Johnny Carson Returns to Late-Night TV!

[Birdie Num Nums]

Johnny Carson is coming back Jan. 1, on Antenna TV! (I get Ant-TV OTA.)

Just when it seemed the late-night landscape couldn’t get more competitive, here comes Johnny Carson.
Tribune Media’s Antenna TV, the multicast digital channel devoted to vintage television shows, will run full-length episodes of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” nightly at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT starting Jan. 1.
Antenna TV has struck a multi-year deal with Carson Entertainment Group to license hundreds of hours of the NBC late-night institution. Antenna will run episodes that aired from 1972 through the end of Carson’s 30-year reign in in 1992. Because NBC owns the rights to “The Tonight Show” moniker, Antenna TV’s episodes will be billed simply as “Johnny Carson.”
“This is not a clip show. This is full episodes of Johnny Carson, the man that everyone in late-night agrees was the greatest host of all time, airing in real time as he did back in the day,” Sean Compton, Tribune’s president of strategic programming and acquisitions, told Variety.

 

[aaronc879]

That's cool. I don't have a tv but maybe I can find a way to stream it. I was too young to watch him since he went off the air when I was 13. I was in bed by the time he came on. I would like to see if he was really that good. I want to see how he compares to the more recent hosts. My favorites have been Leno, Fallon, and Kimmel in that order. No one else has been close although Conan wasn't bad.

 

[audreyh1]

He's still alive ?

No - he passed in 2005. I see - these are reruns.

Wow - I guess there are some die hard late night talk show fans out there.

 

[donheff]

Reruns! At first I thought this was some sort of Elvis is in the house thread.

 

[scrabbler1]

I saw this teaser on Antenna TV, too. I wonder what they will do about the varying length of The Tonight Show when they air old episodes. The Tonight Show was 90 minutes long before it got reduced to 60 minutes back in 1980. Will Antenna TV edit out 30 minutes of the pre-1980 episodes so they are all 60 minutes and fit into their time slot?


I hope this airs at a time I am around and awake to watch it!

 

[jjquantz]

The plan is to show the 60 minute shows on weeknights starting at 11 Eastern and the 90 minutes shows on Saturdays and Sundays starting at 10 Eastern.

 

[Birdie Num Nums]

The monologues alone should be fun to watch, as they always reflected on the news and cultural topics of that specific day/week.

 

[scrabbler1]

I remember watching the show "Carson's Comedy Classics" back in the early-mid 1980s. It was a 30-minute show although I am not sure if it was a clip show from multiple episodes or just the best 30 minutes from a single episode.


The 2 or 3 segments shown in the 30-minute show included lots of Carnacs, the Mighty Carson Art Players, and other recurring skits and characters. Here in New York, it aired at 11 PM on weeknights on a local station just before the Tonight Show aired on NBC, making for a nice warm-up before the main attraction.

 

[mickeyd]

I love it when Johnny has on that lantern-jaw comedian from MA on. What's his name? Leno maybe?

 

[Nunthewiser]

When I was a grad student at IU in the late 70s I used to stay up with my pals just to watch the monolog, have a Weidemann beer and then crash for the day. Maybe I will do the same.