 This is the SF Productions podcast network It didn't understand the world of 60s and 70s television Welcome to vast wasteland Welcome home fast wasteland the video journal of 60s and 70s TV I'm Mark Smith are along with Wilbert Neal and Marty Wiley. Well tonight. We're gonna talk about talk shows Oh talk about that yep, and With Carson leaving and all that we wanted to kind of give a quick tribute Yeah, left and all that Gonna jump on the batten wagon and talk about talk shows just like everybody else is like but before we get into that I want to tell you we're on Tuesdays at 6 Wednesdays at 10 and Thursdays at 3 p.m. You're on a CTV cable 21 Also, if you want to write into vast wasteland you want to write into box 15 14 11 Columbus, Ohio 4 3 2 1 5. There it is right there so Tonight talk shows Certainly it's a very durable format because it's just so damn cheap Well not anymore trying to get the people to come on there You know right the other guests get paid like scale, which is like a couple hundred bucks They still got a fly man. We got you got to pay for the host now, and that's that's expensive But when it started it was really cheap true. It was a way to pretty much fill up time Hey We want to talk to you because you know you're like a star and We're getting put together this new kind of thing is gonna be we're just we'll just talk to you Yep, that's a and so that's that so what are we gonna call it? I don't know. Let's see. We're talking to you. It's a show How about the conversation hour? That seems a little wordy The whiny TV executive That's famous running character Well the first really in the first talk show I believe I mean the first big one was Steve Allen tonight show, okay? ran what 50 I believe like 52 to 57 something like that before our time before our time And they And from what I understand he used to steal bits from Ernie Kovac's early morning show Well, yeah, really a lot of the stuff. Yeah, Ernie Kovac's was on there in fact Ernie even subbed for Steve Allen from time to time, you know one of the first substitute hosts and And started that tradition right yep and Steve's concept was of the ensemble Regulars, I mean they had they had guests on but they also had your ensemble. Oh regulars You had see we had Stephen Edie on And let me go through here Bill Wendell was actually an announcer at one point the same Bill Wendell doing Letterman now But they'd they'd At the time tonight show is the first version of the tonight show was thought up as as something just to kind of to fill up all that time Because because the local stations at the time were like well, we'll do the news and we'll pretty much sign off There's no one's gonna watch anything at that time of night was pretty much the feeling it NBC said hey, there is some prime Prime commercial time we can fill up. So let's do the darn tonight show so Well, let's see so you had your various incarnations of the tonight show You had the the from 54 to 57 was Steve Allen, okay? And then you had America and I'm sorry tonight America after dark Which ran for a good looks like about seven months Okay No, that no no no no no that was this is before Jack Parr okay between Allen and Parr was this weird thing with a they kind of went out and According to this it was a lot like the today show Like news items Like news items and they they would go out to like night spots in New York and just take cameras and wander around And Al jasbo Collins Jasbo Collins is he in a band or something we can get a name like jasbo jasbo So then we moved into the Jack Carr show So Jack when Jack Parr moved in he kind of moved away from the very conversational style to more really of a People didn't tune in as much to see entertainment. They they tuned in to watch Jack breakdown or attack somebody verbally Jack would like emotionally break down during the show There were several times he walked off. There's this famous incident where he had in a in a joke. He had mentioned Wc now Wc at the time met water closet Which meant London right? I guess Which means bathroom, okay? He said wc on the air and for doing this the censors said oh no and so so apparently on the on the On the later It was either I guess it was but it would have been the taped version of the program that went to the West Coast They bleeped out the whole segment so he got mad he got mad the next night and he walked off like two minutes into the show and Hugh Downs, which was who was the announcer at the time had to basically carry the show for the rest of the time And Hugh Downs of 2020 fame. Yeah, it was it was a big-time announcer then and so you so you had your But they also had the semi regulars in the long list of semi regulars We had Pat Harrington jr. Later to go on to one day at a time had Peggy Cass Pat Harrington jr. On that show create a character that people thought was true Guido panzini, okay, and they thought and people accepted it as a real right person right when it was actually him But that's all BLT well make Cliff Arquette also created a character that probably carried him all the way through the rest of his career Charlie weaver Later be seen of course on Hollywood squares for years and years and years So then there was Joey Bishop Florence Henderson buddy Hackett Betty White So people they basically everything. Yeah. Oh, yeah, so she just kind of come on and you know They all come on and do their bit and then get off that was it because at the time Of course, they were filling up like an hour and 45 minutes because the local news the 11 o'clock news would only run from like a 11 to 1115 As far as I'm concerned, there's not enough happening to warrant the amount of local news we have now But all you need is the weather right who got shot I don't know what the flippers did That's all you need to know to function in Columbus So they had to fill up from like 1115 to 1 a.m For you young youngsters you wouldn't remember that the night show actually ran all the way to 1 a.m. For a long time all the way into I believe the