Late Night Last Century: Steve Allen on the Early Days of The Tonight Show

If you’re reading this on the day of its publication, September 27, 2024, The Tonight Show has just turned 70. And oh how things have changed in late night over those seven decades.

Strikingly, there will be no episode of the program this evening to mark the anniversary. Just this month, NBC announced that The Tonight Show would follow in the mold of all the other network late night programs and air a rerun on Friday evenings. The program that once dominated not merely late night, but the culture itself, suffered yet another blow.

The Tonight Show is not alone in its sinking ratings, but, as the most storied name in perhaps all of television, there is no greater indicator of just how big a difference a decade or two can make. Yet, as always, there is hope. The history of late night is one full of innovation and risk-taking. Perhaps the problem is not a lack of interest in some form of late night programming, but an unwillingness of hosts and executives to take big swings. 

Over at Comedy Central, for example, The Daily Show, beyond possessing a vastly talented crew, has seen ratings bumps by going live after big events—an idea so novel it has become almost unique. Who knew jokes tailored to the live event actually land better than bits recorded hours earlier? Maybe The Tonight Show should give it a try.

If that sounds like a fantasy, it shouldn’t. When Steve Allen first started hosting The Tonight Show in 1947, it was broadcast live each night at 11:15pm. On March 11, 1982, Allen appeared on a then-new program called Late Night with David Letterman. The obviously appreciative rookie host asked Allen about the origins of The Tonight Show. 

Allen reflected on some of the absurd suggestions executives made to improve the program, which started as a local broadcast in New York before shifting to the network. Executives advised that an actual weather forecast be sandwiched in between the comedy, and that a ski condition report be added. “In 1954,” Allen said, “there were about nine skiers in the whole country.” 

The moral: if Allen could survive such horrible suggestions, then perhaps there is hope for The Tonight Show. Here’s hoping it will be around in another 70 years, assuming we, uh, figure out the whole climate change thing. Maybe they should bring the weather reports back?