October 1, 1962-May 22, 1992.
Opening is heard by Doc Severinsen listing guests, Sarah Miles, George Raft, Jack Cassidy, and Gunther Gebel Williams.
Complete Johnny Carson monologue.
Segment with Gunther Gebel Williams and Bengal Tiger, and segment almost complete with Jack Cassidy who Carson says he is a winner of the John Barrymore contest.
Cassidy discusses with Johnny his friendship with George C. Scott, and states that he will accept his Emmy if he wins and if George does not show up as what happened at the Oscar awards.
He talks about the upcoming Emmy Awards which Johnny will host solo this year, his (Cassidy's) own nomination for "The Andersonville Trial." Other discussion includes, working with Gunther Gebel Williams when he hosted The Greatest Show on Earth TV special, his awe of Bengal tigers, the time the TV show "This Is Your Life" called him intending to do a show with wife Shirley Jones and asking Jack if Shirley ever had Polio and other odd life's personal anecdotes to use on the show, to which Jack states "the only trauma in my wife's life was meeting me."
Johnny introduces Jack who begins to sing a song from Stephen Sondheim's "Company," but recording tape runs out after the first verse of the song.
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: Jack Cassidy, Gunther Gebel-Williams segments.