The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (1 Viewer)

[Dave B Ferris]

New news, from the L.A. Times:


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-0811-carson-20100811,0,272413.story

 

[Jack P]

I have very little confidence in anything that comes out from Jeff Sotzing given his track record of repackaging the same old boring crap ad infinitum and also cutting corners in any other possible way. In fact, he even just now as part of this website overhaul *shut off* the access to the data base part of the site where you could look up any show and get the information you needed if you were still among those finding old recordings out there and trying to track down the date.


If these are "programs" that will appear in this set and not clips we should note this:


1-These will not be "complete" shows. 50 programs at 30 hours doesn't even translate to totally uncut shows if they were all from the inferior 60 minute era of the show (1980-1992). So we can expect zero in the area of musical guest performance which already has precedence in that the official release of the last show cut out the musical guest montage tribute sequence.


2-You can also forget about hearing the band playing at any time. In all previous compilation releases, they have used a canned recording of the theme music and whenever the band would start to play the canned theme would go up again, as part of a way to avoid paying anything in royalties to them.


If Sotzing really wants to do right for the Carson fanbase he'll reopen the vault to let people purchase any show they want to like before only this time try to put anti-copy measures on the custom-DVD-Rs for making these programs to prevent bootlegging. At this point anything less is from my standpoint very small potatoes.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Originally Posted by Jack P

I have very little confidence in anything that comes out from Jeff Sotzing given his track record of repackaging the same old boring crap ad infinitum and also cutting corners in any other possible way. In fact, he even just now as part of this website overhaul *shut off* the access to the data base part of the site where you could look up any show and get the information you needed if you were still among those finding old recordings out there and trying to track down the date.


If these are "programs" that will appear in this set and not clips we should note this:


1-These will not be "complete" shows. 50 programs at 30 hours doesn't even translate to totally uncut shows if they were all from the inferior 60 minute era of the show (1980-1992). So we can expect zero in the area of musical guest performance which already has precedence in that the official release of the last show cut out the musical guest montage tribute sequence.


2-You can also forget about hearing the band playing at any time. In all previous compilation releases, they have used a canned recording of the theme music and whenever the band would start to play the canned theme would go up again, as part of a way to avoid paying anything in royalties to them.


If Sotzing really wants to do right for the Carson fanbase he'll reopen the vault to let people purchase any show they want to like before only this time try to put anti-copy measures on the custom-DVD-Rs for making these programs to prevent bootlegging. At this point anything less is from my standpoint very small potatoes.

You've basically summed up the same skepticism I had when I read the announcement on TVSoDVD yesterday. If these are "50 programs", they'd be 30 minutes each if you go by the running time that's listed in the announcement, or less if that running time is also to include the extras.


For all we know, these programs might be the "Carson Club" releases, just repackaged. That "one hour" of 60s footage might just be the "Return to Studio One" recycled.


Even if this is all entirely new material, it is once again just compilations, nothing "complete" in any way.


As for opening up the vaults again, even if they did copy-protect DVD-Rs, the copy protection is way too easily circumvented anyway, so I don't see that happening.

 

[DeWilson]

Wish they would do a "best" of the guest hosts collections.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Thanks for the warning. My only interest in this was if they included musical performances as well as interviews - in other words; complete shows. Otherwise, in no way are you re-producing the experience of going back in time and actually watching the Tonight Show. It's just hash, instead of prime ribbing.

 

The vault pay per shows were a great opportunity, and I'm sorry I missed them, but Karnak is now spinning in his turban at how cheap his legacy is being treated.

 

[FanCollector]

Sotzing has been plugging it in the media today. Your multiplication is correct. He admits to having edited the shows into 30-minute versions, so I assume the musical performances are gone. I have mixed feelings; of course, I would prefer complete shows, but this new collection does seem like it will at least have new stuff, plus some complete interviews and monologues instead of just clips. It's not how I would choose to make it available, but it does seem like an improvement over the last 400 collections.

 

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118022813.html?categoryid=4025&cs=1&query=johnny+carson

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/arts/television/11carson.html?_r=1&hpw

 

[Jack P]

And knowing Sotzing those "shows" he'll pick will probably have another overabundance of Joan Embery and Jim Fowler and late 80s, early 90s standup comics. Those rank as by far the two most overly beaten to death things that have appeared in these previous compilations.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

So I'm watching NBC News tonight and there's a story about how 3,000 hours of the Tonight Show episodes have now been digitized and are (will be?) available on the Web at JohnnyCarson.com. So perhaps I take back my previous legacy gripe. I never really wanted to OWN the shows, I just wanted to see them again, and if this lets us do that, great. But, so far, I don't see the episodes on there yet.

 

[Jack P]

And you won't see them any time soon. That part of the site is only available for now to professionals with a special password who want to license clips and "maybe" later it will be made available to the public but probably only in bits and pieces.

 

[Neil Brock]

Originally Posted by DeWilson

Wish they would do a "best" of the guest hosts collections.

