Hermione Gingold, Shelley Berman, and Charley Weaver are the guests. It does give a good taste of how Paar handled The Tonight Show. www.drfilm.net/....
I was a guest on Jack Paar's show at the age of seven for my reading ability. What I remember most is the biggest bowl of M&M's I had ever seen in the waiting room. When I walked onto the stage my pockets were filled with M&M's. I sure wish I could get a copy of that show.
I was a child during this period and was on several local children's shows in the Los Angeles are, "Skipper Frank's Cartoon Carosel" and "Engineer Bill" among them. It was live television, the station didn't record it, and none of it remains. Unless you filmed it, made your own kinescope, it disappeared.
Josh Mcdowell I should try that. Before I went on stage two high school students did a mock Nixon/Kennedy debate. Had a limo come to the house and pick my Mother and myself up. I think that was the last time I was in a limo. That was sixty years ago. LOL !
A good example of that would be the former program "Later" with Bob Costas. Really qualitative late night conversations with interesting guests. The host really acknowledged the intelligence of his guests and his audience. A bright spot, but that show has been off the air over twenty-five years. Some of the interviews survive on RUclips, and you can see what a good late night program it was.
Many here seem to realize how the pacing and the concept of these shows has changed in modern times. One thing also to remember is that back in the Paar days, the understanding was that guests would be brought on to talk, and not exclusively plug something. So there was less urgency in the dialogue. Today, the shows, while packed with what must be about 22 minutes of commercials per hour, are basically selling platforms for the 'guests', who are expected to be animated and entertaining for about 4 minutes, then plug what they have to plug. So the shows are simply one giant advertising platform, before, during and after the commercials. It's not all the shows' fault - most 'bankable' guests only make themselves available when they have something to sell. Celebs really hate doing these shows, apparently, and appear out of contractual obligation to whatever is being plugged.
Paar and, interestingly enough, one of his gag writers, Dick Cavett, were THE masters of conversation and wit. I doubt we'll ever see it done better than those two.
Len Hummel Don't overlook Carson. He was intelligent, had a quick mind and was a voracious reader. Given the right mood, the right guest, the right time of the night, he was and could be an excellent conversationalist and certainly a good wit. That often got lost amid the comedy and, sadly, doesn't get played because the powers that be only want to highlight the comedy or, even more tragically, most of the first 10 years are gone forever. Carson's company is starting to release mostly complete shows as a "vault collection." So some of it gets to shine there. Cavett was a gem. So was Tom Snyder, who was an excellent conversationalist. There's an art to it. I can't think of anybody on the air now who's good at it.
People have short attention spans today. Also, there was more air-time to fill as Mr. Paar hosted a show that ran 105 minutes in length minus commercials.
No relation to Doodles Weaver, whose family lineage includes Sigourney Weaver . And an old girlfriend of mine was a member of the Cusack clan that includes John & Joan, but her name was Julie Andrews!
My mom used to watch Jack Parr while waiting for dad to come home from work. Dad worked swing shift at the time. This was a few years before my brother and I came along.
Americans no longer have the attention spans necessary for conversation and they do not read books and are forced to go through our public schools unless they are wealthy.
"The Tonight Show Starring Steve Allen" ran from 1954 into 1957. Briefly in 1957, there was a failed replacement ("Tonight! America After Dark" with Jack Lescoulie and others). I have read that, when Paar was hired later in 1957, the official title of the show was "The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar," but the network referred to it as "The Jack Paar Show," perhaps to purge bad memories of the "... After Dark" failure. When Paar left in 1962, we had "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."
There was no one better than Jack Paar. Dick Cavett and Tom Snyder come close. I wish someone would have saved the broadcasts of "The Tonight Show" with Paar.
