History Series / TheTonightShow

** Music/{{Madonna}} and Sean Penn got married right next to his house; legend has it he was so annoyed by paparazzi helicopters, he went out and spelled '''[[PrecisionFStrike FUCK OFF]]''' on his front lawn with rocks.

* ParallelPornTitles: In a Triumph sketch where he visited a dog hotel in L.A., he took over a room and ordered one of the hosts to play a bunch of dog porn videos for him: "[[Film/TurnerAndHooch Turner and Cootch]]", "[[Film/MarleyAndMe Marley in Me]]", "[[BeverlyHillsChihuahua Beverly Hills Chi-Hoo-Hah]]", "[[AirBud Rear Bud: Golden Receiver]]", "[[WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail An American's Tail: Fievel Goes Deep]]", "[[Film/HomewardBoundTheIncredibleJourney Homeward Bound and Gagged]]", and "{{Lassie}} Come Twice".

After Carson left the series, Jay Leno took over as host. Thus began the "talk show wars" of 1993; it had been expected that DavidLetterman, who hosted the lead-out show ''LateNight with...'' since the early 1980s, would get the gig. When that didn't happen, [=CBS=] hired him as a direct competitor, ''The Late Show With David Letterman'', launched in 1993. While Letterman initially was the stronger ratings draw, Leno eventually overtook him. ''The Tonight Show'' and ''The Late Show'' remain fierce competitors.

Leno's format wouldn't settle for a few months, until Kevin Eubanks signed on as bandleader. Jay Leno's most enduring skits are "Headlines" a bit [[FollowTheLeader previously used by Letterman]] (under the moniker "Small Town News") on the original ''Late Night'' in the 1980s; "Jaywalking", is a [[VoxPops man-on-the-street]] skit with real people that highlights American stupidity (On [[UsefulNotes/LosAngeles Hollywood Boulevard]]; talk about playing with loaded dice). He also did film clips with {{Special Effects Failure}}s with great frequency. He played a few characters, most notably Iron Jay (a dumb weightlifter), Mr. Brain (a condescending smart-aleck), and Beyondo (a "ghost" whose punchline-"first" schtick was almost identical to Carson's Carnac).

In 2004, Leno signed a contract to continue the show until 2009 and [=Conan O'Brien=] signed up to replace him when he left- but when the time grew near Leno's ratings were still strong. NBC decided it didn't want to risk him going to another network like Letterman, so they [[KickedUpstairs kicked Leno upstairs]] to make room for ConanOBrien, who had hosted ''LateNight'' since 1993. They gave Leno a similar show in late PrimeTime five nights a week starting that Fall, the "five nights a week" part being a first-ever for American network prime time (''The Jay Leno Show''). For the first time, there was no "interregnum" of temporary hosts (as in 1957 and 1962) or reruns (as in 1992); Leno's last show was May 29, 2009 (a Friday) and O'Brien's first was the following Monday, June 1.

However, both Conan and Leno both performed well beneath the norm for their time slots. The network itself didn't care, but affiliates lost a major chunk of ad revenue and some hinted that they weren't going to endure it for much longer.

NBC attempted to fix this by moving Leno's show to ''The Tonight Show''[='s=] time slot and bumping O'Brien's critically-acclaimed but ratings-poor run back a half-hour to 12:05 AM. This wasn't received well. Leno was upset about it, he had agreed to the arrangement by insisting the network promise both his and O'Brien's shows a full year before making any further decisions. The network agreed, [[ScrewedByTheNetwork but within less than four months they reneged]]. [[http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/conan-obrien-says-he-wont-do-tonight-show-following-leno/ O'Brien threatened to quit]], Leno had as well, and both routinely savaged NBC in their nightly opening monologues.

On January 15, 2010 Conan, tired of the whole fiasco, [[http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2010/01/15/nbc-agrees-to-pay-conan-30-million-to-leave-reports.aspx settled on a $30 million payout from NBC]] (later upped to $45 million to accommodate his staff) to leave ''The Tonight Show''. O'Brien came out of the debacle with most of the public and TV writers on his side, Leno ended up taking a severe PR beating.

