The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson with guest Carl Reiner (1972)

Totally Weird Jim Backus Thing (1971)

Really no other way to describe it.

The Herb Shriner Show wth guest Orson Welles (1956)

20/20 featuring Johnny Carson (1984) - Footage Offline - 10/14/09

Celebrity Bowling with guests Richard Deacon, Tom Kennedy, Ed Ames and McLean Stevenson (1972)

You Don't Say! (1968)

The bumbling Tom Kennedy might be my all time favorite game show host. There's something about his face that I just love - he looks like a Jack Davis drawing. And the late sixties are probably my favorite era for game shows as they were still pretty square, but elements of the hip, coke snorting heday of the showbizzy seventies were starting to creep in.

The Jonathan Winters Show (1957)

This was Winters' first variety program, a show that was bi-weekly and fifteen minutes in length. Shortly before that famous mental breakdown.

The Richard Pryor Show: The Richard Pryor Roast (1977)

Whatever happened to Jimmy Martinez?

A Tribute to Phyllis Diller

I've uploaded the classic Verve LP Are You Ready for Phyllis Diller? for yer listening pleasure and bookended it with the two best tracks off her novelty LP Born to Sing, an album that includes Diller's interpretation of The Rolling Stones' Satisfaction. Verve didn't have a lot of comedians under contract but those that they did have were top of the line... and they all recorded a lot of stuff for the label. Other than Diller, Verve had Jonathan Winters, Jackie Mason, Shelley Berman and Mort Sahl. Not a bad line-up. Here's the Diller record.

Phyllis Diller backstage with Robert Goulet:
An early Phyllis TV appearance:
The failed 1967 Diller sitcom, The Pruitts of Southampton:
Phyllis Diller on The Dean Martin Show:
Also watch Phyllis on The Muppet Show in three parts here, here and here. Watch some more Phyllis stand-up from The Flip Wilson Show here and here.

The Very Funny Side of Pete Barbutti

Pete Barbutti was/is an eccentric jazz musician and comedian, known best for his many appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. You can watch a couple of those old appearances over here. Barbutti eventually went on to host an absurd syndicated daytime television show called Celebrity Microwaves in the early eighties. I was going to upload his very funny Decca Records comedy album in its entirety today, titled The Very Funny Side of Pete Barbutti and released in 1967. But then I went to Barbutti's recently revamped website and discovered that the man himself has uploaded the LP in its entirety for free already! That and his earlier comedy LP on Chicago's VeeJay Records (primarliy the domain of Black R&B, DooWop, and Soul artists). The site immediately greets you with a montage of Tonight Show hosts introducing Pete. Other than Carson and Leno, you can see him introduced by guest hosts David Brenner, George Carlin, David Letterman, Martin Mull, Bob Newhart, Burt Reynolds and McLean Stevenson. You can also watch several of his television appearances that aren't anywhere else on the internet. That's all over here.

Captain Nice (1967)

Captain Nice is the best of today's neglected sitcom offerings, and that probably has more than a little to do with the script from Mr. Buck Henry. It even has one of those familiar, "I asked you not to tell me that!" lines that were common over on Get Smart.

My Mother the Car with guest star Avery Schreiber (1965)

Well, I feel like posting some obscure, and certainly failed, sixties sitcoms today. Here's Jerry Van Dyke in the first of today's three kooky duds.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1963)

Before the feature-length, animated, theatrical release A Boy Named Charlie Brown was released in 1969, a live-action documentary showing a day in the life of Charles Schulz was made with the same name. Here's a five minute sample.