Tonight Show

[Philippe Noël]

Do you think that one day it will be possible to buy videos showing magicians like Michael Skinner for example on the Tonight Show?
I know that you can see one appearance of Michael Ammar on the tonight show on the TOPIT TAPES but it is the only example that I know. Are there others?

Philippe Nol

[Brad Jeffers]

I for one, would certainly hope so! A while back I actually tried to contact Mr. Carson concerning this. Highlight tapes of The Tonight Show are offered via tv infomercials, and I believe a compilation of all the performances of the various magicians who appeared over the years, would be a big seller (even if only in the magic community). I don't think the income generated by such a project would be large enough to interest someone of Carson's wealth, of course, but I thought that prehaps he might be motivated for other reasons, i.e. his love of magic. Who knows - mabey someone reading this might have access to Mr. Carson and can pass this along? Mabey drop by Dean Dill's shop for a haircut, and mention it? I really think it's a great idea. I can still recall various things from Mike Skinner's two appearances on The Tonight Show. I would love to see those again!

[Cugel]

I have the Skinner performances (including a segment where I believe Tony Curtis is filling in for Carson) on tape. They're pretty rough but they show why so many people rank Skinner as a great magician - they're simply fantastic. The cups and balls with coffee cups, a butter knife and cherries is my all-time favourite bit of magic footage to watch. A tape or DVD of magic highlights would be a GREAT idea.

Andrew

[Craig Matsuoka]

Originally posted by Philippe Nol:
Do you think that one day it will be possible to buy videos showing magicians like Michael Skinner for example on the Tonight Show?

Actually, it's possible right now. It's just very very expensive:

https://www.johnnycarson.com/carson/shopping/bas.jsp

https://www.johnnycarson.com/carson/sho ... s_faqs.jsp

I remember reading somewhere on their site that they're working on a way for customers to compile collections of individual clips, but they're being pretty tight lipped about when that's going to happen. There's probably a tremendous amount of technical and legal details that still need to be worked out before we'll get to put together our own Tonight Show Magic collection.

[walkinoats]

the price for past show tapes is ridiculous
I think it would be cheaper to have Michael Ammar personally come to your house to perform the tricks he did on the tonight show.

[Brad Jeffers]

Craig, Thanks for the info. $100 per episode is in a way, rather expensive, but in another way, it seems pretty reasonable. It was interesting to enter the names of various magicians and see when and if they had appeared. I did not know, for example, that Lance Burton was on the show 7(!) times, or that Shimada had made 3 different appearances. It's good to know that these tapes are readily available, in case I ever strike it rich!