Someone asked why the tags for this say "The Jack Paar Show" instead of "The Tonight Show." Answer from TV.com: Tonight Starring Jack Paar began when Jack replaced Steve Allen as the show's host. The title changed to The Jack Paar Tonight Show, then the name was later changed to The Jack Paar Show. Jack's announcer at first was Franklin Pangborn but was replaced with Hugh Downs who remained with Paar for the rest of his tenure. Jack's old army buddy Jose Melis conducted the band and comedienne Dody Goodman became Jack's sidekick. Jack said of himself. "I'm complicated, sentimental, lovable, honest, loyal, decent, generous, likable, and lonely. My personality is not split, it's shredded." He brought a fresh approach and a wonderful interactive manner to his program involving all his guests.
Johnny best comedy was when a joke bombed. Doc would start playing Tea for Two and Johnny would start dancing. Always cracked me up. Nowadays the hosts don't want laughs, they only want applause. Who will they pick on now that 45 is gone? Paar was the best storyteller ever on TV.
So funny to see and hear this again...I forgot how slowly they were able to converse and it still was interesting and real. No set up routines as late shows do now. it is "real".
Jack & Johnny are master craftsmen in this field, you can see it in their approach to guests. also in the way they comport themselves on national TV. to some degree Letterman had that talent as well but I would say that both Jack and Johnny had this down pat and are more than a cut above the rest.
Shelley Berman seems to be totally unaware of the fact that Dwight Eisenhower, after his years as a General (and military governor in Germany), became the (civilian) President of Columbia University in New York City in 1948.
This exchange reminds me of a stuffy Bronxville (where the nut Paar lived) dinner paaarty (misspelled for emphasis) with the usual haughty suspects. Always glad for Johnny's style!
It's funny how sort of almost detached and relaxedPaar is, in stark contrast with today's network hosts who are constantly ON and HYPER. This is more like a podcast, in the best way possible.
It matches the guest list, and Berman is referencing the 1960 elections coming up that are to get Eisenhower out of office. If it isn't 1960, then we have to find another show that the guest list matches.
I think this most certainly sometime after midnight (show time) when even the slow pace of Jack Paar was winding us down to one o'clock. There were not many distractions for someone at 12 midnight in 1960(!) if his intent was to get in bed and try to get to sleep. Even so, it does show that the demograpic group who watched Paar did not have to wildly entertained and awash with celebrity during the whole show. Nice quiet conversation was still ok. What a shame that we have lost that. Joe
Go ahead and remove the tag. If you have purchased a new pillow or have pillows around your home that still have tags, feel free to remove the tags, as the penalties are directed towards the manufacturers and retailers, not the consumers.
Free form, make it up as you along entertainment such as this no longer exists. It is interesting when you consider that after all the decades that have passed, instead of more realism on TV there is less,by which I mean none. So called reality shows are rehearsed and blocked out just like all the others. Even sporting events have had all spontaneity wrung out of them.
@@jacksonmorganfroghin4815 I believe he passed away in Scottsdale, Arizona on July 1 of last year. He was one of the best journalists of all-time, and he will always be remembered as one of the greatest television people that ever lived. His legacy will live on forever. Amen.
Starting around 1960, NBC starting calling the show the "Jack Paar Tonight Show". Jack, however, always referred to it as the "Tonight Show". When Johnny Carson took over in 1962, he insisted that it should be called "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", rather than the "Johnny Carson Tonight Show". When Jack attempted a semi-comeback on ABC in 1973, they called his show "Jack Paar Tonite" (sic).
Attention spans were longer then; this type of show wouldn't last a month now. Everything has to be instant parumpum, haha, applause sign. In case anyone didn't know, Charley Weaver's granddaughter is Rosanna Arquette, beautiful actress with that very popular 80s song named for her.
+A Krenwinkle They were having a conversation, people liked that now to have a "conversation" on TV there has to be an agenda behind it some kind of hook
There are very few long-form clips from the actual Paar Tonight Show. It's clear that in those days they had a lot of time to fill (105 minutes, 5 nights/week), & less commercials. This segment runs over 18 minutes and it's not even complete. The pace is slower, and there's less of the relentless plugola fest that we see today. Does that mean this is terribly interesting? Not necessarily. But it does demonstrate how short attention spans are assumed to be with today's audiences.
Actually these are most of three segments. The long pauses at the desk were to wait for cues after stations had returned from local breaks, of which there were many in those days of the show.
