As a follow-up to yesterday's Video Link: On October 23, 1984, Paul McCartney appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson again…and this time, Johnny Carson was actually there. Paul was out promoting his then-recent film, Give My Regards to Broad Street.
One of the first things you'll see Carson ask him is about a little mystery. The night the Beatles made their first, historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, Ed thanked a number of folks for making it possible, including Johnny Carson. Johnny never knew what that was all about and you'll see him ask Paul, who doesn't have a clue. I believe a prevailing theory among Beatles historians is that Mr. Sullivan was confused, as he tended to be; that he'd meant to thank Jack Paar and had mixed up the names of the previous host of The Tonight Show and the new one.
As for why Ed would have wanted to thank Jack Paar: Here's an excerpt from this article in which Mr. Paar talked about his days on television…
Mr. Paar reminded the audience that, legend to the contrary, it was he, not Ed Sullivan, who first showed the Beatles in action to an American television audience. In January 1964, five weeks before Mr. Sullivan introduced the Beatles live, viewers of the Jack Paar Show saw a film of the Beatles sending a teen-age English audience into shrieking, delirious orbit just by shaking their hair and chorusing "Yeah, yeah, yeah."
The segment was shown in full again last Thursday. "In my seven years on NBC, I never, ever had a rock 'n' roll act," Mr. Paar commented. "I was interested in the Beatles as a psychological and sociological phenomenon." He added that his was the only television show to which no one under 21 was admitted because "kids tend to take over the audience."
I offer that as a point of information not only as to why Ed might have thanked Paar, but also as to why Jack Paar didn't remain on TV after the mid-sixties. Around the same time he did that interview, I saw him give a little lecture and he was very charming and very witty but he also seemed shocked and angry that anything had changed in the world or show business since 1961.
So here's John and Paul. The audio isn't very good on this but you should be able to make everything out. If you don't want to sit through the whole thing, you still might be interested in the last few minutes when, after teasing the audience, Mr. McCartney finally takes up the guitar and sings a little. The video is in three parts and in the unlikely event that I've configured things properly, they should play one after the other in the browser below. Thanks again to Shelly Goldstein…
