Merv Griffin — there's a name you don't hear much these days — used to tell a story that went something like this: Back when he was a game show host, he lobbied for some time and finally got the opportunity to guest-host Jack Paar's show. This was The Tonight Show but for a while there, it wasn't called that. It was called The Jack Paar Show.
Anyway, they didn't do it like this during Mr. Carson's tenure but when Griffin guest-hosted, he was told it was largely up to him to put the show together that night. He had to pick the guests and he had to bring in his own writers to supply anything that had to be written. For one of his guests, he decided to book a new comedian that Paar didn't like. I'm not clear on whether the comedian had ever been on with Paar but he was on the host's "I don't want him on my show" list. Griffin was cautioned about Paar's feelings but insisted on booking the comedian anyway. The comedian — and you've probably figured out by the heading on the clip below that it was Woody Allen — scored big. Paar not only had him on after that but would sometimes take credit for discovering him.
I'm not saying I believe this but that's what Merv said.
Paar's last few months on that series, NBC renamed it The Jack Paar Tonight Show so as to re-establish the Tonight name. He left the show at the end of March, 1962 and then debuted in a weekly prime-time hour called The Jack Paar Program on September 21 of that same year. This episode is from December 14, a few months later. Allen had been booked and bumped a time or two from the show so that night, Paar turned over the opening monologue spot to him. Here's how it went…