Bring back the days of the Allen Paarson Project, have all three on for one night. Arsenio could be the sidekick. Gone are the days when you could see Carson nightly but not Carson Daly a more bland fellow you cannot find, I kid you not. The only talk show where the guest died was Dick Cavett, I kid you not.
I'd be really glad if anyone, anywhere, had Jack's 1973 show Jack Paar Tonite. Compared to Johnny Carson's Tonight Show-- Johnny had been there 11 years already-- Jack's show was unpolished, awkward, sometimes unprofessional, but spontaneous, sometimes electric, more fun than Johnny's show. There's one clip of it here on youtube, but I don't know if anything else exists.
You can see why this format was changed for later shows because of the drifting nature. It's certainly not as highly produced as today's shows (you can see Parr at times looking around or being off on side conversations). There are shows that use the multiple guest format today, The Graham Norton Show, Late Late Show with James Corden (both English), but the hosts today work at keeping it moving and popping. I think the reason American talk shows went more one on one with preset questions, skits, etc. was that they didn't want the shows to drift too much, leaving things too much up to chance. Some interesting stuff here, but not much.
+Frankincensed The charm of the show is that it is NOT highly formatted. Then, they trusted the audience's ability to remain. Of course with no remote control and no competition, they had the latenight franchise down. I wish there was a choice like this today.
Paar was a first-ratye TV hoist but this clip proves that even with a studio full of good guests his show could run more than 18 minutes of pointless banter. Charlie Weaver, Hugh Downs, Shelley Berman, etc. could all be excellent but none of them shine during this muddy-looking kine.
horarwgt I think that's part of its charm. It's nice to hear people sit and talk. They don't have to be hitting home runs. And a so-called "muddy looking" kinescope is better than nuttin'.
+horarwgt Unlike today, Jack Paar did not feel the need to fill every second with EXCITEMENT! I remember Carson when he would go to 1am and it was the drowsy segment of the show. Now everything and everyone has to be on all of the time. is there a place for this type of show today? For some, but alas, not enough. Silence is verboten!
I don't know if it's a shame - but you have to look a little harder for long form interviews - there are lots of podcasts out there. There's NPR, and Charlie Rose, etc. Is there a sort of cocktail party with witty, light discussion, that 20% of the population is watching? No.
I was a guest on Jack Paar's show at the age of seven for my reading ability. What I remember most is the biggest bowl of M&M's I had ever seen in the waiting room. When I walked onto the stage my pockets were filled with M&M's. I sure wish I could get a copy of that show.
You're lying. Animated dogs don't go on talk shows
You could say you worked for peanuts ..lol
Amazig stiry thanks for sharoing!
I was a child during this period and was on several local children's shows in the Los Angeles are, "Skipper Frank's Cartoon Carosel" and "Engineer Bill" among them. It was live television, the station didn't record it, and none of it remains. Unless you filmed it, made your own kinescope, it disappeared.
Josh Mcdowell I should try that. Before I went on stage two high school students did a mock Nixon/Kennedy debate. Had a limo come to the house and pick my Mother and myself up. I think that was the last time I was in a limo. That was sixty years ago. LOL !
Never having seen him before the last couple weeks, I'm gaining an appreciation for Jack Paar. It's also a nice time capsule from that era.
This was a real talk show. They were all having a conversation together.
Cliff Arquette(Charlie Weaver) was the grandfather of Rosanna, Patricia, and David Arquette.
Color broadcasts of The Tonight Show began two days earlier. Imagine how much better this looked on videotape.
or better, live.
It was conversational TV. It rarely exists anymore in the same sort of casualness.
A good example of that would be the former program "Later" with Bob Costas. Really qualitative late night conversations with interesting guests. The host really acknowledged the intelligence of his guests and his audience. A bright spot, but that show has been off the air over twenty-five years.
Some of the interviews survive on RUclips, and you can see what a good late night program it was.
Good comment without over analyzing it Theo Lamp.
This is when you could relax after a day out in the world, and come home and slumber off to the charms of Jack and his guests!
