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On February 11, 1960 - just minutes into a live broadcast, Paar announced he was quitting right then and there - leaving a stunned and unprepared announcer Hugh Downs with the task of finishing the ninety-minute program.
Paar, seething over a censored punchline from the previous night's broadcast (listen below), stayed away for a month before ultimately returning.
He exited the Tonight Show again two years later on March 29, 1962, suggesting daytime game show host Johnny Carson as his replacement. It was rumored that Jack Paar thought Carson would surely fail and the network would come crawling. That didn't happen, the Tonight Show went on to even greater success under Carson. NBC offered Paar a prime time spot in 1962, Friday nights at ten. The Jack Paar Program was a noble experiment - an attempt to meld Paar's folksy talk-show style with a prime-time variety show. This series ran for three years. Paar effectively retired from television until ABC lured him back to compete directly with Johnny Carson in 1973. Paar's late night show was overall a good one - but Carson fought hard to keep big-name guests from appearing on The Jack Paar Show. Leave it to Paar to choose a sentimental (and overplayed) moment to mark his final episode as he spoke to the home audience from the empty studio, with just his trusty dog by his side. Carson proved to be the undisputed king of late night TV. Jack Paar's folksy style was considered seriously old-fashioned by the seventies. Paar produced a couple of specials for NBC in the mid-eighties where he introduced clips from past shows. He was hospitalized after suffering a stroke in 2003 and passed away at age 85 on Tuesday, January 27, 2004. Carson died almost exactly a year later. |
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One
of the most memorable (and abrupt) goodbyes in television history was
Jack Paar's on-air resignation as the host of NBC's Tonight Show.