early Maybe like the late 70s I believe was when the tomorrow show got moved up to 1230 and all that okay But until then there was like going on into your Your one o'clock time well then we have another tonight show which ran from basically just a few months in 62 and That was basically waiting for Carson because Carson had a contract with CBS for Oh shoot the tomorrow night show He was doing a game show On CBS called oh Pressure luck or whatever it was Well in any case he was doing a toxio over there and CBS wouldn't let out as a contract So they had to kind of get in there and kind of fill up the time until Carson was available Which of course he started in August of 62 and then just recently left after being on for 30 years Thousands and thousands of dollars. That's right Like million that's and became a Multi-multi trillionaire No, he would have been a lot richer had he never got married. Well, right Right, that's true But you know talk shows I remember mostly More daytime talk shows right and being that I grew up in a very fertile television land Dayton Earned a vacation. I think this was the talk to the uh, it wasn't that it was who do you trust who do you trust? Which was exactly like It was exactly like you bet your life. It was a scripted show. It was a it was like a clone of your bet your life It was Johnny would stand there and he would do and he would do scripted stuff with supposed to guess Yeah, but day time. I remember in The morning coming out of Cincinnati, and I think you guys might have got it up in Columbus Paul Dixon show I remember the Paul Dixon show. Yeah, because I think it went all the way up to Cleveland And the Ruth Lyons show right 50 50 club I think it was first because they had 50 men and 50 women in the I don't remember that one That was it came up this way at least this way Yeah, and which it kind of evolved into the Ruth Lyons, which kind of evolved into the Bob Braun show Yeah, and those just ran forever and I guess they would come up to the fair and do the show From the fair and then coming out of Dayton. We had this young news guy named Dark hair today Phil Donahue Who did a talk show out of Dayton, which was pretty much like what he does now Except now I guess to run around with the mic Any stationary? No, not really because I remember him standing up and then seems like he moved from Dayton to Chicago Right before he moved to New York now But I remember those shows. Those are the first talk shows. I remember were those And Phil just seemed to have always been like it is now Like I don't think he's made any really big changes if he was limited to the stage at the time It was probably because technology didn't have my cords out I think I just kind of remember him not it's not being as a mobile. Yes, his mobile is physical That was the I remember he used to there was the more standardish type talk show set And then after a while he'd get up and talk to the audience Of course now there's not even a chair for him. He doesn't even bother sitting down Well, I remember Ruth Lyons always it was always clever on her show. She always had the mic In a bouquet of flowers. Yes, so she could sit there and hold this And look very lovely And it seems like all the mics were in a bouquet But anyone who was coming through Cincinnati Which I guess a lot of big names came through Cincinnati doing dinner theater and stuff Stopped into the Ruth Lyons show And then later did the Bob Braun show then later they had the Nick Clooney show And then Nick Clooney went off to New York to do a game show Oh well But they I don't know I think I don't know if daytime talk kind of started down in the Cincinnati area Because a lot of people coming through for um Midwestern hayriding. Well, I think they all have happy stuff I think a lot of local markets did their own little talk shows You know, but I but I really think the first one really to make it big was phil Long before anybody else to really I mean daytime talk shows until the 80s was basically you had You had phil you had dyna for a while dinosaur. Oh, yeah, dinosaur. Yeah, you had you had merv Oh And then you had mike douglas mike douglas. Yeah with the with the huge Flowers. I always remember the mike douglas. Oh, yeah The dating game right like they took the same set and just took off the dating game thing And there's mike douglas's show and for a long time There was a thing that maybe mike douglas and then merv griffin was the same guy. I remember hearing that I remember hearing that it was it was people were confused But then it seems like they're two they're two fortunes separated because merv became a trillionaire and sell off wheel of fortune. What happened to mike douglas? They sell him cars there or something. He's probably doing infomercials now somewhere He used to sing lovely songs, you know, real touching point in it pouring. So right And then you have a weekly co-host that was always a big thing. Yeah, you don't have a weekly co-host I remember yeah, I remember used to watching that That mike douglas would be on like 11 a.m. Or something and I think merv was like well where I got it was like an afternoon Right like like a round dinner time. Yeah in market Like or it was between four and five for decades and merv was like right after that Right, well, of course, merv like both in there's like from 330 to 430 there and 430 to 530 or something like that Yeah, like the soaps are finished and now what do you want to watch? Right Well, they had of course merv for a while had been doing He tried for about two years to compete with karson, which didn't work He tried that in the early 70s one of the the long list of people who tried to take out a karson, but Sounds like the merv Griffin shows where I first remember seeing steve martin He could have been and he had dark hair, but he had the air through his head He was doing the banjo thing and everybody was sitting back going What the hell is that? And nobody was laughing and it was like I was very young then I mean he must have been