And then there's the series regular who didn't expect to be one — Lillian Miller (aka "Miss Miller") was an audience member on so many episodes of the Allen/Kovacs, Parr, and Carson versions that she was forced to join AFTRA. She also frequented {{Game Show}}s (including ''MatchGame'' and ''Series/WhatsMyLine''), ''The MervGriffin Show'', ''TheCarolBurnettShow'', and even appeared on ''The Jack Paar Program'' in November 1962 as a guest alongside Liberace and [[MuhammadAli Cassius Clay]].

-->'''Allen''': In case you're just joining us this is ''TheTonightShow'', and I can't tell you too much about it, but I want to give you the bad news first...this show is going to go on [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8AYUfBt1dE FOREVER!]] [[note]](Okay, so he was talking about the show's night-by-night length, but still...)[[/note]]
* [[ImpossiblyCoolClothes Suit Of Awesome]]: In one episode Allen sat in a giant teacup in warm water with 200 lemon wedges while wearing a Suit of Teabags. Years later this stunt would inspire DavidLetterman to wear Suits of Alka-Seltzer, Rice Krispies and Velcro at various times during ''Late Night with David Letterman''.

* Music/TheBeatles: Paar showed clips of fans reacting to the Fab Four during the very early days of Beatlemania, mainly to dis the clothing, manners and hairlength of the teenagers.

* PreciousPuppies: On his last night, after saying his FinalSpeech, Paar ended the show by calling to his dog sitting in the audience area. "Come on, Lika. We're going home".

* TenMinuteRetirement : See Below
* WriterRevolt: Jack walked off during the February 11, 1960 show after discovering that NBC censored a joke the previous night regarding a lady looking for the "water closet" who was directed to a wedding chapel due to her only using the initials "W.C." (the network cut into a news report over the joke). His sidekick, Hugh Downs, took over for the remainder of that telecast. Leading to a FunnyMoment when he returned for his next show a few weeks later with the words "...Now as I was saying..."

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Carson was forever affable on-stage but had a legendary temper in his private life. {{Music/Madonna}} and Sean Penn got married right next to his house; legend has it he was so annoyed by paparazzi helicopters that he went out and spelled '''[[PrecisionFStrike FUCK OFF]]''' on his front lawn with rocks.

--> '''Carson''': Why did you give up hosting ''TheTonightShow''? You could have been here a lot longer...you could have been here today. Why did you give it up?"
--> '''Paar''': Well, you needed the work...

* GroinAttack: Accidentally carried out on a wooden target by actor Ed Ames during [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGeN0QkZmmY an axe-throwing demonstration]]. The entire audience went into hysterics for over a minute, and their efforts to stop laughing were not at all aided by a circumcision joke from Johnny.
* HeadPet: Johnny's encounter with an undiapered pygmy marmoset (see above) is a blooper-reel favorite.

* SamusIsAGirl: One of the most famous skits involved Johnny Carson pretending to be a cowboy but revealing that he was a woman. Only catch is, when he removed his hat, [[ThrowItIn he accidentally removed his wig with it, essentially derailing the skit and ending it early ("Screw it, let's go!").]]

* SignatureLaugh: Ed [=McMahon=]'s deep belly-laugh.
* SmokingIsCool: Many of Carson's celebrity guests smoked, and unashamedly lit up on the set. There were frequent instances where five or more people on the set (Carson and [=McMahon=] included) had lighted cigarettes in hand at any one time, with ashtrays provided. By the early 1980s, with the habit becoming less socially acceptable and health risks becoming better known, both Carson and [=McMahon=] stopped smoking on the set. ([=McMahon=] ultimately quit, while Carson continued his pack-plus-a-day habit for most of the rest of his life, ultimately dying in 2005 of respiratory failure brought on by emphysema.)

--> '''Carson''': Who?
--> '''Aide''': Watt.
--> '''Carson''': Where?
--> '''Aide''': Y.

** Parodied on ''TheSimpsons'': Marge cuts out this article to send in: "Ketchup Truck Crashes into Hot Dog Stand - 30 Dead."

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: The primetime failure of ''The Jay Leno Show'' was responsible for the fiasco by sabotaging ratings for the local 11:00 PM newscasts and Conan's ''Tonight''.

