Wait a minute. These shows have almost always been pre-recorded. Why would there be actual commercial breaks during the recording? Wouldn’t the host say “we’ll be right back,” then immediately follow that up with “we’re back!” and chug right along?
I think that the band would play during the interludes and Johnny would have a smoke. They tried to keep his smoking off camera but sometimes he would get caught.
Besides breaks for those involved, there are the expectations of the live audience to take into account. Which makes me a little suspect of the ignoring the guest charge. Someone like Carson feeds off that audience reaction and isn’t going to dampen it by coming off as a dick when the cameras aren’t on.
AIUI the lighting for the desk is turned down, and the band is spotlit. That makes it easy for the audience to focus on the band and ignore the host and guest.
I hadn’t thought of that.
I seem to remember a few times when Buddy Hackett was a guest and during the breaks he would tell Carson dirty jokes that couldn’t be aired.
The original Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was broadcast live while it was in New York. When it moved to LA it was prerecorded. They kept the same structure with the commercial breaks. The other talk shows followed suit. I think they just find it convenient. There is a lot of housekeeping that can happen during breaks even if it’s just touching up makeup. If need be they can do a longer break since it will just be edited in.
I was surprised to find out how often these shows are edited. Sometimes the host gets carried away with a guest and the segment goes long. It always seems seamless and they go to commercial at the exact correct time because it’s edited that way. Tom Segura talked about going on with Colbert and having an entire segment edited out. Colbert was enjoying the interview and just kept the conversation going but it was way too long for broadcast.
I appreciate that the host will often tell the viewer to find the entire interview on the app or the show’s website. Not that I’ve ever done so, but it’s a nice way to do a more in-depth interview and show the best parts during the broadcast.
This right here. I was in Carson’s audience twice, and each time, the band would play during the commercial breaks. That was a treat, because outside of “Johnny’s Theme“ and maybe backing up a musical act, the home viewer rarely got to hear the band.
Johnny did sneak a smoke or two during the breaks, but not every one. However, I never saw Fred De Cordova (the show’s producer/director) without a cigarette, whether it was a break or not.
Carson would regularly banter with comedians or old friends during the breaks but didn’t like small talk with strangers so he did other things, probably with his producer, when the camera wasn’t on. Other hosts have their own routines but this dichotomy wouldn’t be uncommon.
This. The reason shows had bands was to keep the audience entertained and pumped up during commercial breaks. That’s why it was a big deal for Craig Ferguson to go bandless and for NBC to cut Seth Meyers’ band. Jimmy Kimmel was live during his first years and several shows were “live on tape.” Of course, recorded music got a lot better since the 1950s.
Lots of stuff happens during those breaks, including makeup. Hosts are rebriefed on next guests, drinks or food are brought out - sometimes medicine, lighting, sound, cameras are tweaked, graphics are loaded, props are set up, guest musicians take their places, a million small details with people running around. Rushing from segment to segment doesn’t give any time for all this, but taking too long annoys audiences who famously have already stood in line for hours waiting to get in and then find that the studios are kept freezing cold because it’s a core belief that warm theaters make people drowsy and lethargic.
Some stuff is just tradition, but most of it comes from 70 years of experience in late night.
Early on, he smoked on the air. Look at him holding a cigarette and then lighting up starting at 2:50 here::
Since doing a long term randomized controlled study of smoking is impossible, proving it was dangerous had been challenging. I don’t think it was really proven until approximately when Carson took over Tonight. Maybe, during his first year, smoking was defensible.
P.S. Sorry about my ugly link, but it seems to work.
Fun fact: the last cigarette commercial ever shown on US television aired during Carson’s Tonight Show.
Suddenly I’m surprised trump never tried to rescind the ad ban for tobacco.
When I visited LA ages ago, back in the Mesozoic Era, I attended a taping of Family Feud (back when Richard Dawson was still hosting it). It was an interesting experience, for a lot of reasons. But the first thing that struck me was that they not only broke for commercials during the taping, but they kept that break to the length of the commercial break as broadcast. I thought, as you did, that there was no reason that they had tpo break at all. Or, if they took a break, to do so for as long as they wanted to. But they stuck to the schedule of leaving only enough time for one or two commercials. I suppose it’s easier to package it that way, and to keep the timing right. And I suppose TV talk shows do the same thing, and for the same reason.
The other thing that surprised me was that they didn’t poll the studio audience. I’d always asumed that when they did the “Survey says” part that they were referring to surveys they had done in the past with their captive studio audience. But they didn’t.