a writer for the smothers brothers then right Oh, yeah, and it just like totally bombed and I'm pretty sure it was a merv griffin show It just totally bombed and then what? probably Seven eight years later. He tries the same thing everybody loves him. It's great He's a wild and crazy funniest guy in the world. You know what it was people earlier just weren't doing the right drugs Yeah, that must have been it and then you talk about uh mike douglas. I can remember um this young um actor um Martial artists going on there bruce lee was on there and demonstrated his great one inch punch It was like he was on there and they had on somebody people that were proficient in different martial arts and um They were all up there doing their different things and this one this one older gentleman was up there Showing his stance, you know that nobody could get him out of this stance And he's up here a staunch guy has other the other people to come up there to get him out of his stance You know they're up there pushing him and everything. They can't get him out of it bruce comes up Punches the dude knock him down It's like yeah, you're out of your stands now, aren't you? They got a little upset with him about that. He says hey, I don't push I punch Well a memorable thing for and then they had they I think that was another place they did um Like uh, they had a fat man reunion on there once and I think I think Mike Douglas was one of the first ones to do the reunion Well, I don't think it was actually reunion then. I think it was actually let's have the cast of the show on Well, because it's like I remember back Hmm. I think it might have been just after the show with us though It might have been like a year or two later that they had them all on there But uh, it seems like you do that and have the cast of shows on Yeah One of the first to come up with that Let's get them all back together to see who hates each other And you're gonna talk um talk shows. Let's see. Uh, well in the merv grievous show had off the tree For the fish and ship right now the dear boy himself What's Arthur doing now, I think he's dead Yeah, I think yeah, Arthur died like in 70s pushing up the daisies. Oh, yeah That's why he disappeared suddenly from the show. I think that was basically it. He'd bought the farm On fish and ship You can find him out there. I like to be immortal like that. That's right I would be in the way to be immortalized Start a restaurant, put your name on it and die Pizza Heavy grave. Yeah, you think the boxes will go up in value after you die Yeah, probably would you know Yes, that's a bad thing about dying everything that you've done automatically either goes up in value or just drops off the place of the earth, you know Arthur treacherous be like the first, um Hokey sidekick guy Well, almost well, I think Ed was in there kind of tied in there together I don't know when the the I I believe the the the early Merv shows were the prime time or not the or the late night ones I'm pretty sure I think Merv didn't really start until like the late 60s So so Ed so Ed would have definitely been first. That's quite possible. All right, and Ed started right at the beginning So, but I wasn't allowed to step that late. Yeah, and when I could I didn't think they were very funny It looked too much like just Ed would sit there and just Are you listening we've got a laugher for you I used to watch um watch um Carson if I'd or watch him just when they had on animals, you know Different animals and see what they would do or what they wouldn't do Just the things those animals would do those wacky wacky animals Those nutty animals and hey if we're gonna talk talk shows we should talk about heart link letter also Yes, heart link letter was one in the afternoon. Right say the darnedest thing They sure do I used to watch that. Well, that was a late afternoon. That was um, they kept pretty much resurrecting that 230 Yeah, I think in the 70s. I think they tried to bring that back and They kept bringing it up over and over that time though I think that was when his daughter decided to take a hitter out of a window or something I think that's where that got started don't take drugs because you'll think you're a bird a fly out of window Like a link letter's daughter. Yeah Oh Of course, Buffy didn't listen to that Oh, there we are though. Well, so there were a lot of pretenders to Carson's throne you had uh Joey bishop showed up tried to try to make it just didn't work and of course, uh, Joey sidekick. We're just filming. Yeah Now doing that doing that darn ding ding with, uh, kathy lee Who's bruises and kathy lee? They're coming to your town hide They're just a little too sweet in the morning. Uh, I gotta watch somebody nasty in the morning because now it's just You got your fill. You got your sally jesse. We're gonna cry on this show. She has a box of the tissue Now wait a minute before you go on to somebody else. I just want to say one thing Sally jesse rafiel pick a first name one first name. None of this None of these all of the names sally does rafiel sally rafiel jesse rafiel, you know, that's fine But it's not as melodic You got your heraldos back on in the morning You got your oprah, right? You got your mantel I like turned on like like I like turned on the tv like expecting to see heraldo after school doing the dishes turn it on and the mustache looked right but There was no hair on the head So So you got you got mori povich. You got mori povich having the best time of his life right now Let's see Dennis miller has one late at night, right? Yeah and and for you fans of uh, of cable, uh, the Alan havy's night after night on comedy central, but I You people the people in columbus may not know this there's fans the fans of night after night Where did nick mckinney nick bakai go? He's now the the he's the sidekick for denis miller And we don't know this because We don't see denis miller in columbus, but I was in another city and it's like I heard nick bakai's voice He's the he's the