The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under The Tonight Show franchise from October 1, 1962 through May 22, 1992. It originally aired during late-night. In 2002, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was ranked #12 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. (More from Wikipedia)
Tiny Tim continued to make periodic appearances on Laugh-In and later on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, where he became known for endearingly addressing the host as “Mr. Carson”. His shyness around women was a frequent topic of his interviews with Carson, and the wedding of Tiny Tim with Victoria Mae Budinger (known as “Miss Vicki”) on the Tonight Show was viewed by 21.4 million viewers, one of the largest American television audiences for many years, particularly in late night.
I saw Tiny Tim once in a while in later years, but he seemed a little dissipated and had put on weight. It was also sad to see that he had lost that seemingly permanent twinkle in his eye – the marriage didn’t work out for one thing, though they did have one daughter, who naturally was named Tulip (married name: Tulip Victoria Khaury Stewart).
If anything, Leon Redbone had an even more stylized appearance than Tiny Tim; and he became known for his performances of old songs like “Champagne Charlie”, “My Walking Stick” and “Shine On Harvest Moon” in a creaky voice while playing a guitar. Though his was basically a novelty act also, Redbone got a lot more respect. Bob Dylan for one was impressed when he performed at the Maricopa Folk Festival in the early 1970’s; and Rolling Stone magazine praised his singing as “so authentic you can hear the surface noise [of an old 78 rpm]”. Like Tiny Tim, Leon Redbone was also a frequent guest on the Tonight Show as well as Saturday Night Live.
(March 2013)
