Johnny Carson 1976 appearance

[smartone]

Antenna.tv is channel running old Johnny Carson Tonight Shows

Last week was an amazing show with Orson Welles from 1976
Welles was not promoting anything but
just was telling amazing stories from his radio days
Johnny was eating it up

[Wellesnet]

Thanks for the tip, smartone. We'll keep an eye on that show!

[smartone]

Someone finally posted on YouTube .. Johnny and Orson have great conversation

[Wich2]

Fun stories - thanks, smartone. (I've heard the "dropped script pages" routine confirmed from several sources; Groucho did a variation on it: when someone else dropped a sheet, he'd hold it down with his foot!)

This clip proves my contention again:

Welles' driving force was a love of Storytelling. Whatever the medium, from stage to screen to broadcast, it's what he seems to love. And loving it, he often does it very well indeed.

-Craig

[Le Chiffre]

Absolutely. I especially like his account of the Robert Browning Voice of Cornstarch story. Carson gets in some good ones too. Usually when someone went on The Tonight Show, it was to plug or promote something new that they were involved with, but Welles got away with just telling old stories, because he did it so well.

Someone on Facebook remarked that it was amazing how long Johnny could go without a commercial, relative to today, and I agreed. That was back in the day when he had to do a 90-minute show instead of the tight 60-minute format of the later years. Tough chore. I hope the five Tonight Shows Orson himself hosted from 1976-78 become available some day. I don't know if the guest-hosted shows have been archived or not.

[Terry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meikuHb6024

[Terry]

Quite the triple threat: Welles doing magic, sketching and guest-hosting for Carson.

https://youtu.be/FlP9pJCS428?t=1183