Thursday, October 11, 2018

Origin of a Classic: The very first Tonight Show (well, part of it, anyway)(1954)

Next year, the Tonight Show franchise will have its 65th anniversary. Whether or not the network and/or current host Jimmy Fallon will acknowledge the occasion is not known at the present time.

Anyway, what follows now is part of the very first episode of Tonight, hosted by Steve Allen, with announcer and newsreader Gene Rayburn.



Allen was right about one thing. The show is still going, just not the way he wanted you to think.

Allen cut back his schedule when NBC gave him a Sunday night berth in 1956, to the point that he and Ernie Kovacs would alternate. Both left Tonight the next year, with Allen continuing with his Sunday show. The network then decided to make the show more like Today, and that flopped, leading to Jack Paar beginning his run.

Rating: A.

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