Although it’s a couple of days from now, I thought I’d drop a reminder that Antenna TV will begin airing complete episodes of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on Friday at 11:00 PM Eastern. These aren’t the cut down “Best Of” episodes. They are uncut 60 and 90 minute episodes as originally aired on NBC. They include the monologues, the interviews, the banter with Ed and Doc, the musical guests, the skits, and the band interludes.
Nice, might be time to realign my antenna.
Wonder if they’ll have the Danielle Aubry episode. Would be nice to see the whole thing rather than the usual clips such as what appeared on Carson’s Comedy Classics.
How extensive are the vaults for Johnny Carson complete episodes. I was under the impression from the Bombastic Bushkin book that before the late 1970s, NBC only kept the pieces he selected for the annual Best of Carson show. When Carson found that out he was very mad. Combined with other things he almost left NBC until others persuaded him that it is not wise to ask people to change their
viewing habits.
I’m not familiar with that one. What happened?
I believe the Carson Entertainment Company co-produced the show in partnership with NBC and owns the rights to the archived episodes, but not the Tonight Show name, which remains owned by NBC. Just as David Letterman owns the tapes of his Late Show episodes under his Worldwide Pants production company. Variety says that Carson made an investment in archiving his shows in 1972 and that there are hundreds of hours of programming available for airing.
Ms. Aubry is a French-Canadian foot-fighting expert who started appearing in small movie roles and guest spots on TV in the late-Fifties. The Tonight Show isn’t among her credits listed on the IMDb but this would have been in the mid-Sixties, around when she was in one of her larger roles: bodyguard “Lady Bug” in a Frankie & Annette beach movie. I believe this was a West Coast episode.
Looking very nice in a blue leotard, she has Johnny participate in some self-defense moves and follows that with some exercise routines. Johnny mispronounces one exercise as “oh shit” (bleeped, of course), whacks himself upside his head with his shoe, then pronounces it correctly. At the end, she’s on her stomach, rocking back & forth with her arms & legs behind her back and her feet in her hands. Johnny quips, “You must be great on a date!”
There’s obviously more to her interaction with Johnny than what has been shown on the Comedy Classics; they cut it somewhere between “oh shit” and “you must be great on a date!” I’d love to see what was cut.
The same episode of Comedy Classics featured a second exercise lady, I finally saw her entire sequence during a Sixties retrospective in one of the Johnny Carson box sets. That was Debbie Drake in a yellow leotard, which Johnny acts like he’s going to tear off her when he’s had enough of exercising.
Looking at the schedule they have a show from 1972 and some other early 1970s
http://affiliate.zap2it.com/tv/johnny-carson/EP02309962?aid=antennatv
Drive to the Slauson Cutoff. Get out of your car and cut off your slauson. Get back in your car.
Of course, there is only one episode that matters. November 11, 1970.
A link would have been really helpful there.
I watched it today, the show was from 1982 and it was better than the crap that’s on TV now.
Thanks to the Johnny Carson website, I’ve found that Ms. Aubry’s lessons are from 14 March 1967 and the color footage used in the Comedy Classics appears to be from a 31 March repeat.