Many here seem to realize how the pacing and the concept of these shows has changed in modern times. One thing also to remember is that back in the Paar days, the understanding was that guests would be brought on to talk, and not exclusively plug something. So there was less urgency in the dialogue. Today, the shows, while packed with what must be about 22 minutes of commercials per hour, are basically selling platforms for the 'guests', who are expected to be animated and entertaining for about 4 minutes, then plug what they have to plug. So the shows are simply one giant advertising platform, before, during and after the commercials. It's not all the shows' fault - most 'bankable' guests only make themselves available when they have something to sell. Celebs really hate doing these shows, apparently, and appear out of contractual obligation to whatever is being plugged.
Paar and, interestingly enough, one of his gag writers, Dick Cavett, were THE masters of conversation and wit. I doubt we'll ever see it done better than those two.
Len Hummel Don't overlook Carson. He was intelligent, had a quick mind and was a voracious reader. Given the right mood, the right guest, the right time of the night, he was and could be an excellent conversationalist and certainly a good wit. That often got lost amid the comedy and, sadly, doesn't get played because the powers that be only want to highlight the comedy or, even more tragically, most of the first 10 years are gone forever. Carson's company is starting to release mostly complete shows as a "vault collection." So some of it gets to shine there. Cavett was a gem. So was Tom Snyder, who was an excellent conversationalist. There's an art to it. I can't think of anybody on the air now who's good at it.
@@JakeMabe1 Neither of them were as witty or as intellectually engaging as Paar.
I didn't know that...wow amazing makes sense
People have short attention spans today. Also, there was more air-time to fill as Mr. Paar hosted a show that ran 105 minutes in length minus commercials.
Charley Weaver’s real name was Cliff Arquette the grand father of the Arquette acting family
No relation to Doodles Weaver, whose family lineage includes Sigourney Weaver .
And an old girlfriend of mine was a member of the Cusack clan that includes John & Joan, but her name was Julie Andrews!
the last minute is hilarious. Thank you for sharing this gem. Now I know why people at the time were disappointed Jack left.
My mom used to watch Jack Parr while waiting for dad to come home from work. Dad worked swing shift at the time. This was a few years before my brother and I came along.
R.I.P. Mr. Downs. 🎤🎩📺
When we could enjoy the ART of conversation!
Americans no longer have the attention spans necessary for conversation and they do not read books and are forced to go through our public schools unless they are wealthy.
"The Tonight Show Starring Steve Allen" ran from 1954 into 1957. Briefly in 1957, there was a failed replacement ("Tonight! America After Dark" with Jack Lescoulie and others). I have read that, when Paar was hired later in 1957, the official title of the show was "The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar," but the network referred to it as "The Jack Paar Show," perhaps to purge bad memories of the "... After Dark" failure. When Paar left in 1962, we had "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson."
I used to fall asleep in school because I watched Jack Paar.
There was no one better than Jack Paar. Dick Cavett and Tom Snyder come close. I wish someone would have saved the broadcasts of "The Tonight Show" with Paar.
Thank you for posting this, I have always seen just clips of this show in the past and was always a little curious about it.
Thank you again!
The key to this is that all the guests are there and they are interacting with each other. Now they have them one at a time and it's less interesting.
Someone asked why the tags for this say "The Jack Paar Show" instead of "The Tonight Show." Answer from TV.com:
Tonight Starring Jack Paar began when Jack replaced Steve Allen as the show's host. The title changed to The Jack Paar Tonight Show, then the name was later changed to The Jack Paar Show. Jack's announcer at first was Franklin Pangborn but was replaced with Hugh Downs who remained with Paar for the rest of his tenure. Jack's old army buddy Jose Melis conducted the band and comedienne Dody Goodman became Jack's sidekick. Jack said of himself. "I'm complicated, sentimental, lovable, honest, loyal, decent, generous, likable, and lonely. My personality is not split, it's shredded." He brought a fresh approach and a wonderful interactive manner to his program involving all his guests.
