Johnny Calls

A couple of days after our honeymoon, we got a call from one of the producers of the Tonight show which was taped in New York at the time, and the producer read the article in The Daily News (Long Island's newspaper) about Santa Claus getting married.

The Tonight Show

The Tonight Show was the first, or one of the first, late night talk shows. It came on at 1100 pm each week night and ran until midnight.  Probably 80 or 90% of the country watched the show each night. Johnny Carson was the host, and he had a sidekick Ed McMahon. Ed would start a topic of discussion and then set Johnny up for the jokes the writers had written. They also had a small band that entertained the live audience each night during the commercials. Johnny would have movie stars and comedians each night. It was what most people watched before going to bed each night. It had just enough naughtiness to titillate, but not enough to be cut off by the FCC censors.

They asked us to come into Manhattan to tape a show. We agreed, and back to the city we go.  It was really a blast for both of us.  

The producers interviewed us and selected questions for Johnny to ask us.  I was afraid he would go off script and ask me something we weren’t prepared to answer. As I said, he was great. He followed the script perfectly and we breezed through the show like pros. 

Also on the show was Richie Havens (Google Woodstock, Havens) and some up and coming starlet who's name I can’t remember. (I just asked Joyce and she said the girl's name was Angel Tompkins).

I do remember she was wearing a silk shawl and the whole time we were waiting in the Green Room, she practiced shrugging her shoulders to get the shawl to fall off her shoulders just so, and her ample cleavage would be semi-exposed. She used the shrug during her interview with Johnny to give him a show.  This is before VHS tapes, so the only record we have is a grainy 35mm photo taken by one of Joyce's co-workers. She gave us a copy.