Let's watch (for obvious reasons) a little Joey Bishop, shall we? Here's a clip from his late night talk program, The Joey Bishop Show, from an episode that aired in February, 1968. This is the opening segment in which he banters with sidekick Regis Philbin and bandleader Johnny Mann. I doubt many people today would attempt to open a show like this without a pre-written monologue prepared by a large staff. Certainly, Mr. Carson never did except during Writers Guild strikes. (More about those later today.) But Joey sometimes came out and just did stuff like this…
By the way: One of the things that I thought harmed the Bishop show was that it was aired on a one-day tape delay. They taped on Monday the show that would air Tuesday night and so on. This killed any chance at topical humor — not that that was ever a mainstay of Joey's repertoire but guests sometimes said things that reminded you of the time lapse. Over on NBC, Johnny — who was not on a day's delay — was doing stuff straight out of that day's headlines. I always thought that must have made a major difference, especially on nights when there was some big, juicy news story that was perfect for Carson quips.
Apparently, Bishop's show had the delay because it was done on the West Coast. They did the show at 8 PM Pacific Time and I guess that cut it too close to air on the East Coast the same day. Johnny was then in New York so he didn't have that problem. When he took his show to Burbank for a week or three, he also went onto a one-day delay…until he was out here the day of a good-sized earthquake. That night, they dumped (postponed, actually) the show they'd taped the previous evening and broadcast a show taped that same day. That was the monologue where Carson opened with the famous line written by Pat McCormick, "The God is Dead rally has been cancelled." When Carson moved to L.A. on a permanent basis, he began taping at 5:30 so the show he taped could air the same day. But Joey Bishop's show was always out of sync with the country.
Here, from the same episode of The Joey Bishop Show, is a six minute segment with Joey and Sammy clowning around, having a well-planned spontaneous food fight…
After that show went off, Joey did a long stint as Johnny Carson's primary guest host. Here's a clip from a Carson Anniversary Show…