Child Terrorized on Match Game '74

What a buncha jerks.

The Mike Douglas Show with guests The Jackson Five

Steve Martin Special with guest Johnny Cash (1978)

The footage at the start of this clip is from the special Steve Martin: A Wild and Crazy Guy from 1978.

Social Security Film with guest star Morey Amsterdam (1964)

This is real strange. A promotional film put out by the government featuring nightclub comedian and co-star of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Morey Amsterdam. Here we see Morey struggling with an awkward real life government official who should never have been put on camera. The opening titles are in the classic UPA/Cartoon Modern style, but I am unsure who animated them. This is courtesy the amazing collection of television historian, Ira Gallen.

Various Barabara Feldon Footage

Get Smart's Agent 99 was a sexy sitcom star who made many the teenage boy's heart a flutter in the mid-60s. First off - a dandruff shampoo commericial starring Barbara:

Barbara loses her dress on Laugh-In.

And Barbara Feldon as the celebrity contestant on this early 70s episode of The $10,000 Pyramid.

The Tonight Show with Steve Allen

Very few kinescopes of The Tonight Show with Steve Allen remain. Most were destroyed by NBC long ago along with most of their historical television archives in order to create more storage space. This footage had previously been assumed lost to the ages. Pretty cool to see - and if you think Skitch Henderson's Tonight Show band resembles the Klan, Steve-orino difuses that situation right away.

The Tonight Show with guest host Carl Reiner

Carl Reiner fills in for Johnny circa 1970 and Ed McMahon hams it up in a Rexall commercial. Too bad we can't see the Godfrey Cambridge footage Carl mentions!

The Hollywood Palace with guests The Turtles (1966)

Guest host Jimmy Durante introduces The Turtles singing Can I Get to Know You Better on this episode of The Hollywood Palace from 1967.

The Hollywood Palace with Don Knotts (1967)

Don Knotts appears in this episode of The Hollywood Palace, a Saturday night variety show that aired on ABC each week with a different host. It is remembered best today as the show that The Rolling Stones made their American television debut on. When the Stones returned to perform later that season controversy ensued when Mick Jagger got mad at Dean Martin for making jokes about their music. They refused to perform their second scheduled musical number in protest. Here the musical guests are forgotten psych-rock group The Merry-Go-Round. The show lasted from 1964 to 1970.

The Dick Cavett Show with guest Janis Joplin (1969) - Footage Offline 11/11/08

This interview took place in 1969. The episode is available in its entirety on The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons DVD collection courtesy the great SHOUT! Factory.

The Three Stooges - Dickies Work Clothes Commercial

Yup - like it says.

Perry Como - Las Vegas Style with guest Rich Little (1976) - Footage Offline 11/11/08

Live from the Las Vegas Hilton is this television special - Perry Como Las Vegas Style. Here we see him with you know who.

The Flip Wilson Show with guests Johnny Cash and June Carter (1971)

Wheel of Fortune with guests James Brown, Little Richard and Weird Al Yankovic

Is this really "classic" showbiz? Yeah, I guess it is. This seems sort of like a dream you might have. Not in the "dream come true" sense but more in the "I was teaching a sheep how to tap dance last night" kind of way. Notice how the board has the word ASS on it.

The Dick Cavett Show with guests Raquel Welch and Janis Joplin (1969) - Footage Offline - 10/14/08

An odd pairing on the panel of The Dick Cavett Show in 1970. This entire episode is available on the DVD collection The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons.

The Steve Allen Show with Don Knotts

Don Knotts plays his famous nervous man character on an episode of The Steve Allen Show.

The Joe Pyne Show (1965)

The Tonight Show: Polaroid Commercials with Jack Paar and Steve Allen - Footage Offline 11/07/07

Jack Paar is forced to struggle with awkward Polaroid Camera pieces in this sequence that aired on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar. Steve Allen then takes a turn or three at shilling the Polaroid Camera with surprising sincerity - and one episode seems to be broadcasting from the newest US state of Hawaii. If someone has unearthed parts of these shows, perhaps the rest of them still exist - although it is unlikely. At the end, Jack Paar comes back for a zany spot with Jerry Lewis taking shots at the beloved sponsor. Jerry Lewis would temporarily replace Jack Paar as host of The Tonight Show until Johnny Carson came on as the new boy for the first week of October the same year.

A reader adds the details: "There was a parade of guest hosts on The Tonight Show between Paar and Carson. Jerry Lewis was scheduled for one week during the summer. It proved to be so wildly successful, he was held over for a second week, bumping Hugh Downs. That was that. I saw them all. Jerry's Tonight Show stint led directly to his five-year contract for the two-hour weekly The Jerry Lewis Show on ABC, live Saturdays in prime time, starting fall 1963. That program, unfortunately, was a dismal failure and the five years were reduced to only 13 weeks."

Dick Cavett, a stay over from Jack Paar, remained a Tonight Show writer during those limbo months, and when Carson was named permanent Tonight Show host in October, Cavett went with Lewis to work on his new show.

Next Week ... on Get Smart! - Footage Offline - 3/26/08

The Brady Bunch Variety Hour (1977) - Footage Offline - 10/02/08

Variety HOUR!? Why, Lord, Why? Rhino Records released a couple episodes of this on DVD and I dare you to watch it in one sitting. Produced by children's TV mavericks(?) Sid and Marty Kroft, the people who brought you Land of the Lost, H.R. Pufenstuf, and Lidsville - this opening sequence is really all you need.