The Tonight Show Starting Johnny Carson "More To Come" Bumpers

[trans02]

Hey There! Everytime I watch the tonight show with johnny carson videos online, some of them feature the memorable "More To Come" bumpers that were part of the show from 1962 to 1992, in which many different things or objects were used in those bumpers like humans, animals, and scenery, from what i know is, can anyone here really tell me exactly what artists did all these bumpers from the tonight show with johnny carson era? I really hope anyone here can name a lot them, because there so alot I can tell you that, Type In a comment as always! Thanks!

 

[Bob1370]

You may be able to find out from the IMDB listing for Johnny's Tonight Show...it would have been staff artists in the graphics department at NBC Burbank. Every large market station and network center had a graphics department then, and most still do, even though nowadays they do most of their work by computer rather than with pen and ink or paint and brushes.

 

[newsmark]

Most viewers would only see the bumpers for about :05 as the show came back from the break. But NBC actually put them up with the NBC Orchestra playing for a full minute during the station's portion of the break. (Most Tonight Show breaks, back in the day, were 2:00. First minute was network. The second minute was local.)

If the station had technical difficulties or didn't sell the break, they could just go back to the bumper instead of filling the time. (As opposed to the CBS Late Movie, which filled the local break with PSA's.)

NBC did not provide bumper during the station breaks at the top and bottom of the hour. The network feed went to black for 64 seconds. Then the bumper faded up with music.

 

[oldschooler1]

Most viewers would only see the bumpers for about :05 as the show came back from the break. But NBC actually put them up with the NBC Orchestra playing for a full minute during the station's portion of the break. (Most Tonight Show breaks, back in the day, were 2:00. First minute was network. The second minute was local.)

If the station had technical difficulties or didn't sell the break, they could just go back to the bumper instead of filling the time. (As opposed to the CBS Late Movie, which filled the local break with PSA's.)

NBC did not provide bumper during the station breaks at the top and bottom of the hour. The network feed went to black for 64 seconds. Then the bumper faded up with music.

Fascinating! Sounds like you worked in the master control of an NBC affiliate back in the day.

Then there was the "animated" (well, not animated - moving is a better word) bumper that came before the last break in the show, at about 12:55, indicating it was the last break (for example, remember the rocket ship that used to fly by?)...

And how SNL used to feed music and a slide during its last local break of the night, at about 12:55 -- WKTV in Utica (we're talking 1975, 76) would just put up an ID slide, and someone would read news headlines.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

NBC did not provide bumper during the station breaks at the top and bottom of the hour. The network feed went to black for 64 seconds.
Then the bumper faded up with music.

NBC gave :04 for an ID? A bit more generous than CBS, who allowed only :02 (way back),
then later on (in the '70s IIRC) expanded it to :03.

Problem was, many stations wanted to cram so much aural crap into their ID, they couldn't
do it in :02 or maybe not even :03. If you were a master control operator, you really wanted
to hit net in black, so you didn't upcut the top of the show (or miss the CBS bong), also so
the video synch roll occurred in black.

Too bad more affiliates couldn't take the lead of the NYC flagship, with its elegant but simple
(and no more than :02) booth audio: "Channel 2 New York."

 

[OldNumber7]

Most viewers would only see the bumpers for about :05 as the show came back from the break. But NBC actually put them up with the NBC Orchestra playing for a full minute during the station's portion of the break. (Most Tonight Show breaks, back in the day, were 2:00. First minute was network. The second minute was local.)

If the station had technical difficulties or didn't sell the break, they could just go back to the bumper instead of filling the time. (As opposed to the CBS Late Movie, which filled the local break with PSA's.)

NBC did not provide bumper during the station breaks at the top and bottom of the hour. The network feed went to black for 64 seconds. Then the bumper faded up with music.