sidekick. I was gonna become like that. Yeah, paul schaefer. Oh, you know the Like paul schaefer is is is music fell a little whore, you know There's a bit there's paul schaefer It's a bit paul schaefer paul schaefer You know, I just it's delightful to turn it on a see paul schaefer everywhere I just want to say, you know nick you can do better than denis miller And reality you don't really have to be a sidekick. You could probably do your own show So he thinks that all those bits would just kind of fall into one show and there'll be it And then one week he would use all his bits or something that would be it But but well, you know We can't talk talk shows and not talk about tom schneider Who got blown away by dan acroyd Well, this is true and dal dan acroyd. How many careers did dan ruin by doing them better than they did? He got to the point where if you turn on tom, you're like him or dan Oh, he was just one of my favorites. He was down there. In fact, it was because of tom schneider that i'm probably the the big fan of um Bloody nasty horror movies that I am Like he had on he had on um, john russo and um, george rameiro and uh The folks that did um the phantasm movie he had them all on there It was like the time that um Donna the living dead came out and phantasm came out and they had them on there because they were Movies that were controversial at the time people um didn't know whether to give them the r rating Give them an x rating or just leave them unrated and so they were and a lot of markets They came out as x rated because they were just so gory and so Vividly um violent and everything and so um, they had clips on there and george rameiro's talking. Oh, look see that's funny Come on. We're laughing at that Phantasm, yeah, we're gonna have we're gonna have chunks come out of the guys here You know, it would have been great, but they said the sensors just got a hold of it But yeah, tom would have on he'd have on great Yes, in fact, he had on peter chris when peter chris, uh left kiss he had peter chris on there Solo career had peter chris on without his makeup and it was like it was whoa go tom. Yo Tom's not here there in the um early to mid middle 70s there right and that well he went all the way up to about 19 No, actually 80 Like 81 any room. Yeah, but you really like that one. Yeah, because they had the rona barrett Deal where they got they had both of them on and they lengthened the show That's actually when karson's show got cut to 60 so they could do 90 minutes And it was like a parent from day one that tom and rona Detested each other to the point. Yeah, they kept him in different cities And it just didn't work and boom they were gone because darn it they needed a place for letterman And speaking of that young upstart letterman, he started off in early more well It wasn't early morning, but it was like a morning slot right now They did this the morning show which was basically exactly the same as as the letterman that we know and love today, but uh It uh the morning people just didn't understand that we're like, what was the way they didn't know how to take it? it was um lyric used to get an information and real talking and here's Dave out here talking to um street vendors and having Restaurant races and things you know see who could get the food there as fastest and they just didn't know how to Take it. I just saw one recently A&E actually until September they're going to stop showing the the letterman reruns. Oh, I know Yeah, because apparently dave is his production company. He's not happy because they're not getting any money for that They're getting So that's why we're that's why we're in such a mood because we're not getting any money for this And where did our senio who rose in bar just describes you a tea? Where do you come from? Cleveland Just like howard the duck But one one thing I do remember They just had a letterman show on was uh Was dave interviewing the guy that had the product that catches fish like crazy Now they probably had this big uh swimming pool that they brought in like an Above ground swimming pool and they just loaded it with fish and it didn't catch fish like crazy In fact, they didn't catch anything, you know and dave's like are you aren't you getting tired pulling pulling those out? Is your arm getting tired pulling all those fish out? They should have had crazy fish. Yeah And the guy's talking about well, those are small mouths and uh Oh what what the lure is too big is that it they can't get their mouths around it? Oh what a bummer I always like the uh the things I let him remember we had the the crazy the crazy new inventions like uh I I could just I'll shoot I can't remember any I could just remember some little thing that was shape like dave They kept doing like this to pick up something It's just throwing them all over and the pet tricks the pet tricks are good the stupid human tricks They're even funny and they used to drop things off of the high towers. Yeah for the velcro suit Yep, yeah the velcro suit the the alka-seltzer suit mr. Curious remember mr. Curious Yeah, they only did that until they could really you know Because dave got too darn famous and everybody would recognize him Our wonderful camera operators they only asked it's party time Well, I guess we know what that means That means it's time to just about get out of here But first I just wanted to mention one more show we couldn't get out of here. Talk to you without talking about dick habit Sorry dick Yeah, one more super to the to the uh to the Carson throne didn't happen. It was just too darn or bane And and what about that uh david frost? Oh, yeah There's an import for you Oh, well, okay. Well, we're being told we gotta get out of here. So next time on vast wasteland. We're gonna be talking about sexy tv So tune in for that next time you want to Warm up the vcrs now for that. Yes, let them know So we're all of us That's right. All of us here at vast wasteland. We'll see you next time. Good on our mother. We'll talk to you then