The video quality on this isn't great but it's amazing it exists at all. In 1966, NBC debuted a new variety show — The Sammy Davis Jr Show. The first week with a stellar list of guests was a smashing success…and then the second week, things got a bit odd. That was when The Sammy Davis Jr Show stopped, for a while, having Sammy Davis Jr on it.
Mr. Davis had a contractual commitment from which he could not escape. He could not appear for a month or so on his own series so friends of his filled in. This is the second episode and the host is Johnny Carson. It is perhaps worth noting that not long before, Mr. Carson had had a vaguely similar problem. When NBC wanted him to take over The Tonight Show from Jack Paar, Carson had a contract to do a game show on ABC and couldn't get out of it. So for six months, guest hosts helmed The Tonight Show and then he started.
Just before the end credits, Johnny explains a little about why Sammy is in absentia. If you don't want to watch the whole show, view his monologue and then move the slider ahead to catch the last three minutes. The program, by the way, was directed by Johnny's brother, Dick Carson.
It features some interesting performers including Diahann Carroll, Bobby Van, Mickey Rooney and a frighteningly young Joan Rivers. I was most excited to see Don Alan, a great magician who in the fifties hosted a fun, forgotten syndicated show called Magic Ranch. One of Mr. Alan's last TV appearances (he retired in '83 and died in '99) was on a program I wrote and he was very entertaining, in front of the cameras and off. There are still a lot of guys out there doing tricks he popularized (like the Invisible Deck) and doing jokes and patter that he created.
Sammy Davis, you might care to know, finally returned to the show that bore his name and resumed normal host duties. By then it was too late, though. The series didn't last, which proves a basic rule of television. If you star in a TV show, you kinda need to be there.