** ''The Tonight Show Starring David Letterman'' could well have been the case, but Letterman assumed he'd be the successor, as did Carson. Leno (or his manager, Helen Kushnick... nobody's actually really sure) actively but quietly campaigned to get the job from the people that actually made the decision, however, so he got it and Letterman went to CBS.

* {{Beat}}: In one of the William Shatner interviews, Conan asked Shatner how his Thanksgiving was. Shatner responded that it was awful, because it was so messy. Then he paused, and when he began talking again, Conan interrupted him:
--> '''Conan''': I never know what's going to happen when you come out here. I asked you a question and you took, I think, a forty-five second pause.

* BitingTheHandHumor: The last two weeks of Conan [[HilarityEnsues were downright vicious]].

* ButtMonkey: ''On every single talk show'', when the NBC fiasco was discussed, Carson Daly (who hosts ''Last Call'' at 1:30 in the morning, after all the major talk shows are done) was known as "that poor guy".

* ExecutiveMeddling: The entire debacle that Creator/{{NBC}} created by trying to reward Leno's show for failing in the ratings by moving him to 11:30 and moving ''Tonight'', ''Late Night'', and ''Last Call'' back half an hour.

** Letterman retaliated by spending the next week tearing into Leno and NBC.

** George Lopez asked "What does NBC stand for, [[FunWithAcronyms Nobody Backs Conan]]?"

** NBC sent executive Dick Ebersol out to the New York Times to call Conan "gutless" and "chicken-hearted".
** HowardStern weighed-in with the suggestion that Leno intended to screw Conan out of ''Tonight'' all along.
** Jimmy Fallon was stuck between siding with one of his comedy heroes (Leno) or his close friend and the guy who gave him ''Late Night'' (Conan), and tried as hard as he could to stay out of it, winning major points from Conan fans originally skeptical of him when he took over ''Late Night''. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly celebrating his first year of hosting ''Late Night'', Fallon stated that he called Conan to offer his support and tell him he would be willing to host ''Late Night'' at 1:00 AM with no resentment.

* PreciousPuppies: Conan's ''Tonight Show'' Mini-Dose of Joy: Puppies dressed as cats! Complete with EarWorm theme music. They were so gosh-darn cute, Conan couldn't help but laugh. "I can't ''compete'' with this!"

* TakeThat: Conan decided to exploit his loopholes by buying outrageously-expensive items, such as a Bugatti Veyron dressed up as a mouse with the master recording of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" as its theme song. It cost NBC $1.5 Million. He followed up the next night by buying out the winning horse and jockey from the 2009 Kentucky Derby. The horse was wearing a mink Snuggie, and both were watching NFL Super Bowl footage restricted from the public. The cost? $4.8 Million on NBC's tab.
** Conan pointed out on the Finale that those things were fake (except the Veyron, which was loaned from a museum) and didn't really cost millions of dollars...except for the Rolling Stones song, which really cost a lot of money.

* {{Unperson}}: Shortly after the end of Conan's run, NBC erased just about every single trace of him from their website, even going back to before his ''Late Night'' run, including his picture from the mural at 30 Rockefeller Center. Pretty much the ''only'' things involving Conan still on the NBC and Hulu websites are the episode of ''SaturdayNightLive'' he guest hosted in 2001, and the ''[[Series/ThirtyRock 30 Rock]]'' episode "Tracy Does Conan" in which he guests and plays an important role in the plot. Even the "''Tonight Show'' Experience" website, a grand multimedia salute to the LongRunner show's history, was yanked out of existence.

** Conan deliberately ratcheted up the cost of his show, thanks to a contract loophole that allowed him to do whatever the hell he wanted on NBC's tab. Starting with a [[CoolCar Bugatti Veyron]] mouse and the 2009 Kentucky derby winner in a mink coat. [[spoiler:Most of it wasn't real.]]..except the expensive songs and their royalties.

This late-night series on Creator/{{NBC}} is part VarietyShow and part celebrity TalkShow. Steve Allen was the first host, starting in 1954; Ernie Kovacs had Monday and Tuesday nights for the final (1956-57) season due to Allen's Sunday-night show on the same network.

