July 29, 1957- March 30,1962. 

First broadcast from Hollywood, California broadcast from here for the next three weeks.

Announcer, Hy Averback subs for Hugh Downs.
The 80 year old mother of Cliff Arquette is tonight's guest on
"It's All Relative" segment.

Filling in for Hugh Downs, Hy Averback announces the opening of the show. In Jack Paar's monologue he states that he started in Hollywood seven years ago with a Radio Show. Daughter Randy said to him "Why don't we come back to where my people were born?"
Jack mentions the Cuba show, four months ago. Comments on Beverly Hill which is a whole new world out here. Jack admit that there are a lot of commercials on the show. Paar does a 30 second commercial for Postum Coffee. 

Introduction of Charley Weaver (Cliff Arquette), who reads "Letters from Mama." Charley and Jack talk...whole new career for Weaver on The Tonight Show. 

Connie Haines sings a melody of songs in tribute to Tommy Dorsey. Jack does humorous bit showing children and captions.
Introduction of Ben Blue, who talks about his new club where young talent can perform. Ben and Barbara Heller do a comedic discourse including an impressions of Bette Davis, and Roberta Sherwood. 

Jack brings out Bob Hope and introduces Jack Douglas to him.
Ben Blue and Sammy Wolfe routine. Connie Haines sings, "Where Are You?"

Jack states that he alters his own clothes..admitting to having large hips. Sign off.  
 
 
*Most of this series does not survive in any broadcast form. Kinescopes were discarded, burned, decomposed...whereabouts unknown. 2" Quadruplex Video Tape was expensive ($300 for a one hour reel), weighting 26 pounds, requiring great storage space. Video Tape could easily be erased and was used for new program recordings...retained briefly for a re-run and then erased or discarded. Legend has it that even Jack Paar himself hired a junk man to come to his home garage and paid to have JACK PAAR TONIGHT SHOW recordings discarded (reels of kinescopes and video tapes) that were now cluttering up his space. 

During this era in television history archiving television programming was not a primary concern or vision, and considered an arcane pursuit. 

ARCHIVAL TELEVISION AUDIO, INC. retains over 70 complete and excerpt JACK PAAR TONIGHT SHOW air checks (34 hours), including the complete Jack Paar's first anniversary telecast which was broadcast live from Havana Cuba (June 28, 1958). These originally recorded off the air pristine sound direct line 1/4" reel to reel audio tracks, recorded at the time of the original broadcasts, represent the only broadcast record of a "lost" visual telecast. ATA is the largest single repository (one collection), in the United Sates of Jack Paar Tonight Shows recordings. The combined archives of The Library of Congress, Paley Center for Media, and UCLA Film & Television retain a composite total of 13 hours of representative JACK PAAR TONIGHT SHOW broadcasts excerpts...none complete. 



 For four years and eight months Jack Paar reigned supreme as host of the TONIGHT SHOW with a crew of regulars, but only two stayed with him for the entire run; announcer Hugh Downs and band leader Jose Melis, a former army buddy. Familiar faces who appeared many times with Jack included Dody Goodman, Betty Johnson, Elsa Maxwell, Alexander King, Genevieve, Jack Douglas; and wife Reiko, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hans Conreid, Peggy Cass, Cliff (Charley Weaver) Arquette, and Jonathan Winters.

 Hugh Downs substituted for Jack Paar 79 times, more than any other substitute host. There were 20 different substitute hosts for Paar over the period of the series run. Joey Bishop substituted for Paar 31 times. Arlene Francis, 30 times, Jonathan Winters, 26 times, Orson Bean, 21 times and Johnny Carson 15 times. All together there were 243 broadcasts which had substitute hosts filling in for Paar during Jack Paar's TONIGHT SHOW tenure. The title of the late night broadcast changed to THE JACK PAAR SHOW which took effect on February 3, 1958. The first video-taped broadcast aired on January 5, 1959. "Best of Paar " Re-runs began on July 10,1959. Beginning July 20, 1959 Jack Paar began taking off Monday nights & guest hosts would substitute for him (approximately on alternate Mondays). The first color broadcast aired on September 19, 1960.
Theme music, "Everything is Coming Up Roses" was first used beginning in the Fall of 1959. 

Location broadcast telecasts of the program telecast away from the Hudson Theater in New York City occurred 14 times during this series run. 

