NEW 4-Disc DVD Set: THE BEST OF JOHNNY CARSON & FRIENDS, Early TV Years 23 Hours

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NEW 4-Disc DVD Set: THE BEST OF JOHNNY CARSON & FRIENDS, Early TV Years 23 Hours

Classic TV, King of Late Night’s Early Years, B&W

35 Episodes

TV-G / NR, DVD Set Compiled & Released in 2009

Approx. Collective Running Time: 23 Hours | Mill Creek Entertainment

Factory-sealed, brand-new 4-disc DVD set (please see photos), plastic outer wrapping may have a few imperfections from storage; DVD set has never been opened nor played. Black-and-white footage, collective running time: approx. 23 hours. Region 1 (US, Canada, US Territories).

Included in this 35-episode DVD set is rare, vintage classic television footage from The Johnny Carson Show, Johnny Carson’s Morning Show, The Milton Berle Show, Shower of Stars, Sid Caesar’s Hour, Colgate Comedy Hour, The Jack Benny Program, Bobby Darin & Friends, and many others from the early days of Carson’s long and impressive television career.

Please see photos of DVD’s back cover for listing of all included interviews and performances on this 4-disc compilation set. 

Summary:

Mill Creek Entertainment Presents The King of Late Night’s Early Years!

This collection features the most memorable and iconic personality of late-night television. It includes rare episodes from favorite television classics The Johnny Carson Show, The Johnny Carson Morning Show, and Sid Caesar’s Hour, Colgate Comedy Hour, The Milton Berle Show, and others.

Stars found in these entertaining episode selections include Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Andrew Sisters, Liberace, James Arness, Danny Thomas, Ronald Reagan, Jayne Mansfield, Edward G. Robinson, Bing Crosby, Carol Channing, Carl Reiner, Peter Lawford, Eva Gabor, Burt Lancaster, and many more amazing celebrities of yesteryear, most of whom are no longer with us. 

Approx. 23 hours of vintage, classic entertainment.

During its dominance of late night talk shows, when Carson was on vacation or unavailable, Jay Leno guest hosted 349 episodes of The Tonight Show, Joan Rivers guest hosted 301 episodes, Joey Bishop guest hosted 210 episodes, David Brenner guest hosted 156 episodes, Bob Newhart guest hosted 136 episodes, David Steinberg guest hosted 128 episodes, Alan King guest hosted 111 episodes, and many other celebrities over the years.

Some Tonight Show/Johnny Carson background and TV trivia, via IMDb:

When the show first aired, virtually everyone, including Johnny Carson, smoked on-camera. By the mid-’80s smoking openly on television was a thing of the past, but Carson’s cigarette box remained on his desk until his final broadcast.

Many taped episodes, including appearances by Ayn Rand, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney, were lost in a fire at NBC’s archive; only clips made for other programs have survived. NBC also recycled the original tapes of many episodes, without Johnny Carson’s knowledge or approval. That stopped once he found out about it.

As Carson grew into the show, his comedy grew as well; he started dropping his early reliance on slightly risqué material for more substantial comedic commentary on the news of the day. Johnny’s monologue became the country’s most acutely observed political barometer. Johnny made fun of them all: anyone in politics or show business or public life.

In April 1967, he walked off The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) convinced that NBC had violated his contract by showing reruns during an AFTRA strike. He refused to go back to work when the strike ended, and won a new contract that reportedly guaranteed him an income in excess of $4 million for the following three years.

One of the best remembered, purely spontaneous moments was when guest Ed Ames demonstrated his tomahawk-throwing technique, aiming for a cowboy sketched onto a prop wall. The tomahawk struck the drawing right in the crotch, and the whole set broke into pandemonium. As the laughter began to subside, Johnny Carson remarked, “I didn’t even know you were Jewish!” setting off more laughs.

Hosts of rival late-night shows attempting to take the “late night crown” from Johnny Carson included David Susskind, Ross Shafer, Merv Griffin, Pat Sajak, Dick Cavett, Robert Klein, Alan Thicke, David Brenner, Joan Rivers, Jimmy Breslin, Ron Reagan, Steve Allen, Chevy Chase, and Arsenio Hall.

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) remained a fixture on NBC through the administrations of seven U.S. Presidents: John Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush.

In the show’s first ten years, it was shot in New York, and Carson made yearly trips to Burbank, CA. Production moved to Burbank in May 1972. The show made three-week visits to New York in November 1972 and May 1973. The next time the show traveled to New York was May 1994, when Jay Leno had become the show’s host.

On December 17, 1969 Herbert Khaury (Tiny Tim) married Miss Vicki on the Tonight Show and it was one of the show’s most watched episodes.

Carson’s connection with the American culture was so absolute, it contributed to one of his few failures: the rejection of “The Tonight Show” in the early 1980s by British audiences who could not understand the topical references of his monologues.

In his recent biography about the famous talk show host, Henry Bushkin, Carson’s longtime friend and attorney; paints a dark portrait of the celebrity. Although he was successful, highly respected in the industry, and very popular with the public, Johnny Carson was a bit of a loner. As a matter of fact, according to Bushkin, when Carson died in 2005, no one bothered to do a funeral or even a memorial service for him.

Five years after the final show aired, 10,000 taped episodes were transported to a working salt mine in Kansas, 54 stories underground, to protect them from deterioration. The average temperature of the salt mine is 68 degrees, with 40% humidity.