Hurricane Smith on the Tonight Show

David Brenner  is a standup comedian, actor, author, and filmmaker. Prior to
beginning his standup career, he wrote and directed over a hundred made-for-TV documentaries, which garnered him many awards, including an Emmy. Making his national television debut on the The Tonight Show, he has since become the most frequent guest on the show, with 158 appearances.

Bishop began his career as part of a standup comedy act with his elder brother,
Maury. He guest-hosted on television’s Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson 
and frequently appeared on Steve Allen’s and Jack Paar’s previous versions
of The Tonight Show, both on NBC.

Joey starred in a sit-com titled The Joey Bishop Show, that ran for four seasons,
first  on NBC and later on CBS. He later hosted a talk show also titled The Joe
Bishop Show on ABC (below) as competition to Carson’s Tonight Show. It ran
for two years. His sidekick was then-newcomer Regis Philbin. 
 
   
            From left to right, Regis Philbin, Peter Marshall and Joey Bishop

The Midnight Special is a  musical variety series that aired during the 1970s
and early 1980s on NBC-TV. It was created and produced by Burt Sugarman. It
debuted as a special on August 19, 1972, then began its run as a  regular series
on February 2, 1973, with its last show airing on May 1, 1981. The ninety-minute
program followed the Friday night edition of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny
Carson.

The show mostly featured guest hosts, except for a period from July 1975 through
March 1976 when Helen Reddy was the regular host. Wolfman Jack served as the announcer. The theme song, a traditional folk song called "Midnight Special", was performed by Johnny Rivers. The Midnight Special was noted for featuring musical
acts performing live, rather then lip-synching to prerecorded music.

    
                 Helen Reddy hosting The midnight Special

  
                    The Wolfman on The midnight Special

The Tonight Show is a  late-night talk show that has aired on NBC-TV since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today. The first host of  the show was Steve Allen(above). Allen departed Tonight after NBC ordered him to concentrate all his efforts on his Sunday night variety program,The Steve Allen Show, hoping to combat CBS-TV and The Ed Sullivan Show’s dominance of the Sunday night ratings. Below is a clip from the first Tonight Show that aired on Monday night, September 27, 1954.