Here's a helluva find. This is color footage of Johnny Carson's monologue from The Tonight Show for Friday, August 24, 1964. To put this into context, Johnny started on that show on October 1, 1962 so he was in his second year.
The show in those days was an hour and 45 minutes per night. It started at 11:15 on stations that ran a fifteen-minute newscast at 11 PM. Because some stations had a half-hour of news there, there would be a second opening of The Tonight Show at 11:30 with the theme music and a repeat billboarding of the guests and then Johnny would welcome the viewers who were just joining them.
Those viewers missed the monologue and as more and more local stations went to a 30-minute newscast at 11, fewer and fewer viewers were seeing the first fifteen. This ticked off Mr. Carson who felt the monologue was important to the program. Beginning in February of '65, he stopped appearing in the first fifteen minutes. At first, he went on strike (more or less), announcing shortly before tape time each night that he was ill but would probably recover in time to the do the monologue for the 11:30 segment.
NBC got the message and agreed to have The First Fifteen hosted by announcer Ed McMahon and bandleader Skitch Henderson. They would play games, have a band number, chat, sometimes interview a guest who wasn't important enough to be on with Johnny. Not television's finest programming. Then when the show restarted at 11:30, Johnny would come out and do his monologue for the entire nation. You'll catch a brief glimpse of Henderson in this clip. Ed McMahon was off that night and filling in, they had Jack Haskell, a former big band singer who was heard announcing half the shows that came out of New York in the sixties.
The First Fifteen lasted until the beginning of 1967 when NBC lined up all its affiliates and The Tonight Show became a 90-minute program starting at 11:30 PM. By then, Skitch was gone, replaced briefly by Milton DeLugg and then finally by Doc Severinsen.
Anyway, here's a peek at some of the oldest surviving color footage of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show…