April 17, 1967 - December 26, 1969
Rare appearance by Betty Hutton in a year that produced a number of life changing challenges for the former great star.
Betty Hutton opens with a five minute socco melody of songs. She tells Joey how grateful she is to have been on his show last month and how her career has been renewed because of that appearance (July 20, 1967).
Hutton states to Joey how she always loved him. A lot of humor exchanged.
Joey asks Betty to remember her beginnings as an entertainer going back to when she was three years old. She describes how Vincent Lopez discovered her...first Broadway musical Panama Hattie and how star Ethel Merman deleted three of her songs from the the show because they were getting more attention than Merman wanted...learning techniques from Helen Morgan, and other great performers of the era...first big song, Rockn' Horse which she remembers the verse...singing a duet to It Had To Be You.
Joey Bishop is the host of this week-night-talk show originating live from Hollywood. The announcer and sidekick is Regis Philbin. Johnny Mann conducts the orchestra.
The ABC Late Night chair had previously been occupied by Les Crane when the show was called THE LES CRANE SHOW, and later by a succession of guest hosts (when it was called NIGHTLIFE).
Bishop gave it a two & half year run but he was never able to beat Johnny Carson in the ratings, and in late November 1969 Joey was fired by ABC. Bishop had one more month to fulfill with the show but decided to walk out, a similar deja vu moment on TV when Jack Paar walked off his TONIGHT SHOW 13 years before.
Dick Cavett then took over the ABC late-night seat after the final JOEY BISHOP SHOW which aired December 26, 1969, closing out the decade of the '60s.