Johnny Carson's Tonight Show - Dec. 1963 - part 1 of 2!

Here is part of the oldest "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson that I have, taped in Dec., 1963! Remember that President Kennedy had been assassinated only a few weeks before this show aired, hence the mellow tone of this show. This is part 1 of 2.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Tonight
• Show
• 1963
• Johnny
• Carson
• Ray
• Glasser

[6motion6]

Thanks for posting. Where did you find this?

[videoholicreturns]

I got this in a video trade many, many years ago.

[TheArtlloyd]

This selection of clips comes from a complete show in a friends archive. He did send the whole show to Johnny who was delighted with it. Another show from one month later was sent to him as well.

[caitlinjane92]

@xander7ful Well, as the description of this video says, everyone was pretty mellowed down from the sudden shock of President Kennedy's assassination.

[galesayers]

@xander7ful The show was shot in New York originally.  Johnny moved to CA to make travel easier for Hollywood guests.

[xander7ful]

The band sounds really pathetic. And the audience doesn't seem to be in a mood to laugh. This must have been a tough one to host.

[xander7ful]

Did he do this show as a fill-in for Jack Paar? Because I just heard him say (on another video) that he didn't come out to CA until 1972. (I remember my mother saying that Regis Philbin was a host until the network decided on Johnny Carson.)

[gent11763]

@observer9670 NBC and other networks, unfortunately, in order to save library space, had the policy of re-recording over old shows to reuse the video reels for repeat of episodes. Many of the early Carson tonight shows were lost as a result of this practice. Carson had commented on this many times on the show when doing the annual retrospectives, especially the famous premiere episode that featured Grouch Marx introducing Carson in 1962 (the audio survived thankfully).

[observer9670]

@gent11763 A few from 1962-72 survive either on kinescope (as this one was) or on videotape. NBC did save a few shows for weekend reruns. NBC ran Tonight Show reruns on weekends until 1975. Some affiliates ran them on Saturdays, some on Sundays and others not at all.

[observer9670]

With Jack Paar, the Tonight Show was an interview/performance show with some comedy. Johnny Carson changed it to a comedy show with some interviews and performances.

[gent11763]

Johnny would have loved to have seen this since NBC destroyed all the old shows...

[caitlinjane92]

@jd55192 You forgot Ed Sullivan in the higher rank. ;)