Paar was joking. He expected the host to return to the stage, but the abrupt departure left Downs to finish the broadcast himself. While Paar traveled outside the country, his disappearance became a national news event.
Urged to return to the show by his friend Jonathan Winters
, Paar reappeared on March 7, 1960, strolled on stage, struck a pose, and said, "As I was saying before I was interrupted..." After the audience erupted in applause, Paar continued, "When I walked off, I said there must be a better way of making a living. Well, I've looked... and there isn't." He then went on to explain his departure with typical frankness: "Leaving the show was a childish and perhaps emotional thing. I have been guilty of such action in the past and will perhaps be again. I'm totally unable to hide what I feel. It is not an asset in show business, but I shall do the best I can to amuse and entertain you and let other people speak freely, as I have in the past."
As for Tonight, Johnny Carson was chosen as Paar's successor. At the time, Carson was host of the weekday afternoon quiz show Who Do You Trust?
on ABC
. Because Carson was under contract to ABC through September (they held him to his contract until the day it expired, prompting him to make occasional wisecracks on Who Do You Trust? about the situation- "I'd like to welcome you to ABC...the network with a heart"), he could not take over as host until October 1, 1962. The months between Paar and Carson were taken by a series of guest hosts, including Groucho Marx
and Mort Sahl
. The show was broadcast under the title The Tonight Show during this interregnum
.
As the years passed, Carson too became weary of the show's length and struggled to fill so much airtime, so as local news
casts expanded, Tonight was shortened to 90 minutes, and then to the current 60 minutes after the debut of The Tomorrow Show
. Carson also arranged for the use of guest hosts and reruns during the week so that he only had to appear three times per week (a practice that has since been abandoned in the Leno and O'Brien hosting runs, due to increased competition). Thus, by 1982, Carson had 180 minutes of airtime to fill in a week compared to 525 minutes Paar had to fill, reducing the work load by nearly two thirds.
Jack Paar
Jack Harold Paar was an author, American radio and television comedian and talk show host, best known for his stint as host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962...
under The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
franchise from 1957 to 1962. It originally aired during late-night
Late-night talk show
In American television, the late-night talk show is a specific kind of comedy-oriented talk and variety show that airs late at night. Characteristics of the genre include topical monologues in which the host makes fun of the day's news, comedy sketches, celebrity interviews, and musical performances...
.
During its run it was broadcast from Studio 6B (formerly known as the Texaco Star Theatre) inside the RCA Building
GE Building
The GE Building is an Art Deco skyscraper that forms the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in the midtown Manhattan section of New York City. Known as the RCA Building until 1988, it is most famous for housing the headquarters of the television network NBC...
. The same studio would also host early episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jimmy Fallon on NBC. The show premiered on March 2, 2009, as the third incarnation of the Late Night franchise originated by David Letterman....
. Its theme song was an instrumental version of "Everything's Coming Up Roses
Everything's Coming up Roses
"Everything's Coming Up Roses" is a song from the 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable, with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and music by Jule Styne in which it was introduced by Ethel Merman....
," and the closing theme was "So Until I See You" by Al Lerner
Al Lerner (composer)
Al Lerner is an American pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor from the Big band era. He was a member of the Harry James band for many years, playing piano. He wrote music for several artists, including Allan Sherman and Liza Minnelli...
.
History
In July 1957, after the failure of Tonight! America After Dark (a news-oriented program hosted by Al Collins), NBC reverted its late night show, TonightThe Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
, to a talk/variety show format as it had been during Steve Allen's tenure as host
Tonight Starring Steve Allen
Tonight Starring Steve Allen is a talk show hosted by Steve Allen under The Tonight Show franchise. It was the first version of The Tonight Show but was referred to as Tonight from 1954 to 1957. It originally aired during late-night....
. Jack Paar
Jack Paar
Jack Harold Paar was an author, American radio and television comedian and talk show host, best known for his stint as host of The Tonight Show from 1957 to 1962...
became the new solo host of the show. Under Paar, most of the NBC affiliates which had dropped the show during the ill-fated run of America After Dark began airing the show once again. Paar's era began the practice of branding the series after the host, and as such the program, though officially still called Tonight, was marketed as The Jack Paar Show. A combo band conducted by Paar's Army buddy pianist Jose Melis
Jose Melis
José Melis was born José Melis Guiu.Melis studied at the Havana Conservatory of Music and a Cuban government scholarship enabled him to continue his education in Paris. When he was 16, he arrived in the United States, graduated from the Juilliard School of Music and worked as a lounge pianist...
filled commercial breaks and backed musical entertainers. Paar also introduced the idea of having guest hosts; one of these early hosts was Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson
John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
. In the late 1950s, it was one of the first regularly scheduled shows to be videotaped in color. Paar hosted the program from 1957 to 1962.
