Jack Paar Comes Home

This NBC special adroitly displays Paar's ability to make guests comfortable during television conversations. Paar comes on stage, accompanied by a cheering studio audience, with the exuberance of a high school hero at a class reunion. He talks briefly with the audience and then moves to the ancient interview clips featuring such diverse individuals as John Kennedy, Judy Garland, Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon. (He even talked Nixon into playing the piano.) These interviews prove a point. Despite his contradictory personality, Paar was a marvelous if rambling TV conversationalist. This hour also contains the TV debuts of Liza Minnelli,Bill Cosby and the Beatles. Yes, the famed rock quartet was seen on Paar's show in late 1963 several weeks before their widely heralded performance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Referenced in The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson: Jack Paar/Stephen Lang (1986)