Inventing Late Night
by Ben Alba
Summary
Before Jay, Johnny or Jack there was Steve. In 1954, Steve Allen introduced the Tonight show, which has become America’s longest-running late-night program. His formula has remained: the desk, the announcer/sidekick, the monologue, the celebrity guests, the goofy stunts--it all began with “Steverino.” Now, with exclusive interviews, the extraordinary story of Allen’s creation is told by Allen’s colleagues or those who helped to make it happen--Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar, Tom Poston, the Smothers Brothers, Larry Gelbart and many more. As Jay Leno says, “There’s nothing new. It all started with Steve.”
Excerpt
"If you have ever turned on the TV after the 11 o’clock news and laughed, you owe Steve Allen a debt of gratitude.”
That’s what Entertainment Weekly wrote when Allen died on October 30, 2000. Numerous other tributes celebrated the enduring legacy of one of television’s most creative and innovative minds....
The Tonight show--America’s longest-running nighttime entertainment program and most successful late-night show--marked its fiftieth anniversary on September 27, 2004. It all seems so simple: the home base desk, the opening monologue, the announcer/sidekick, the horsing around with the bandleader, the breezy celebrity chats, the wacky stunts, the comedy sketches, the cameras roaming backstage and outside the studio, the irreverent observations of passersby, the offbeat and eccentric guests, and the ad-lib banter with the studio audience.
Five nights a week.
But this formula did not exist before Steve Allen. If America stayed up late at all, it was only to doze in front of tired movie reruns. Drawing from his unique combination of gifts--wit, free-wheeling silliness, musical talent, and an amiable manner--Allen invented the format that made late-night television fashionable and Tonight a national institution. He also drew from another gift that dwarfed all of his others: a rare ability to ad-lib his way out of anything. “He was one of the sharpest guys off the cuff,” said current Tonight host Jay Leno. “Allen was more improvisational than anyone in high-stakes television is today,” Newsweek noted. The Chicago Tribune assessed Allen as one of the first entertainers “to find ways of being funny on television peculiar to the medium.”
Allen created the Tonight show and served as its original host from 1954 to 1957. Much of what has succeeded on late-night talk shows over the following fifty years was introduced, in some form, during Allen’s early years in television. Even conventions identified with later hosts--like “Jay Walking,” “Stump the Band,” “Stupid Human Tricks.” “The Tea-Time Movie with Art Fern,” and even “Carnac the Magnificent"--owe their origins directly to the early Allen shows. Before Dave was giving away caned hams, Steve was giving away salamis. And before Johnny found fun with exotic animals brought in by Jim Fowler and Joan Embery, Steve was getting up close and personal with tigers, elephants, and tarantulas.
Through Allen’s direct descendants--Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno--NBC continued to build the grand Tonight tradition. Buoyed by the enormous profit potential of Tonight, the network cloned the show for David Letterman and Conan O’Brien. NBC’s senior vice president of specials, variety programs, and late night, Rick Ludwin, acknowledged that the Letterman and O’Brien shows probably would not exist today had there not been Steve Allen “because Steve proved that not only would people stay up late to watch television, but that the premium would be on funny--and that the more unpredictable and wilder, the better.”
Reviews
"Allen as a ground-breaking force...a lasting influence on late night TV...a multitalented Renaissance man"--Publishers Weekly
"This is great stuff for broadcasting and pop-culture collections, though sufficiently conversational and nostalgia-soaked for non-specialist readers"--Booklist
"Everybody who ever has done a talk show should pay a royalty to Steve Allen” --Bill Maher
Author's Biography
Ben Alba teaches at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago and co-directs the bar passage program there. Previously he was a litigation attorney in Chicago with the firm of Sneckenberg Thompson & Brody.