For many years, the Today show did something similar (apparently because many smaller affiliates couldn't fill their local avails). There was usually some moody music and a scroll showing the weather forecasts for all the affiliate markets (e.g. "KXXX, Smalltown, Idaho. Sunny and 68")

 

[newsmark]

NBC gave :04 for an ID?

Technically NBC gave :02 for the SI (Station ID). But on their program sheets, you could see they allowed for a second of black before and after the station break, so in reality you got :64.

 

[Hal Erickson]

In Milwaukee, WTMJ used to pre-empty the commercials in the first half-hour of the TONIGHT SHOW to insert local ads. When Johnny picked up the product he was going to huckster, WTMJ cut to a "More to Come" slide, ran the local ad, then filled up any slack time (if the NBC ad went over 60 seconds) with a second commercial, this one merely an advertising slide and background music (I recall that one of the songs was "Chim Chim Cheree"). This image would remain until the commercial on NBC ended, then it was back to the show.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

In Milwaukee, WTMJ used to pre-empty the commercials in the first half-hour of the TONIGHT SHOW to insert local ads.

Yet WTMJ-TV is still an NBC affiliate. How come the network didn't yank the affiliation
for this sham? (Because they'd probably wind up on a U-ie, as CBS did?)

I hope they at least got a good slap on the wrist!

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

I saw this "cut away" process done many years earlier by an NBC-TV affilate in Jacksonville, Florida. In 1957 that affiliate (I don't what its call-letters were, but it was a UHF station) would cut away from commercials on the morning game progarm Tic-Tac-Dough and show just a slide with the name of the program on it. There was no local or other commercial shown during that time - just the slide. When the commercial break was over on the network, the station resumed showing the program. Once or perhaps twice during the program, the station did not cut away and let the commercial show, but most of the time the cut away was done and the slide shown.

 

[jh]

In Milwaukee, WTMJ used to pre-empty the commercials in the first half-hour of the TONIGHT SHOW to insert local ads. When Johnny picked up the product he was going to huckster, WTMJ cut to a "More to Come" slide, ran the local ad, then filled up any slack time (if the NBC ad went over 60 seconds) with a second commercial, this one merely an advertising slide and background music (I recall that one of the songs was "Chim Chim Cheree"). This image would remain until the commercial on NBC ended, then it was back to the show.

KWWL Waterloo IA did the same thing. Once on a local program with station execs answering viewers questions, someone asked about cutting off Johnny for local ads. The station said they were given an option by the network, running local ads in the first half hour or the last half hour. They chose the first half hour. Apparently the network spots were the same in the first and last half hours

I'm not sure when this was, maybe the early 70s. In later years, the breaks were divided between local and network throughout the whole show.

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

During the Jack Paar Show (1957-1960) the commercials in the 11:30 - 12:00 period were the same as those in the 12:30 - 1:00 slot. I recall that the station carrying the show here would cut away during those shown from 12:30 - 1:00.

 

[trans02]

I just watched carson's 2nd to last episode of "tonight" online and he mentioned some of the artists who did these bumpers in which I'll tell you them now:

Don Locke
Dan Locke
Rick Andreoli
Bill Davis
Leo Duranona
Jim Messeny

and Carolyn Collins-Hughes

Plus there's even Susan Cuscuna

I really hope anyone can give me some links to these artists, I'll be glad too see them! Thanks!

 

[Ultimajock]

In Milwaukee, WTMJ used to pre-empty the commercials in the first half-hour of the TONIGHT SHOW to insert local ads.

Yet WTMJ-TV is still an NBC affiliate. How come the network didn't yank the affiliation
for this sham? (Because they'd probably wind up on a U-ie, as CBS did?)

I hope they at least got a good slap on the wrist!

...well, Carson did switch from WTMJ-TV/4 to indie WVTV/18 for a spell in the '80s; whether this was as a result of WTMJ's commercial shenanigans, I dunno. But WTMJ-TV, as I recall, was one of NBC-TV's very earliest affiliates, so its pull with the network has been extremely heavy since day one...