As we continue to enjoy reruns of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show on the Antenna TV channel, we learn that the Decades channel is soon to begin airing old, "full-length" (but minus most music performances) episodes of The Dick Cavett Show. This is good news and it would be even better for me if I got the Decades channel on my cable service. Yes, I can install a rooftop antenna on my home and get it. No, I won't go to that trouble just for this.
Cavett's show was a very fine program and if I could watch these, I'd look forward to more than just the episodes where he interviewed legends usually for the entire 90 minutes. Understandably, most of what's been available has been those installments but the show was pretty good when he just filled the time talking with three or more non-legend guests. He was a good interviewer who never made you feel that the person in his guest chair wasn't worthy of as many segments as he allowed them.
One thing I'm pretty sure they won't do but I wish they would is air a couple of the episodes where Cavett was off and guest hosts filled in. They picked odd ones like Germaine Greer, Otto Preminger, Orson Welles and F. Lee Bailey. We'll probably never see non-Johnny shows on the Carson replays either.
But I'm remembering one night when Dick was off and his replacement was Zero Mostel, who presided over 90 of the funniest minutes I ever saw on TV. Mostel's guest list included Dick Benjamin and Paula Prentiss and at first, his mission statement apparently was to get through the entire show without allowing that clichéd concept of the host asking a question and allowing the guest to answer it. The result was deliberate shambles but very funny shambles. (He unshambled it somewhat when he brought out his other guests, Dalton Trumbo and artist Jamie Wyeth.)
At least, I remember it as an incredible show. That was back in June of '71 so maybe it wasn't as wonderful as I recall. The following night, Cavett's guest host was Muhammad Ali and his main guest was Howard Cosell. Wouldn't it be great to see that one now? Oh, well. I'd settle for the Cavett shows with Cavett — if only my cable company would pick up Decades.