NBC Has No 'Tonight Show' Right Now... a First?

[firepoint525]

Steve Allen, host for three years, four months (Sept. 1954-January 1957, with Kovacs, replaced by Lescoulie)

If your dates are correct, that would be two years and three months, but I believe his ranking on your list would still be the same.

 

[searadiofreak]

I believe Tonight promos are set to start up either this weekend or early next week.

I posted the following on another Leno thread:

Saw the first commercial earlier this evening for the "new" Tonight Show (I'll call it version 2.0) with Jay Leno. Jay is driving a car with the number "10" on the side. It peels off to reveal an "11:35." The music playing is very appropriate: "Get back to where you once belonged!" ;D I just wish we had a version for those of us here on central time with a "10:35" on the side of that car! 8)

Nice catch...they certainly were not airing early in the primetime coverage tonight (Wed 2/17). I knew they were coming, just wasn't sure of the exact start date. Sounds like a fun concept.

 

[pabsungenis]

Steve Allen, host for three years, four months (Sept. 1954-January 1957, with Kovacs, replaced by Lescoulie)

If your dates are correct, that would be two years and three months, but I believe his ranking on your list would still be the same.

The dates are correct, the error was mine.

 

[MsMusicRadio]

How long has Letterman been on and is he the strongest competition they ever had at NBC? I still think Letterman's delivery is closer to Carson's than is Leno as far as gestures and inflections.

 

[justpassingthough]

It was a about a six month interregnum between Jack Paar and Johnny Carson. Paar left in the middle of March, 1962. Carson was under contract with ABC until October 1st, 1962 (hosting "Who Do You Trust?") and couldn't start until that day. Probably the most notable fill-in host between Paar and Carson was Groucho Marx.

Ernie Kovacs hosted two nights a week from October 1st, 1956, through January 22nd, 1957. He left the show the same week as Allen because, in truth, "Tonight!" had been cancelled and replaced by the "America After Dark" version of the show. Conan O'Brien's stint as host ended 53 years to the day after Kovacs' stint.

So, with only two episodes a week for a little shy of four months, Kovacs is the the second shortest-lived of all of the official, regular hosts of the Tonight Show. Conan O'Brien is actually the FOURTH shortest. Here are the reigns from shortest to longest:

Al Jazzbo Collins, host for one month and two days (June-July 1957, replaced by Jack Paar)
Ernie Kovacs, host for four months (October 1956-January 1957, replaced by Jack Lescoulie)
Jack Lescoulie, host for five months (January-June 1957, replaced by Collins)
Conan O'Brien, host for seven months (June 2009-January 2010, replaced by Jay Leno 2.0)
Steve Allen, host for three years, four months (Sept. 1954-January 1957, with Kovacs, replaced by Lescoulie)
Jack Paar, host for four years, eight months (July 1957-March 1962, replaced eventually by Carson)
Jay Leno, host for 17 years, four days (May 1992-May 2009, replaced by O'Brien)
Johnny Carson, host for 29 years, eight months (October 1962-May 1992, replaced by Leno)

To be honest, Carson and Leno are the two outliers as far as length of hosting goes. It's only because they were the two most recent, and both hosted for so long, that we tend to think of the host of the Tonight Show as being a career-long job. Before Carson, it wasn't.

While Carson and Leno are definitely the outliers, it stands to reason that hosts who take over an established show on an established network have a much greater chance of surviving longer than hosts who were taking over a relatively new concept, while TV was in its infancy.

The above makes Conan's rapid departure from "The Tonight Show" that much more interesting. It was a bad decision or series of bad decisions from the beginning in 2004.

 

[johnnya2k6]

Don't forget that the "Late Show" and the "Late Late Show" were pre-empted during the 1998 Winter Olympics on CBS.