I kid you not: I was too young to have seen Jack Paar in his prime as host of The Tonight Show. I was born in 1957, the year Paar took over Tonight from Steve Allen and made it his own for the next five years. With the show starting around 11:15 p.m., this was
This week’s episode of brioux.tv the podcast features the creator and original host of the Tonight Show, Steve Allen, plus the man who hosted from 1957 to 1962, Jack Paar. Allen, who died in 2000 at 78, was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1996. Here’s a clip from that event, including some
Bill Maher once said that, “Everybody who ever has done a talk show should pay a royalty to Steve Allen.” Allen would probably have agreed. He was the first host of NBC’s Tonight Show, starting with a local New York version in 1953 and then launching the series nationally in September of 1954. David Letterman,
How lucky am I to have a conversation with Bill Persky, the Emmy-winnng writer-producer of, among many other things TV-related, The Dick Van Dyke Show. The spry 89-year-old New Yorker is the latest guest on brioux.tv: the podcast. (Listen now at the link above.) He’s pretty sure that he is the last remaining writer from
On Sunday, CNN premieres The Story of Late Night, a six-part docuseries examining the nearly 70-year history of television’s post-primetime talk shows. The series was produced by Toronto-based Cream Productions. To set it all up, listen to my conversation with Bill Carter (above), the long-time New York Times columnist and bestselling “Late Shift” author who
“My name José Jiménez.” With those four words, uttered on The Steve Allen Show on Nov. 23, 1959, Bill Dana built a career. The comedian passed away last Thursday at his home in Nashville, Tenn. He was 92. I met him 20 years ago at one of those autograph-signing shows in Hollywood. That’s where he explained the
Team Dave: Philbin, Letterman, Murray. John P Filo/CBS Tonight marks 30 years since David Letterman woke up late night. Late Night with David Letterman premiered on NBC on Feb. 1, 1982; The Late Show with David Letterman began on CBS in August of 1993. Time flies.Is he still The Man? He will be tonight, ratings-wise,