I can't speak to the 80s and 90s but I know that in the 70s, the Carson company policy was to not save the tapes of shows that had guest hosts.

 

[Neil Brock]

 

Originally Posted by AndyMcKinney



 


As for opening up the vaults again, even if they did copy-protect DVD-Rs, the copy protection is way too easily circumvented anyway, so I don't see that happening.

Although, really, why should they care? Its not like it would infringe on their sales for broadcast purposes. Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things if someone buys a copy of a show and they run a few off for people? I mean, really. Not like that many people are coughing up $95 for a show anyway.

 

[Jack P]

Originally Posted by Neil Brock




I can't speak to the 80s and 90s but I know that in the 70s, the Carson company policy was to not save the tapes of shows that had guest hosts.

But all of the shows from 1973 on do exist including the guest host ones. An April 1973 show with Vikki Carr guest hosting in fact can be found on You Tube in a number of segments.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Originally Posted by Neil Brock


Although, really, why should they care? Its not like it would infringe on their sales for broadcast purposes. Does it really matter in the grand scheme of things if someone buys a copy of a show and they run a few off for people? I mean, really. Not like that many people are coughing up $95 for a show anyway.

Apparently, it really does matter, because that was the reason given in the FAQ on their website as to why they stopped the practice of selling individual shows, and it wasn't "just running off a few copies for people", there was (and still is) widespread piracy of vault episodes on eBay and other places, with people running off multiple copies of episodes for their own profit.

 

I think if these things hand't been turning up on eBay on a regular basis, they'd have continued the 'buy a show' business. We have a few greedy people to blame for this, not Carson Productions.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Originally Posted by Jack P

But all of the shows from 1973 on do exist including the guest host ones.

 

Quite right. David Letterman even licenced clips from a Bob Newhart-hosted episode in recent years when Newhart was a guest on The Late Show (it was the incident when he and Don Rickels accidentally broke Johnny's cigarette box).

 

When the Carson vault had the 'buy a show' thing going, the guest-hosted episodes were included amongst the ones for sale. I had planned to order a set of four episodes (including a Letterman-hosted one) around the time they pulled the plug.

 

[Wenbra]

In regards to the Johnny Carson website and release of the complete Tonight Show archive,

 

Here is the e-mail I sent them.

 

With the advent of the availability of the Johnny Carson Archive. I am very disappointed with your website and it's format. The navigation is extremely difficult and quite frankly this is a site that I would personally not want to ever visit again. Even though I was very thrilled that the complete archive of Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show was available. Your website completely makes my stomach turn with all of it's twist's and hoops to jump through. Fortunately I have the memory in mind of my favorite moments of the Tonight Show and Johnny Carson. I sincerely doubt that I will ever visit this complete "Cluster F@$K " of a website ever again". I am sure Mr. Carson if he were alive today would certainly not approve this format either.
 

 

 

[Elena S]

The only reason I would want this show would be for the musical guests. It was the combination of Johnny, the comedy and the music that made this a superb show. Without the music you've only got half of what made it great. Whoever is licensing it is just plain stupid.

 

[DeWilson]

Originally Posted by Elena S

The only reason I would want this show would be for the musical guests. It was the combination of Johnny, the comedy and the music that made this a superb show. Without the music you've only got half of what made it great. Whoever is licensing it is just plain stupid.

 

musical performances would require additonal,costly clearances.

 

 

[Steve...O]

Musical performances would be wonderful, but Denny is correct. More than likely, they would be cost prohibitive for home video release.
 

What I'd like to see are many of the varied guests Johnny would have on the couch. Not all would be household names today (anyone remember Calvin Trillin anymore?) but Johnny's producers excelled at booking interesting and thought provoking guests, not just whoever the flavor of the month was at the time. Sterling Hayden was booked as a guest long past his leading man days simply because he was a great storyteller.
 

I dunno what the musical rights situation would be but a disc of nothing but "Stump the Band" segments would be awesome. Seeing "regular folk" get a shot in the spotlight would be a treat and these folks were often the most entertaining segments of the show. Clearling obscure ditties would be near impossible though although most would probably be public domain.

 

I know this is off topic, but does anyone besides me want the old Tomorrow shows with Tom Snyder (the ones without Rona Barrett)? I became a big fan of TS during his CNBC run (one of the all time great talk shows IMO) and wish that more of the Tomorrow shows were available.

 

 

[Mike Frezon]

• You gotta remember, too, that the Tonight Show was 90 minutes up until 1980.

 

 

"It's amazing to me that even being off the air for 18 years, there's still so much interest in this material," he said.

 

D'uh! I've been saying that in various threads on this site for years. The Carson Estate needs to move on this stuff now. I hope this turns into a positive effort andrenews even further interest in the Carson archives.

 

[Tom_Tagliente19]

I'm still trying to locate the DVD, Johnny's Animal Hijinx. Anyone know where I can pick this up?