* ParallelPornTitles: In a Triumph sketch where he visited a dog hotel in L.A., he took over a room and ordered one of the hosts to play a bunch of dog porn videos for him: "[[TurnerAndHooch Turner and Cootch]]", "[[MarleyAndMe Marley in Me]]", "[[BeverlyHillsChihuahua Beverly Hills Chi-Hoo-Hah]]", "[[AirBud Rear Bud: Golden Receiver]]", "[[WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail An American's Tail: Fievel Goes Deep]]", "[[Film/HomewardBoundTheIncredibleJourney Homeward Bound and Gagged]]", and "{{Lassie}} Come Twice".

* ParallelPornTitles: In a Triumph sketch where he visited a dog hotel in L.A., he took over a room and ordered one of the hosts to play a bunch of dog porn videos for him: "Turner and Cooch", "[[MarleyAndMe Marley in Me]]", "[[BeverlyHillsChihuahua Beverly Hills Chi-Hoo-Hah]]", "[[AirBud Rear Bud: Golden Receiver]]", "[[WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail An American's Tail: Fievel Goes Deep]]", "[[Film/HomewardBoundTheIncredibleJourney Homeward Bound and Gagged]]", and "{{Lassie}} Come Twice".

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Carson was forever affable on-stage but had a legendary temper in his private life. {{Madonna}} and Sean Penn got married right next to his house; legend has it he was so annoyed by paparazzi helicopters that he went out and spelled '''[[PrecisionFStrike FUCK OFF]]''' on his front lawn with rocks.

** [[Literature/{{Twilight}} The Moody Vampire]]. It even got to the point where Jacob's actor from ''NewMoon'' got into a fight with him (staged, of course).

* TheBeatles: Paar showed clips of fans reacting to the Fab Four during the very early days of Beatlemania, mainly to dis the clothing, manners and hairlength of the teenagers.

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: With selected episodes offically being released on DVD, Carson Productions is becoming increasingly insistant on having unauthorized Website/YouTube Carson clips removed from the site.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome: The "''Tonight Show'' {{Twitter}} [[http://twitter.com/TW1TTERTRACKER Tracker]]" was all about parodying entertainment shows' breathless reporting of celebs' most boring tweets.

* LeisureSuitLarry: Art Fern.

* ColbertBump: Doing stand-up on the show was a major career boost, and being called over to the couch pretty much guaranteed overnight success. More recent comedians to get the honor include DrewCarey, EllenDeGeneres, and Jeff Foxworthy.

In 2004, Leno signed a contract to continue the show until 2009 and [=Conan O'Brien=] signed up to replace him when he left- but when the time grew near Leno's ratings were still strong. NBC decided it didn't want to risk him going to another network like Letterman, so they [[KickedUpstairs kicked Leno upstairs]] to make room for ConanOBrien, who had hosted ''LateNight'' since 1993. They gave Leno a similar show in late PrimeTime five nights a week starting that Fall, the "five nights a week" part being a first-ever for American network prime time (''The Jay Leno Show''). For the first time, there was no "interregnum" of temporary hosts (as in 1957 and 1962) or reruns (as in 1992); Leno's last show was May 29, 2009 and O'Brien's first was June 1.

* ExecutiveMeddling: The entire debacle that {{NBC}} created by trying to reward Leno's show for failing in the ratings by moving him to 11:30 and moving ''Tonight'', ''Late Night'', and ''Last Call'' back half an hour.

** Conan O'Brien ripped on {{NBC}} and Jay Leno in his monologue, increasingly so as it became apparent he was being forced off the show and/or network in Leno's favor.

** Jimmy Kimmel did a devastating parody of Leno on his own {{ABC}} show, then [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joXYj2IoKXs visited Leno during a Ten At Ten segment]] to call him out.

* TheBusCameBack: Jack Parr was invited back many times.

--> '''Parr''': Well, you needed the work...

In January 1957, both Allen and Kovacs were ousted and the show became ''Tonight! America After Dark'', a serious news program with Jack Lescoulie; he was booted out in June to ''Today'' and replaced for the last month by Al "Jazzbo" Collins.