Paar's original announcer was actor Franklin Pangborn
Franklin Pangborn
Franklin Pangborn was an American comedic character actor. Pangborn was famous for small, but memorable roles, with a comic flair. He appeared in many Preston Sturges movies as well as the W.C. Fields films International House, The Bank Dick, and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break...
, but he was fired after only a few weeks for not showing enough "spontaneous enthusiasm". His replacement was Hugh Downs
Hugh Downs
Hugh Malcolm Downs is a long time American broadcaster, television host, news anchor, TV producer, author, game show host, and music composer; and is perhaps best known for his role as co-host the NBC News program Today from 1962 to 1971, host of the Concentration game show from 1958 to 1969, and...
, who stayed with Paar to the end.
At first, the show was called "Tonight Starring Jack Paar"; after 1959 it was officially known as The Jack Paar Show (or The Jack Paar Tonight Show, a phrasing which led to the name "The Tonight Show," as opposed to simply "Tonight," being adopted permanently after Paar's departure). On September 19, 1960, the series became one of the first regularly scheduled videotaped programs in color. Only a few minutes of video of Paar's talk host career in color are known to exist today; NBC's policy at the time was to preserve programming on black-and-white kinescopes, but this policy only applied to prime time programming, and as such, the videotapes of most of Paar's Tonight Show appearances were taped over and no longer exist
Wiping
Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...
, a policy that continued through the first ten years of Johnny Carson's subsequent hosting of the same series.
It was during Paar's stint as host that The Tonight Show first became an entertainment juggernaut; Paar generated the most obsessive fascination and curiosity from press and public of anyone who ever hosted the show. Paar strove for compelling conversation as well as humor; his guests tended to be literate raconteurs such as Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter...
or intellectuals such as William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
, as opposed to just actors or other performers selling their current work, while Paar himself earned a reputation as a superb storyteller.
He also surrounded himself with a memorable group of regulars and semi-regulars, including Cliff Arquette
Cliff Arquette
Clifford Charles Arquette was an actor and comedian, famous for his role as Charley Weaver.-Early life and career:...
(as the homespun "Charlie Weaver"), author-illustrator Alexander King
Alexander King (author)
Alexander King , born Alexander Koenig in Vienna, was a bestselling humorist, memoirist and media personality of the early television era, based in the United States....
, Tedi Thurman
Tedi Thurman
Theodora Thurman, better known as Tedi Thurman, was a fashion model and actress who found fame in the 1950s as Miss Monitor on NBC's Monitor, programmed by Pat Weaver as an innovative 40-hour weekend radio show....
(NBC's sultry "Miss Monitor") and comedy actresses Peggy Cass
Peggy Cass
Mary Margaret “Peggy” Cass was an American actress, comedian, game show panelist, and announcer.A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Cass became interested in acting as a member of the drama club at Cambridge Latin School; however, she attended all of high school without a speaking part...
and Dody Goodman
Dody Goodman
Dolores "Dody" Goodman was an American character actress known for her playing the mother of the title character Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman...
. Paar's oft repeated expression, I kid you not (something Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
as Capt. Philip Queeg uttered often in The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny (film)
The Caine Mutiny is a 1954 American drama film set during World War II, directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Stanley Kramer. It stars Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray, and is based on the 1951 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk The Caine Mutiny. The film...
), became a national catchphrase. In 1959, Paar's gag writer Jack Douglas
Jack Douglas (writer)
Jack Douglas was an American comedy writer who wrote for radio, television and a series of humor books, beginning with the bestselling My Brother Was an Only Child .-Radio:...
became a bestselling author (My Brother Was an Only Child, A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Grave: An Autobiography) after his regular appearances with Paar. Douglas' Japanese wife Reiko often appeared, as did Hungarian beauty queen Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor is a Hungarian-born American stage, film and television actress.She acted on stage in Vienna, Austria, in 1932, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that...
, French comedienne Genevieve and several British performers appeared as well; Paar enjoyed conversing with foreigners and knew their accents would spice up the proceedings.
In 1957 and 1958, The Jack Paar Tonight Show was awarded the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Series
The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Series is a category in the Primetime Emmy Awards. It is awarded annually to the best variety show or similarly formatted program of the year....
.
Controversy
In 1959, he was criticized for his interview with CubaCuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n leader Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
. Later that year, during the show's regular swing through the West Coast, Paar again made the front pages of the national newspapers by asking a visibly-inebriated Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...
to leave the program during the December 1 telecast. Two years later, he broadcast his show from Berlin just as the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
was going up. Paar also engaged in a number of public feuds, one of them with CBS luminary Ed Sullivan
Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the TV variety show The Ed Sullivan Show. The show was broadcast from 1948 to 1971 , which made it one of the longest-running variety shows in U.S...