Simply Luv Ms. Gingold. I was in high school & college when Parr was a pretty big deal...he was quite the piece of work. Great interviewer tho.
Johnny best comedy was when a joke bombed. Doc would start playing Tea for Two and Johnny would start dancing. Always cracked me up. Nowadays the hosts don't want laughs, they only want applause. Who will they pick on now that 45 is gone? Paar was the best storyteller ever on TV.
So funny to see and hear this again...I forgot how slowly they were able to converse and it still was interesting and real. No set up routines as late shows do now. it is "real".
Wow! I was born exactly a week after this!
Jack had the same theme as the Hollywood Palace and there's Charlie Weaver from the Hollywood Squares he was a great player on that show
Why in the name of Gallifrey is Jack wearing a fez?
It's great that Berman's is still around. (June 2013)
Shelley died later at age 92 on Sept. 1, 2017.
The beginnings of television.
Jack & Johnny are master craftsmen in this field, you can see it in their approach to guests. also in the way they comport themselves on national TV. to some degree Letterman had that talent as well but I would say that both Jack and Johnny had this down pat and are more than a cut above the rest.
I'm Hugh Downs, and THIS is 20/20 !
With co-host Barbara Walters.
oh yeh!@@Rob_Kates
He passed away in 2020.
Ironic and prophetic
I remember when Hugh was the "Today" show host!
Shelley Berman seems to be totally unaware of the fact that Dwight Eisenhower, after his years as a General (and military governor in Germany), became the (civilian) President of Columbia University in New York City in 1948.
Wasn't that his brother Milton?
Eisenhower would've had a third term had it been allowed. Most popular president EVER!
This exchange reminds me of a stuffy Bronxville (where the nut Paar lived) dinner paaarty (misspelled for emphasis) with the usual haughty suspects.
Always glad for Johnny's style!
So true, so true...we lived right around the corner from Jack in Bronxville from 1958 - 62. Stuffy indeed!
How surprising. Real talk.
It's funny how sort of almost detached and relaxedPaar is, in stark contrast with today's network hosts who are constantly ON and HYPER. This is more like a podcast, in the best way possible.
It matches the guest list, and Berman is referencing the 1960 elections coming up that are to get Eisenhower out of office. If it isn't 1960, then we have to find another show that the guest list matches.
I think this most certainly sometime after midnight (show time) when even the slow pace of Jack Paar was winding us down to one o'clock. There were not many distractions for someone at 12 midnight in 1960(!) if his intent was to get in bed and try to get to sleep. Even so, it does show that the demograpic group who watched Paar did not have to wildly entertained and awash with celebrity during the whole show. Nice quiet conversation was still ok. What a shame that we have lost that. Joe
Go ahead and remove the tag. If you have purchased a new pillow or have pillows around your home that still have tags, feel free to remove the tags, as the penalties are directed towards the manufacturers and retailers, not the consumers.
Free form, make it up as you along entertainment such as this no longer exists. It is interesting when you consider that after all the decades that have passed, instead of more realism on TV there is less,by which I mean none. So called reality shows are rehearsed and blocked out just like all the others. Even sporting events have had all spontaneity wrung out of them.
It helps that they had an hour and 45 minutes to fill :)
Heh,i think ill remember the Term "F.C" now,amazing how well the comedy in this still hold up today.
Do you have more of the great Paar?
As of June 3, 2014, Hugh Downs is still living (age 93).
1985OldSkool Always liked Hugh. He had a great career. Sort of an underrated fellow, for some reason.
He died ijn 2020 at 99. RIP HUGH
@@jacksonmorganfroghin4815 I believe he passed away in Scottsdale, Arizona on July 1 of last year. He was one of the best journalists of all-time, and he will always be remembered as one of the greatest television people that ever lived. His legacy will live on forever. Amen.
Starting around 1960, NBC starting calling the show the "Jack Paar Tonight Show". Jack, however, always referred to it as the "Tonight Show". When Johnny Carson took over in 1962, he insisted that it should be called "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", rather than the "Johnny Carson Tonight Show". When Jack attempted a semi-comeback on ABC in 1973, they called his show "Jack Paar Tonite" (sic).
