Here's a clip from Johnny Carson's 1973 anniversary show, which marked eleven whole years of him hosting The Tonight Show. If that seemed impressive at the time, one has to wonder how you describe the fact that he did it for another nineteen or so years after this.
What you'll see when you click is a surprise walk-on by Dean Martin. I suspect that in the entire history of talk shows, there have been less than five cases where a walk-on wasn't planned well in advance and the host didn't know about it. I only recalling it happening once with Johnny. The surprise walker-oner was Danny Thomas, and Mr. Carson did not seem pleased about it. Another time, a minor celeb got out of an audience seat, walked up onto stage and attempted to be a guest. Johnny (understandably) had them stop tape, remove the gent from the premises and then redo the segment to remove all trace of him.
In the following obviously-arranged surprise, note the fine bit of acting by Mr. Carson, making like the guy operating the boom microphone wasn't prepared to have it where Dean would be standing and making planned dialogue, like the "Welcome to the club" line seem ad-lib. (Odd how the band just happened to have Martin's theme song at the ready, isn't it?) Dino made a number of appearances on The Tonight Show — some billed in advance, some not — but after about 1970, his rule was that he would not sit. He figured that if he sat, he'd have to stay longer and he wanted to just come in, make the appearance and get the hell out.
You will also notice one of Johnny Carson's great skills failing him. He was usually very good about ending segments, knowing just when to cut things off so they could go out on a big laugh. Unfortunately, Dino was trying to get off the stage from about thirty seconds after his entrance so Carson had to pay more attention to keeping him there then getting him off, and the ending of spot is sloppy and not the high point. Johnny seems annoyed that Buddy Hackett (who was a billed guest on that episode, scheduled to appear later) walks in. One wonders if one of the producers, realizing Johnny was having trouble ending the spot, signaled Hackett to enter in the hope that it would trigger a big laugh…or if Hackett took it upon himself. No matter. It's still great to see the three of them.
