Tonight Show Hosts

The Tonight Show went on the air in 1953. When the 21st century arrived, the show was still running. In all this time Tonight has had only five permanent hosts. Here's a special loop devoted to those five sturdy TV personalities.

STEVE ALLEN first hosted Tonight on New York's WNBT in June of 1953; the local show went national on the NBC network on September 27, 1954. Allen's show was done live and featured the multi-talented host playing piano, joking with the audience and doing comedy sketches with guest stars. (Allen's announcer was Gene Rayburn, later the host of the game show The Match Game.) In 1956 Allen began a separate prime-time show and hosted Tonight only Wednesday through Friday nights. Mondays and Tuesdays were handled by a series of guest hosts, including avant-garde comedian Ernie Kovacs. Allen stepped down for good in January of 1957.

Allen was replaced by JACK PAAR in the summer of 1957, after a few experimental months where Tonight was a news variety show. Paar turned the emphasis to talk and interviews, and quickly gained a reputation for clever chat and quirky emotional outbursts. His most famous moment came on the show of February 11, 1960, when Paar walked off the stage in protest over NBC's censorship of one of his jokes from the night before. (He returned a few weeks later.) Paar's five-year run ended in 1962.

JOHNNY CARSON hosted The Tonight Show for nearly 30 years, becoming one of TV's favorite personalities along the way. His longtime sidekicks were announcer Ed McMahon and bandleader Doc Severinsen. At first Carson's show ran nearly two hours each night, from 11:15 pm until 1:00 am. That was cut back to 90 minutes and then (in 1980) to one hour, 11:30 to 12:30. (The leftover 30 minutes made room for the eventual creation of David Letterman's show Late Night.) Carson opened his shows with a standup comedy monologue, a notion which became a late night talk show staple. In later years Carson's extended vacations became a running joke, and his chair was filled with a series of guest hosts. His final show on 22 May 1992, with Carson being serenaded by guest Bette Midler, is remembered as one of TV's great farewells.

JAY LENO was named the exclusive guest host of Carson's show in 1986. When Carson announced his impending retirement, a struggle for succession followed between Leno and David Letterman. The struggle ended when NBC executives named Leno as the show's permanent host. (Letterman defected to CBS shortly thereafter, and was replaced by Conan O'Brien.) Ed McMahon retired with Carson and Leno worked without a sidekick, extending the opening monologue even further into the show. Leno brought on jazz star Branford Marsalis as his bandleader; that arrangement never quite satisfied anyone and Marsalis was replaced by guitarist Kevin Eubanks. By 2001 Leno had become The Tonight Show's longest-running host after Carson. In 2004 he signed a contract extension to continue hosting through 2009. The same year, NBC announced that Leno would step down as the host of The Tonight Show in 2009, to be replaced by Conan O'Brien. It had been widely reported in the press that Leno was not entirely eager to step down as host of the show. In a surprise move, he was given his own new nightly show from 10:00-11:00 pm on NBC.

CONAN O'BRIEN did indeed take over The Tonight Show in 2009; his first show as host aired on June 1st, and he also was interviewed by Leno in a gracious segment on Leno's last show on May 29th. O'Brien relocated to Los Angeles from New York, bringing with him many of the writers and staff from Late Night, including drummer Max Weinberg and his band, The Max Weinberg Seven. O'Brien also brought back his old sidekick, Andy Richter, who had left Late Night in 2000 to star in his own TV show.

In a surprise twist, O'Brien got the boot after only seven months, when poor rating for both Leno's new show and The Tonight Show prompted NBC to make a change. The network announced a scheme to give Leno a new half-hour show at 11:35, moving O'Brien and The Tonight Show back to 12:05. O'Brien refused to move, leading NBC to buy out his contract (for a reported $44 million) and give The Tonight Show back to Leno.

A note on guest hosts: comedian Joey Bishop was the most frequent guest host of The Tonight Show in its early years, filling in for Johnny Carson 177 times. Joan Rivers also was a frequent guest host, but Leno himself holds the record for most guest-hosting appearances: as the show's "permanent" guest host from 1987 until 1992, he hosted more than 300 times.

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