Rare Game Shows On DVD

[Eric Paddon]

In the last few months there have been some DVD releases that have included as bonuses, some rare game show episodes that have never been available for, so this is something worth keeping in mind if you want to find some interesting items.

1-Dick Van Dyke Show, Season 2, released in 2003, has the cast appearance on "Stump The Stars" in full.
2-Twilight Zone, Season 1, released in 2004, has an entire 1969 episode of Rod Serling hosting "Liars Club" but missing the final sequence.

More recently though, we can add these to the list.

1-"The Johnny Carson Show" released this year by Shout Entertainment is devoted to ten episodes of Carson's 1955-56 CBS variety show.    But included as a bonus is one episode of "Who Do You Trust" from September 9, 1958 which Carson himself personally saved from destruction because of a hilarious moment that resulted when a contestant got accidentally locked in his isolation booth and they couldn't get him out for over five minutes, and all of this was happening on live TV.    This brings the total number of complete episodes of this Carson game show that are now out there for collectors, to three (Ed McMahon was still a month away from becoming Carson's announcer at this point).

2-"Dick Van Dyke--In Rare Form" is a recent release by MPI devoted to clips of Dick on "The Pat Boone Chevy Show" from 1958-59.    But included as a bonus complete with ads is an episode of the short-lived panel show "Laugh Line" that Dick hosted.    The show is not the first episode as the panel doesn't match that one from the EOTVGS, consisting of Dorothy Loudon, Louis Nye, Mike Nichols and Elaine May.

[MrBuddwing]

[quote name=\'Eric Paddon\' post=\'165361\' date=\'Oct 2 2007, 06:26 PM\']
1-"The Johnny Carson Show" released this year by Shout Entertainment is devoted to ten episodes of Carson's 1955-56 CBS variety show.    But included as a bonus is one episode of "Who Do You Trust" from September 9, 1958 which Carson himself personally saved from destruction[/quote]

If only Carson had asked for - or demanded - at least a 16mm kinescope of his first "Tonight Show." (OK, I'm beating the proverbial dead horse into the ground, but Jack Paar got kinescopes of some of his shows - why couldn't Carson?)

[Eric Paddon]

[quote name=\'MrBuddwing\' post=\'165367\' date=\'Oct 2 2007, 07:07 PM\']
If only Carson had asked for - or demanded - at least a 16mm kinescope of his first "Tonight Show." (OK, I'm beating the proverbial dead horse into the ground, but Jack Paar got kinescopes of some of his shows - why couldn't Carson?)
[/quote]

Quite true.   Ironically though, one other bonus in this set is a very brief clip of Johnny *guest-hosting* the Jack Paar Tonight Show from 1958, running only about three minutes.

I was lucky to get recently the oldest extant Carson Tonight Show that still exists in original color videotape format, which is the December 31, 1965 live New Year's Eve show with Woody Allen among the guests and a live switch to Ben Grauer in Times Square at midnight.

[MrBuddwing]

[quote name=\'Eric Paddon\' post=\'165369\' date=\'Oct 2 2007, 07:21 PM\']
Quite true.   Ironically though, one other bonus in this set is a very brief clip of Johnny *guest-hosting* the Jack Paar Tonight Show from 1958, running only about three minutes.
[/quote]

Wow - I knew Carson had guest-hosted on Paar, but I didn't know that any of that survived!

[Eric Paddon]

Yeah, although as mentioned the clip is very brief, and if it's true that more of it exists but wasn't included, that would be unfortunate.   It's from the Friday show of Carson finishing up a week of subbing and shows him responding to written questions/comments from the audience.

One thing about the destruction of 60s Carson shows though, is that I think Carson expected them to be preserved long-term, because my understanding is that he was shocked when he heard NBC had wiped them all out, sometime in the late 60s I imagine, or no later than 1971-72.   So while he had this stuff from the 50s on kinescope film because that was the only way of saving it back then, it would never have occurred to him to have asked for kinescope dupes of episodes he expected to endure on videotape forever.

[MrBuddwing]

[quote name=\'Eric Paddon\' post=\'165378\' date=\'Oct 2 2007, 09:33 PM\']
One thing about the destruction of 60s Carson shows though, is that I think Carson expected them to be preserved long-term, because my understanding is that he was shocked when he heard NBC had wiped them all out, sometime in the late 60s I imagine, or no later than 1971-72.   So while he had this stuff from the 50s on kinescope film because that was the only way of saving it back then, it would never have occurred to him to have asked for kinescope dupes of episodes he expected to endure on videotape forever.
[/quote]

Yeah, it's been a theory of mine that Carson took over "The Tonight Show" at the "wrong time" in terms of having his shows saved. But the "mass destruction" hypothesis has been convincingly debunked by others on this board, like Two Inch Quad. Two-inch quadriplex tape was incredibly expensive, and was bound to be recycled as often as possible. In other words, the destruction of taped shows was probably a slow, ongoing process. (I'm not talking about the mass disposal of kinescopes that occurred at NBC in the 1970s.)