NBC forgets its own history (1 Viewer)

[Henry Gale]

MSNBC has a story about this years deceased notables. They have declared Jack Paar to be, "The original host of the Tonight Show."
I loved Jack Paar but the original host of NBC's Tonight Show will always be Steve Allen.

 

[Randy Tennison]

They seem to also have forgotten another piece of their history . . .

Providing good television entertainment!

 

[MatthewA]

To quote the name of a former NBC series, Amen.

 

[Steve...O]

Incredible, what an insult to Mr. Allen. It's also insulting to Mr. Paar since the writer didn't even extend the courtesy of getting his obit correct.

You know, this got me thinking....Johnny will be 80 next October. Hopefully when he passes, the writer won't refer to him merely as Jay Leno's predecessor. It could happen; in a few years there will be an entire generation that will have never seen a Carson hosted Tonight Show during its original run.

Steve

 

[MatthewA]

Well to TV columnists if you're not on the air somewhere other than TV Land, you're pretty much dead.

 

[Henry Gale]

Thanks for the backup guys! I was worried some might consider this a trivial point.
Whenever Letterman throws himself into bowl of jello, whenever Leno interviews someone on the street...Steve Allen lives.

Schmock Schmock!

 

[Bob_L]

Face it, folks, we're living in an age of short-memory arrogance and disposable history.

Twenties-something actors who have appeared on one episode of a WB series and signed to make their first low-budget film are Superstars and those who haven't been featured on E! in the last two weeks are Hasbeens.

And while we're on the subject of Steve Allen and talk shows, let's pause a moment to remember the sublimity of his late night show for the Westinghouse Network -- the foundation of everything David Letterman has EVER done. Let's all toast that genius moment in TV history -- at Durando's Bar, of course.

 

[MatthewA]

"If this is anyone but Steve Allen, you're stealing my bit!" - Krusty the Clown.

But Bob has a point. Imagine how they would be treated if Moses, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, William Shakespeare, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, or Albert Einstein lived in this time?

 

[Linda Thompson]

I've been re-listening to many of my Bob Newhart comedy albums the past couple of weeks... Some great takes on that very subject ("Abe Lincoln vs Madison Avenue"; "Ben Franklin in Analysis"; "A Private In Washington's Army"; etc.). And, the vast majority of those bits are still as funny...and as relative...today as they were then. (True genius never goes out of style!)