And Bob and Ray did their own Question Man bit, although it didn't
involve questioning answers:
https://youtu.be/vzvl4Wz2dkc
On Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 9:54:12 AM UTC-5, Diner wrote:
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/johnny-carson-tonight-show-full-episodes-antenna-tv-1201568250/
Johnny Carson Returns: Antenna TV to Air Full ‘Tonight Show’ Episodes
(EXCLUSIVE)
August 12, 2015 | 06:00AM PT
Cynthia Littleton
Managing Editor: Television @Variety_Cynthia
Just when it seemed the late-night landscape couldn’t get more
competitive, here comes Johnny Carson.
Tribune Media’s Antenna TV, the multicast digital channel devoted to
vintage television shows, will run full-length episodes of “The Tonight
Show Starring Johnny Carson” nightly at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT starting Jan.
1.
Antenna TV has struck a multi-year deal with Carson Entertainment Group to
license hundreds of hours of the NBC late-night institution. Antenna will
run episodes that aired from 1972 through the end of Carson’s 30-year reign
in in 1992. Because NBC owns the rights to “The Tonight Show” moniker,
Antenna TV’s episodes will be billed simply as “Johnny Carson.”
“This is not a clip show. This is full episodes of Johnny Carson, the man
that everyone in late-night agrees was the greatest host of all time,
airing in real time as he did back in the day,” Sean Compton, Tribune’s
president of strategic programming and acquisitions, told Variety. “Tuning
in to ‘The Tonight Show’ is like taking a walk down Main Street in
Disneyland. The minute you step in there, you feel good and you know it’s a
place you want to stay. We cannot wait to bring this show to fans who
remember Carson and to a new generation of viewers who have never had the
chance to see Johnny in his prime.”
Antenna’s showcase will mark the first time Carson-era “Tonight Show”
episodes have aired on a nightly basis since the host signed off in May
1992. Carson stayed out of the spotlight after his retirement until his
death at age 79 on Jan. 23, 2005.
“The Tonight Show” ran in a 90-minute format from the start of Carson’s
run in 1962 until 1980, when it was trimmed to an hour. Antenna will air
hourlong episodes on weeknights and 90-minute installments on Saturday and
Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT.
The scheduling of episodes will be carefully curated to run as themed
weeks or months, as well as episodes that coincide with notable
anniversaries, holidays and other milestones. Those could include
everything from a week’s worth of “Tonight Show” debuts by future comedy
superstars such as Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres, Richard
Pryor, David Letterman, Jim Carrey and Tim Allen to a month of Christmas
episodes in December. Antenna’s “Tonight Show” run will begin with the New
Year’s Day episode from 1982 featuring Eddie Murphy and “MASH” star McLean
Stevenson.
With all the hubbub over changes in late-night TV during the past two
years, Compton had the idea to revive Carson’s “Tonight Show” in a big way.
Carson Entertainment Group, headed by Jeff Sotzing, Carson’s nephew, was
immediately receptive.
“I think there’s a demographic out there that is really going to eat this
up,” Sotzing told Variety. “The show will now be able to be seen by so many
people who haven’t seen it before.”
The deal involved nearly six months of negotiations with Hollywood’s
talent guilds and the American Federation of Musicians. The talks were
complicated because there’s not much precedent for residual fees for
full-length reruns of a vintage variety show re-airing on a digital
broadcast channel. A few weeks ago the deal almost fell apart over cost
issues that seemed insurmountable, but Compton and his team kept hammering
away until compromises were reached.
Tribune execs are determined to keep each episode as intact as possible —
which means negotiating new agreements for the show’s many musical
performances on an episode-by-episode basis, in most cases.
The full-length segs will re-introduce viewers to the show that cemented
the template for the late-night talk-variety format, from the monologue to
goofy banter with sidekicks to showcasing promising comedians. Carson also
invented a host of characters over the years, including Carnac the
Magnificent, Art Fern and Aunt Blabby, as well the leading the “Mighty
Carson Art Players” sketches. Carson, Ed McMahon and bandleader Doc
Severinsen were also famous for doing in-program commericals. Tribune’s
sales department is looking to set up creative sponsorship deals
piggybacking on those now-priceless integrations, Compton said.
Carson Entertainment has marketed home video releases of full-length
“Tonight Show” episodes in the past. But that’s not the same as being able
to tune in every night as the show originally aired.
Sadly, the first 10 years of Carson’s “Tonight Show” are lost to history,
with only a handful of
