Tonight Starring Jack Paar
| Tonight Starring Jack Paar | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Also known as | The Jack Paar Tonight Show The Jack Paar Show |
| Presented by | Jack Paar |
| Starring | José Melis (1957–1962) |
| Narrated by |
Franklin Pangborn (1957) Hugh Downs |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | Studio 6B, RCA Building |
| Running time | 105 min. (with commercials) |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Picture format |
Black-and-white (1957–1960) Color (1960–1962) |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original release | July 29, 1957 – March 30, 1962 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Tonight! America After Dark |
| Followed by | The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson |
Tonight Starring Jack Paar (in later seasons The Jack Paar Tonight Show) is an American talk show hosted by Jack Paar under The Tonight Show franchise from 1957 to 1962. It originally aired during late-night.
During most of its run it was broadcast from Studio 6B (formerly the home of Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater series) inside the RCA Building (now called the Comcast Building) in New York City. The same studio would also host early episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Its theme song was an instrumental version of "Everything's Coming Up Roses", and the closing theme was "So Until I See You" by Al Lerner.
In July 1957, after the failure of Tonight! America After Dark (a news-oriented program first hosted by Jack Lescoulie and briefly by Al Collins), NBC reverted its late-night show, Tonight, to a talk/variety show format as it had been during Steve Allen's tenure as host. Brought in to host the reformatted Tonight was Jack Paar; Paar was, at the time, working for CBS and hosting the station's morning shows before he agreed to jump networks and take over Tonight. Under Paar, most of the NBC affiliates which had dropped the show during the ill-fated run of America After Dark (or who had never picked it up) began airing the show once again. Paar's era began the practice of branding the series after the host, and as such the program, though officially still called Tonight, was marketed as The Jack Paar Show. A combo band conducted by Paar's Army buddy pianist José Melis filled commercial breaks and backed musical entertainers. When Paar was on vacation, the show was presided over by guest hosts; one of these early hosts was Johnny Carson. Other guest hosts included Jonathan Winters, Orson Bean, as well as the show's announcer, Hugh Downs. Starting in 1960, it was one of the first regularly scheduled shows to be videotaped in color, with the show recorded very early in the evening and broadcast from 11:15 P.M. to 1 A.M. Eastern time that night. Only a handful of complete Jack Paar "Tonight Show" episodes exist. All of them are black-and-white kinescope recordings; no color videotapes of any complete Paar "Tonight" shows are known to exist. Paar hosted the program from 1957 to 1962.
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