Jan. 13-17, 1958                     Miami Beach, Florida
July 28, 1958                        Havana,Cuba           
Nov. 3-21, 1958                      Hollywood, California
March 2-20, 1959                     Hollywood, California
Nov. 10-12, 1959                  Nassau, Bahamas (Video Tape)
Nov. 30- Dec. 10, 1959               Hollywood, California
March 28-April 1, 1960            London, England (Video Tape)
Nov.9-11, 1960                    Hawaii (Video Tape) - b&w
Nov.14-24, 1960                     Hollywood, California
March 21-24, 1961                 London, England (Video Tape)
Sept. 12-14, 1961                 West Berlin (Video Tape)
Nov. 14-17, 1961                  Hollywood, California (Tape)
Nov. 21-24, 1961                  Hollywood, California (Tape)
March 13-16, 1962                 London, England (Video Tape)




                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

July 29, 1957- March 30,1962. 

Jack Paar returns to the TONIGHT SHOW after his mid-February walk-out and subsequent vacation in Hong Kong. 

 Hugh Downs states that "tonight's show will go down in broadcast history." During the opening 11:15 to 11:30pm segment Downs states that in fairness to the country Jack will appear when the show is seen by the entire country, Nationally by all of the affiliate stations, at 11:30pm.
 
Following a Blue Cheer laundry detergent commercial, Hugh Downs announces the 11:30pm opening of the Jack Paar Tonight Show and counts down, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and introduces Jack Paar. Jack's first words are, "As I was saying before I was interrupted." Paar praises Hugh Downs for his loyalty. He then has some nasty words to say about columnist Walter Winchell who he calls "that silly old man." 

Paar also takes up where he left off, criticizing Dorothy Kilgallen calling her someone who reminds him of a puppet. "When she speaks she never seems to move her lips."

Jack tells his audience that he believes the Hearst press is rigged, as per example, his good friend Jim Bishop, columnist for the Hearst Press, had his column about Paar, today, suppressed.  

Paar reminisces about his "water closet" joke that created great controversy that led Jack to walk off the air. He tells of his trip to Japan...many stories and anecdotes. 

NOTE: This television audio air check segment of Jack Paar returning to the Tonight Show is not known to exist in any VIDEO format other than a minute of his appearance at the beginning of his entrance. What does exist is this rare historic retrospective audio air check reveal of Jack Paar returning to the Tonight Show when his late night show was the most controversial and unpredictable program on television.  
                                                                                                                                                                                    

A Best of Paar rebroadcast which originally aired 
Nov. 16, 1960.

Hugh Downs announces the opening, and introduces Jack Paar who does a brief monologue and then is stymied by verbal gibberish by Joe E. Brown who kids Jack. 

Guest Joe E.  Brown talks about his affection for Marliyn Monroe while filming Some Like it Hot. Other subjects discussed is his early acrobatic life beginning when he was only nine years old. He also tells the story of the time when only one person remained in the audience before his act with Billy Bash and the Five Ashtons was over, and he was the janitor.     

On the panel Peggy Cass, Jack Douglas and his wife Reiko Douglas chime in and comment. 

Joe E. Brown mentions his pride for his son Joe L. Brown, general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates who won the World Series in 1960. 
Joe E. Brown states his own love of what he is currently 
doing as President of the Pony Baseball League and the 14,000 volunteers who give of their time to helping these young teenagers.                                   

1961 (Syndicated)
A series of half-hour documentaries and pseudo-documentaries filmed all over the world, produced and narrated by Jack Douglas. 

A documentary on Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy Magazine, who is profiled behind-the-scenes.                         

Celebrities test their trivia knowledge.

WNEW-TV Channel 5 in New York City. 

Host Henry Morgan.                       

October 1, 1962-May 22, 1992. Johnny Carson, host of NBC's network late-night "Tonight Show" reigned for 30 unprecedented years...five times the combined tenure of Steve Allen, and Jack Paar. Carson was impervious to competition, including efforts to dethrone him by Les Crane, Joey Bishop, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, Jack Paar, Pat Sajak, Joan Rivers, and Arsenio Hall. Sadly, very few complete "Tonight Show" broadcasts survive during Johnny Carson's first ten years of broadcasting. Around 1965, through the early 1970's, oldest tapes were first erased systematically by orders from myopic NBC executives, to be recycled for purposes of saving money. Ironically, in many cases, these older master tapes were too brittle, and portended probable drop-outs for re-use after being erased. Subsequently blank after being erased, these older questionable master 2" Quad tapes were either sparingly used or never used again for recording new programming and eventually were discarded. Saving thousands of dollars at the time (wiping master tapes for potential re-use) resulted in losing millions of dollars by NBC in today's marketplace, and more importantly wiping thousands of historic TONIGHT SHOW broadcasts, which contain precious personal anecdotes from political, show business, and sports icons of the past.
  
  

Guests: Charo, Tony Randall, Reiko Douglas, Jack Douglas. 

NOTE: This specific TONIGHT SHOW may only contain an opening monologue by Johnny Carson. 
Other content, as listed, will have to be monitored and confirmed upon your order request.