Observant.
Attention spans were longer then; this type of show wouldn't last a month now. Everything has to be instant parumpum, haha, applause sign. In case anyone didn't know, Charley Weaver's granddaughter is Rosanna Arquette, beautiful actress with that very popular 80s song named for her.
+A Krenwinkle They were having a conversation, people liked that now to have a "conversation" on TV there has to be an agenda behind it some kind of hook
Kind of odd to see Cliff Arquette's Charley Weaver character as a panelist on a talk show where he wasn't on script.
There are very few long-form clips from the actual Paar Tonight Show. It's clear that in those days they had a lot of time to fill (105 minutes, 5 nights/week), & less commercials. This segment runs over 18 minutes and it's not even complete. The pace is slower, and there's less of the relentless plugola fest that we see today. Does that mean this is terribly interesting? Not necessarily. But it does demonstrate how short attention spans are assumed to be with today's audiences.
Actually these are most of three segments. The long pauses at the desk were to wait for cues after stations had returned from local breaks, of which there were many in those days of the show.
First week it went to color from 6B.
No. I collect oddball stuff, and this was one of them.
hermione gingold fantastic
Bring back the days of the Allen Paarson Project, have all three on for one night. Arsenio could be the sidekick. Gone are the days when you could see Carson nightly but not Carson Daly a more bland fellow you cannot find, I kid you not. The only talk show where the guest died was Dick Cavett, I kid you not.
I'd be really glad if anyone, anywhere, had Jack's 1973 show Jack Paar Tonite. Compared to Johnny Carson's Tonight Show-- Johnny had been there 11 years already-- Jack's show was unpolished, awkward, sometimes unprofessional, but spontaneous, sometimes electric, more fun than Johnny's show. There's one clip of it here on youtube, but I don't know if anything else exists.
My 6th Birthday 🥳!
You can see why this format was changed for later shows because of the drifting nature. It's certainly not as highly produced as today's shows (you can see Parr at times looking around or being off on side conversations). There are shows that use the multiple guest format today, The Graham Norton Show, Late Late Show with James Corden (both English), but the hosts today work at keeping it moving and popping. I think the reason American talk shows went more one on one with preset questions, skits, etc. was that they didn't want the shows to drift too much, leaving things too much up to chance. Some interesting stuff here, but not much.
+Frankincensed The charm of the show is that it is NOT highly formatted. Then, they trusted the audience's ability to remain. Of course with no remote control and no competition, they had the latenight franchise down. I wish there was a choice like this today.
If it wasn't for Paar's flaky nature, there's a good chance there wouldn't have been 30 years of a superior Johnny Carson.
Paar was also superb. They were different
The "sponsors" have ruined television !!
The shows have changed because the audience has changed. Cosmopolitanisam is passe'.
Paar was a first-ratye TV hoist but this clip proves that even with a studio full of good guests his show could run more than 18 minutes of pointless banter. Charlie Weaver, Hugh Downs, Shelley Berman, etc. could all be excellent but none of them shine during this muddy-looking kine.
horarwgt I think that's part of its charm. It's nice to hear people sit and talk. They don't have to be hitting home runs. And a so-called "muddy looking" kinescope is better than nuttin'.
+horarwgt Unlike today, Jack Paar did not feel the need to fill every second with EXCITEMENT! I remember Carson when he would go to 1am and it was the drowsy segment of the show. Now everything and everyone has to be on all of the time. is there a place for this type of show today? For some, but alas, not enough. Silence is verboten!
+Jake Mabe Shelly Berman a Pillow Hugger!!?? I agree with you so much about not having to hit home runs all of the time. Today's homers are cheap.
I don't know if it's a shame - but you have to look a little harder for long form interviews - there are lots of podcasts out there. There's NPR, and Charlie Rose, etc. Is there a sort of cocktail party with witty, light discussion, that 20% of the population is watching? No.
Jack Paar was so pompous
Charlie Weaver kinda always creeped me out.
That's just weird.
🚬🚬🚬
B O R I N G.