, and another with Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...
. The latter feud "effectively ended Winchell's career", beginning a shift in power from print to television.
Highly emotional
Paar was often unpredictable and emotional. The most salient example of this kind of on-screen behavior was demonstrated on the February 10, 1960 show, when one of his jokes was cut from a broadcast by studio censors. The joke in question involved a woman writing to a vacation resort and inquiring about the availability of a "W.C." The woman used that term to mean "water closet" (i.e., bathroom), but the gentleman who received the letter misunderstood "W.C." to mean "wayside chapel" (i.e., church). The full text of the joke reveals multiple double entendreDouble entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
s that are tame by today's standards, but too much for the network to bear in 1960:
NBC censors replaced that section of the show with news coverage and failed to inform Paar of their decision. On February 11, 1960, Jack Paar quit the show. As he left his desk in the middle of the program, he said, "I am leaving The Tonight Show. There must be a better way of, uh, making a living than this." Although Paar had earlier told his announcer Hugh Downs
Hugh Downs
Hugh Malcolm Downs is a long time American broadcaster, television host, news anchor, TV producer, author, game show host, and music composer; and is perhaps best known for his role as co-host the NBC News program Today from 1962 to 1971, host of the Concentration game show from 1958 to 1969, and...
of his intention to quit the show, Downs at first thought Paar was joking. He expected the host to return to the stage, but the abrupt departure left Downs to finish the broadcast himself. While Paar traveled outside the country, his disappearance became a national news event.
Urged to return to the show by his friend Jonathan Winters
Jonathan Winters
-Early life:Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, the son of Alice Kilgore , a radio personality, and Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an investment broker. He is a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio...
, Paar reappeared on March 7, 1960, strolled on stage, struck a pose, and said, "As I was saying before I was interrupted..." After the audience erupted in applause, Paar continued, "When I walked off, I said there must be a better way of making a living. Well, I've looked... and there isn't." He then went on to explain his departure with typical frankness: "Leaving the show was a childish and perhaps emotional thing. I have been guilty of such action in the past and will perhaps be again. I'm totally unable to hide what I feel. It is not an asset in show business, but I shall do the best I can to amuse and entertain you and let other people speak freely, as I have in the past."
Paar's departure
Jack Paar left the show in March 1962, citing the fact that he could no longer handle the load of putting on a show that (at the time) lasted 105 minutes a night, five nights a week. The Jack Paar Show moved to prime time (as The Jack Paar Program) and aired weekly, on Friday nights, through 1965.As for Tonight, Johnny Carson was chosen as Paar's successor. At the time, Carson was host of the weekday afternoon quiz show Who Do You Trust?
Who Do You Trust?
Who Do You Trust? is an American game show which aired from September 30, 1957, to November 15, 1957, at 4:30 PM, Eastern on ABC, and from November 18, 1957, to December 27, 1963 at 3:30 PM, Eastern - which helped garner a significant number of young viewers coming home from school.The series was...
on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. Because Carson was under contract to ABC through September (they held him to his contract until the day it expired, prompting him to make occasional wisecracks on Who Do You Trust? about the situation- "I'd like to welcome you to ABC...the network with a heart"), he could not take over as host until October 1, 1962. The months between Paar and Carson were taken by a series of guest hosts, including Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
and Mort Sahl
Mort Sahl
Morton Lyon "Mort" Sahl is a Canadian-born American comedian and actor. He occasionally wrote jokes for speeches delivered by President John F. Kennedy. He was the first comedian to record a live album and the first to perform on college campuses...
. The show was broadcast under the title The Tonight Show during this interregnum
Interregnum
An interregnum is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order...
.
As the years passed, Carson too became weary of the show's length and struggled to fill so much airtime, so as local news
Local news
In journalism, local news refers to news coverage of events in a local context which would not normally be of interest to those of other localities, or otherwise be of national or international scope.-Television:...
casts expanded, Tonight was shortened to 90 minutes, and then to the current 60 minutes after the debut of The Tomorrow Show
Tomorrow (TV series)
Tomorrow was an American late-night television talk show hosted by Tom Snyder...
. Carson also arranged for the use of guest hosts and reruns during the week so that he only had to appear three times per week (a practice that has since been abandoned in the Leno and O'Brien hosting runs, due to increased competition). Thus, by 1982, Carson had 180 minutes of airtime to fill in a week compared to 525 minutes Paar had to fill, reducing the work load by nearly two thirds.