Richard Dawson guest-hosted for Carson a number of times and at one point was on the list of likely replacements if Johnny had quit there and then. At times, that list included McLean Stevenson, David Brenner, Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Joey Bishop and quite a few others who were out of consideration by the time Carson stepped down.
The episode listed as featuring Della Reese and Pete Barbutti did not air. During the taping, Ms. Reese suffered a stroke.
A year or so later, on another night when Dawson guest-hosted, Pete Barbutti was again a guest. I was working on a show that taped across the hall and Pete and I got to talking. He told me the story of the previous broadcast; of how when Della had a seizure in front of the audience, the producers (of course) stopped tape. Then they sent Pete out to try and entertain the audience and get their minds off that, in case the decision was made to continue with the taping. He called it the toughest spot he ever had to play in a lifetime of doing comedy, and he was glad when the decision was made to stop and send the audience home.
Pete also told me about another time he'd been on The Tonight Show and the program did not air. He was a guest the night there were tech problems during a number by John Davidson, who was the musical guest. Carson got furious and called a halt to the taping. (Pete never even taped his spot that night.) A rerun was subtituted.
Now here's the punch line to this...
About two hours later, they taped that night's episode. Dawson's entire monologue was about flying on airplanes and about things that made it seem dangerous. Shortly after the taping, the producers got word that there had been a huge air crash in the mid-west with many fatalities. They decided not to air that episode, either, and stuck on a rerun. It was finally broadcast about three weeks later on a Monday night...and must have puzzled people because there were guests on it plugging upcoming events that had already occurred.
In the history of Carson's Tonight Show, I believe there were five times a show was taped (or started taping) and it either wasn't finished or didn't air the evening it was supposed to...and Dawson hosted two of them and Barbutti was a guest on three. (The two others were pre-empted by late-breaking news events. One, hosted by Robert Klein, never aired at all. The other, hosted by Johnny, ran a week later.)
Anyway, yes, Richard Dawson was a ranking Carson guest host, at least for a little while.