In July 1957, Jack Paar became the full-time ''Tonight Show'' host, but he walked off in February 1960 after NBC censors took offense at one of his jokes. Paar returned to the show within a month. From April-September 1962, ''The Tonight Show'' had a series of part-time hosts, including Groucho Marx, and an orchestra led by Skitch Henderson.

And then there's the series regular who didn't expect to be one — Lillian Miller (aka "Miss Miller") was an audience member on so many episodes of the Allen/Kovacs, Parr, and Carson versions that she was forced to join AFTRA. She also frequented {{Game Show}}s (including ''MatchGame'' and ''Series/WhatsMyLine''), ''The Merv Griffin Show'', ''The Carol Burnett Show'', and even appeared on ''The Jack Paar Program'' in November 1962 as a guest alongside Liberace and Cassius Clay.

Leno's format wouldn't settle for a few months, until Kevin Eubanks signed on as bandleader. Jay Leno's most enduring skits are "Headlines" a bit [[FollowTheLeader previously used by Letterman]] (under the moniker "Small Town News") on the original ''Late Night'' in the 1980s; "Jaywalking", is a [[VoxPops man-on-the-street]] skit with real people that highlights American stupidity (On [[LosAngeles Hollywood Boulevard]]; talk about playing with loaded dice). He also did film clips with {{Special Effects Failure}}s with great frequency. He played a few characters, most notably Iron Jay (a dumb weightlifter), Mr. Brain (a condescending smart-aleck), and Beyondo (a "ghost" whose punchline-"first" schtick was almost identical to Carson's Carnac).

After Carson left the series, Jay Leno took over as host. Thus began the "talk show wars" of 1993; it had been expected that DavidLetterman, who hosted the lead-out show ''LateNight with...'' since the early 1980s, would get the gig. When that didn't happen, [=CBS=] hired him as a direct competitor, ''The Late Show With David Letterman'', launched in 1993. While Letterman initially was the stronger ratings draw, Leno eventually overtook him. ''The Tonight Show'' and ''The Late Show'' remain fierce competitors.

Leno's format wouldn't settle for a few months, until Kevin Eubanks signed on as bandleader. Jay Leno's most enduring skits are "Headlines" a bit [[FollowTheLeader previously used by Letterman]] (under the moniker "Small Town News") on the original ''Late Night'' in the 1980s; "Jaywalking", is a [[{{VoxPops}} man-on-the-street]] skit with real people that highlights American stupidity (On [[LosAngeles Hollywood Boulevard]]; talk about playing with loaded dice). He also did film clips with {{Special Effects Failure}}s with great frequency. He played a few characters, most notably Iron Jay (a dumb weightlifter), Mr. Brain (a condescending smart-aleck), and Beyondo (a "ghost" whose punchline-"first" schtick was almost identical to Carson's Carnac).

On January 15, 2010 Conan, tired of the whole fiasco, [[http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2010/01/15/nbc-agrees-to-pay-conan-30-million-to-leave-reports.aspx settled on a $30 million payout from NBC]] (later upped to $45 million to accommodate his staff) to leave ''The Tonight Show''. O'Brien came out of the debacle with most of the public and TV writers on his side, Leno ended up taking a severe PR beating.

-->'''Allen''': In case you're just joining us this is ''TheTonightShow'', and I can't tell you too much about it, but I want to give you the bad news first...this show is going to go on [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8AYUfBt1dE FOREVER!]] [[hottip:*:(Okay, so he was talking about the show's night-by-night length, but still...)]]

* TenMinuteRetirement : See Below

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: With selected episodes offically being released on DVD, Carson Productions is becoming increasingly insistant on having unauthorized YouTube Carson clips removed from the site.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The ''SuperMarioBros 3'' curtain, which Conan even [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_31INFH6bY mentioned]] after someone posted the original picture.

** Later in that same episode, TomHanks came out to the tune of "Lovely Rita" by the Beatles, ostensibly a tribute to his wife Rita Wilson. According to Questlove, [[LateNight Jimmy Fallon]]'s band leader and drummer for The Roots, the song cost NBC up to $500,000 in royalty fees.