IIRC this was after her stroke so she may or may not have been entirely with it at the time. I prefer to think that she was spot on. The first little bit between them was that Short was nattering away about whatever it was he was there to promote and he turns to Davis out of nowhere and yells “BETTE!” which was amusing. A bit later, he did a moment impersonating Bette then segued into Kate Hepburn. Bette, perhaps not realizing he’d just done an impression of her, asks if he does an impression of her. Short, in Bette’s voice, says “You’re just so hard to do.” To which Bette responds “Well, perhaps you’d better not try.” And there’s a beat where Short obviously has no idea whether she doesn’t get that he’s doing his Bette impression or if she gets it and is insulting his impression or what. Describing it doesn’t do it justice, it is something that needs to be seen to be appreciated fully. Doesn’t appear to be on youtube unfortunately.
There’s a show in Ireland called The Late, Late Show and it has been running since the 1960s. They always feature up and coming and established bands of the day. I think their archives would be amazing to see on tv, especially properly filleted.
To be precise, very little exists of the Tonight Show with any host prior to Carson’s move to Los Angeles in 1972. The remains of the Allen, Paar, Kovacs, Tonight! America After Dark, various guest hosts, and the first ten years of Carson are slim and usually fragmentary.
The world is a tuxedo and you’re a pair of brown shoes and lots of other classic moments!
I’d very much like to see Carson’s first show. I believe the guests were Groucho Marx, Rudy Vallee, Tony Bennet, Mel Brooks, and Joan Crawford.
Take that, Leno, you no-talent hack.
I’m afraid that too is one the lost videotapes (although, oddly enough the audio survives). Carson spent years looking for a copy of it and supposedly offered a substantial reward for anyone who had one.
A lot was lost when the tapes from the Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and early Carson era “Tonight” shows were erased. 
I’d love to watch old Carson shows. What I liked about that era was that the guests weren’t necessarily promoting anything. In a lot of instances they were booked as guests because, well, they were funny and interesting: imagine that.
I remember once Carson mentioning (late 1970s, maybe) that they (presumably either NBC, the “Tonight” producers, or Carson himself) had been contacted by someone claiming to have a copy of the first broadcast, and Carson mentioning that NBC didn’t even have a copy. He then wondered how this person might have a copy, unless it was a kinescope.
Obviously the collector was either a hoaxer or just mistaken, but I never heard any follow-up on which one of those situations it was.
(wrong thread)
The Carson Tonight shows were being shown for a while on the Comcast On-Demand station Tubetime. I watched about 3 and they just did not hold up as well as shows like Carol Burnett or even Dick Cavett.
Speaking of Dick Cavett, seeing his old shows would be a real treat. I have all the box sets that have been released but those only scratch the surface. He did a couple of shows on PBS, I think, a few years ago, one with Mel Brooks, which reminded me how good he was at his particular style of interviewing.
Even TVLand is moving away from rerunning old shows. (Reality shows about women in their 30’s trying to become models??? Moives?) I guess nostalgia just doesn’t sell.
Watching his interviews of diverse stars like John & Yoko or Katherine Hepburn convince me that he was the best of interviewers.
My wife rented everything available on Netflix from his shows. I was really impressed by how good he was. Intelligent, witty and never condescending.
Jim
Those were on so late here that I’d tape them for the next day. I wish they had the complete clip with Johnny and Danielle the French-speaking exercise/self-defense lady but they cut out the middle. And I still wonder exactly who she was.