This runs one minute. It's the opening to an unsold pilot for a Dick Cavett show. If you were producing a show and you wanted to make certain it didn't sell, I'd imagine you'd come up with an opening very much like this one.
I never heard of this pilot. In his autobiography, Cavett, the host talks of an unsold pilot he did around the same called The Star and the Story but there's no mention of this one, which is alleged to date from 1967. If so, that would mean it came before Cavett even started doing his first talk show, which was a daytime program on ABC.
Bruce Reznick sent me this link today — thank you, Bruce — and noted that my pal Chuck McCann is in the cast. An hour or so later, Chuck phoned about something and I asked him about the pilot. He had only vague memories of the show and said, "We did it and almost immediately, we knew it wasn't going to sell so we all forgot about it. I don't think it ever aired. A few years ago, someone brought it out on a VHS tape along with an unsold Johnny Carson pilot."
So that's all we know about it, perhaps all we're likely to know about it. Have a look…
