Flicklives

The Tonight Show

How Shep almost became the host

How Shep came to New York By: David P. Allen Contributing Editor, emeritus, Videography Magazine In 1981 I went to the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas in my role as a Contributing Editor of Videography Magazine. In that year the annual luncheon speaker for the Engineering Luncheon was Jean Shepherd. That the engineers should choose Shepherd as the after dinner speaker was not as farfetched as you might think, for Shepherd was, among other things, an amateur radio operator, call sign K3ORS. As you might expect, his after dinner speech was formatted like his radio program on WOR. What works well deserved to be duplicated. I, for many years, listened to Shepherd on local radio station WBUR, who carried his rebroadcast at midnight. The procedure I used was to set my recorder to make an automatic copy and then play it back during my drive to Boston. So, as you can see, I was a devoted fan. I could not let the moment pass without letting him know, in person, of the devotion with which he was viewed by many in the audience at the luncheon. Hale fellow well met and the bottom line was a gracious invitation to bend our mutual elbows at the bar of the Hilton Hotel later that evening. I was joined by two other sycophants who also were in the audience. They came with credentials of being broadcast engineering and also radio amateurs. So, the four of us sat and drinked in the occasion listening to the garrulous Shepherd take us on a mini-spin along the never ending trail of his broadcasting. Then, Shepherd did the unexpected and relayed to us a story of his that was most unanticipated. Using the format well known, he began a monologue which included a story of how it was that an announcer in a Cincinnati radio station happened to come to New York. It all happened in 1955 when the NBC network was looking around for a new replacement on the tonight Show. The Tonight Show already had quite a following having been started by Steve Allen and it turned out that there were more than enough people up watching television after the 11 o'clock news to make a very valuable program. When Allen quit because enough is enough he caught NBC flat footed and without a suitable replacement. They pulled in the Sports Announcer from the Today show who carried on as best he could, but the audience voted with their feet, and the Tonight show was in danger of total collapse. So in this atmosphere the programmers at NBC looked around for a replacement to Steve Allen. They sent out their bird dog looking around for an appropriate person with a garrulous nature and one who was quick on his feet and could keep his head above water no matter what the temperature. Someone said there was a guy operating as a staff announcer at WLW radio in Cincinnati that showed promise and why not go take a look. The bird dog went swiftly to Cincinnati and holed up in a hotel room with a radio. Thus it was that Jean Shepherd came to NBC's attention. They met again on the telephone and immediately decided that they might have their candidate for Steve Allen's replacement. The next day the bird dog introduced himself wholly unexpectedly to the amazed Shepherd. Told the story in nutshell and made an offer on the spot. Shepherd was completely swept up by the unexpected which was taking him from Cincinnati to New York. But there was a teeny, tiny caveat in the offer. There was another chap who NBC had, but a promised prime time venture was turning out going nowhere. NBC had an obligation to make an overture to this person who they had stolen from CBS but in the event, there seemed he would be little charmed by an offer for a program spot after the Eleven O'clock News. It was anticipated that he would turn down flat an offer to be the Tonight show host. The game plan went like this: 1. Offer the Tonight Show to the guy who would turn it down flat. 2. Then the Tonight Show would go to Shepherd. Over on CBS there was another chap operating who claimed the hour from noon to 1pm. This fellow I knew well for I was working for a new TV station and we were so poor that we had no news department and consequently carried CBS at the time when almost everybody was busy making money. To say that the person was a hole-filler on CBS was a complete understatement. That person was Jack Paar and he already had enough talent to draw him away from CBS to NBC where they were planning a prime time program which would use his talents. Alas, the best plans of mice and men..... the prime time venture turned out to be smoke and mirrors, leaving NBC with a potential star and no place to put him. The contract Paar negotiated with NBC contained a section that committed NBC to trying to find someplace to put Paar that was mutually agreeable. Paar was now a bit pissed off by NBC's action but he looked around and saw that among his options the one from NBC still offered him a chance to make the big time on his own. He said "yes" to the NBC offer. So certain had been NBC that Paar would turn down the offer, that they brought Shepherd to New York pending the announcement of the new Tonight show host. Alas, the announcement was that Jack Paar would be the new host..... and the rest is history. Shepherd was ensconced in a New York hotel and several weeks later connected with WOR.... and the rest is history.

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"Can you imagine 4,000 years passing, and you're not even a memory?
Think about it, friends. It's not just a possibility. It is a certainty." - Jean Shepherd - 1975