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).
