What's the earliest episode...
so far shown? What's the earliest full episode that's hasn't been erased (still intact)?
I'll let you know when I come-up with a new signature, .
The earliest one I have personally seen is 2/15/73 with George Foreman and Steve Martin, but I've maybe only seen half the weekend ones.
JohnnyCarson.com so far has the 6/19/68 show as the earliest complete Carson available. According to the site, only 33 episodes exist in full from the first ten years.
Thanks for the info! Too bad some idiot erased most of the footage before that date. Should be put in front of a firing-squad for that. Or strung-up, hogtied or have a millstone tied around his neck and feet and thrown into the ocean. To drown or be eaten by a shark. Also the imbecile(s) who told him to erase them.
I'll let you know when I come-up with a new signature, .
I think the earliest out there might be from Sept. 1, 1964. There is a clip on the youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg-R9tnEXso. The plus, its in color.
We look back at hindsight and say the shows should not have been erased. Keep in mind, the thought might be that the shows were probably not meant to be seen again. Imagine all the episodes made from a daily night program and how many tapes would be needed. They probably resused the tapes over and over until the quality went down. While it is sad, I understand the logic behind it.
The idea of taping over shows made much more sense back then, particularly when you consider how much crap went over the airwaves. Remember, too, that television still wasn't that old. NBC owned those shows and, with few exceptions, had little interest in syndication. So, rather than going out and buying new, unused videotape for new programs, they just reused the videotape from past shows they considered disposable.
And, truth be told, the vast majority of Carson's shows did suck. The only reason he got to stay on the air was how cheap it was to produce versus what NBC could charge sponsors. As its popularity grew so, too, did the amount of money could be charged for advertising. But the cost to produce the show remained the same, as in, low.
Then consider how topical much of those shows were. Carson's monologue was based on the news of the day and the vast majority of his guests were just there to promote whatever they were doing at the time. So taping over the old shows isn't quite as hare-brained as it seems now. They only stopped when Carson was able to renegotiate his contract and got control of all the shows.
I mean, think about how much space NBC (or any network) would have to have if they all saved every program that had ever been on the air. The tapes that were saved of Carson's show, alone, takes up an enormous amount of space, and that's just from the early seventies through 1992.
Still, it is sad that all but a few of Carson's sixties' shows are gone forever. Another example is the old Ernie Kovacs Show. He was a true television genius and many of his shows were destroyed in the same manner.
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Whoever erased these should be driven to the Slauson Cutoff and...well, you know.
I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!
Hewwo.