The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)
"All we've got are tonight and tomorrow and I'm gone. Boy, I haven't used that line since World War II…"
Johnny Carson hosted The [...]
The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)
The comic roast is a tradition that still goes strong today, if not stronger. While many different organizations have put them on, sometimes for [...]
There has been a good amount of Johnny Carson talk the last few days so if you want to know what any of us were talking about, this PBS special is one hell of an overview. From what I understand, from watching this, JC was the best at everything – drums, comedy, magic, interviews, cheating on his wife – you name it. Also, the man was a legend and rightfully so. It's worth a watch, if only to see Arsenio Hall talk more on television than he has for 15 years.
The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)
For the 29 years that Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show on NBC there was no one else in late night. 2012 marks the [...]
Let's face it, late night talk show hosts don't make the best actors. Their jobs call on them to break so many of the basic rules of acting. They speak directly to the camera, make fun of themselves whenever a joke misses, and do an unusual amount of facial mugging, all things that would get a regular actor fired. It's hard to suppress these instincts when they've been drilled into one's head from five nights a week behind the desk (and, in the case of most late night personalities, decades-worth of stand-up experience prior to getting on television), but that doesn't mean Hollywood hasn't tried to turn our late [...]
