The Retrurn of Mister Yesterday
KITMAN, MARVIN
On Television THE RETURN OF MISTER YESTERDAY BY MARVIN KITMAN Good has been very good to me," explained Jack Paar on January 8, the first evening of his new one-week-a-month show on ABC. The Lord...
...He is afraid, though, that by appearing he may raise Paar to his own level...
...2. Hire new gag writer...
...He's got a silly grin?not an idiotic giggle, but it borders on that strongly...
...They are such an important part of Jack's freewheeling format...
...Jack was expressing a gut reaction," one ABC spokesman explained...
...she got a job as a secretary...
...Taking on a critic, what could be more natural...
...There was even a double feature opening night: one film showed the Paars playing with their pet tigers and another presented the Kennedys in a swimming pool...
...Jack Anderson, for instance, doesn't think you're the greatest either...
...It's not a new list...
...Monday night (later): "You know, he [Nachman] finally got on television," Paar says, returning to his favorite feud...
...To interrupt my blow-by-blow for a moment—I decided after thinking about it that this dispute wasn't really like Lewis-Horn...
...He's informed us that he couldn't come on such short notice and he won't be here tonight...
...He also has bad eyes...
...Friday evening (January 12): Paar calls Nachman article "scurrilous," extends an on-the-air invitation for his February 5 program —the next telecast in Paar's schedule...
...I fell asleep the night that battle of minds began and, as a result, I was never quite sure what they were mad about until the other day, when I was researching the great feuds of late-night broadcasting: Dorothy had referred to Jack's daughter Randy in her New York Journal American column as "the little fat kid...
...They hardly know Dick Cavett—and he was born there...
...As general entertainment, however, the idea has a long way to go...
...It would be much smarter to criticize a newspaperman everybody has heard of...
...Is this what Dick Cavett was sacrificed for...
...She has also applied for a job on this show and was turned down...
...Take on somebody whose name is a household word—like Henry Kissinger...
...Friday morning (February 2): Nachman writes an article saying he is flattered to be in such good company as Dorothy Kilgallen and Jack O'Brian, and he is grateful to Paar for making him a starlet (not a star) overnight...
...Nachman is barely recognized in New York where he began writing TV criticism in the Daily News in 1972...
...Nachman to come," Paar says in the monologue that starts the fifth show of the Second Coming...
...In gratitude for the nationwide plug, he offers Paar two paragraphs in his column to speak his mind...
...And there's always a chance he is stalling to build up the suspense, just to get more mileage out of the quarrel...
...Nachman would look like an amateur within two minutes if he showed up...
...4. Publicly attack a member of the press...
...He invited the Gay Activists on his show in March to say they didn't like some of Paar's comments, and this fight between the Bruces and TV's Mr...
...Compares Paar's return from semiretirement with MacArthur's return to the Philippines...
...New York...
...Nachman with us tonight...
...Jack apparently hasn't gotten around much since retiring forever in 1963...
...Who in Omaha knows Nachman...
...Insiders claim Nachman wants to meet you on neutral grounds, the Johnny Carson Show on NBC, where you'd both get real exposure...
...Ahhhh—now I want him to come and I'll show him all about television and just how hard it is and how hard we try...
...Paar did not suggest "essays at 600 words in the Daily News...
...The way Paar went about challenging Nachman also seemed uncouth...
...his wife worked for David Frost...
...Jack's quixotic manner and totally unpredictable style," the ABC press releases announced, "always add excitement to any of his productions...
...a usually reliable source at a rival network remarked...
...The first major debate of the revivified Jack Paar continued with the start of the next month...
...The Lord may have been good to Jack—whose comeback was the most widely anticipated television rebirth since Dragnet was resurrected in 1968—but his scriptwriters certainly haven't been...
...And I want to answer any questions he wants to ask . . . any questions, it doesn't matter what...
...3. Ask what I am doing here...
...Honest to God, he got on at 7 o'clock in the morning on a show his wife works on [ABC's A.M...
...Anyway, what he really wants is a guarantee of at least three debates...
...As the premiere of Jack's second week—February 5—drew near, the entire industry wondered whether he would continue his feud with Nachman...
...I watched and he looks like a tall Woody Allen...
...Paar's blowing up at the Daily News critic, therefore, was simply a matter of picking up where he had left off...
...It was only a matter of time until the Gabor sisters arrived...
...However, he spent the last three weeks calling up radio and television shows telling them that he wouldn't come because he didn't seek publicity...
...It should be pointed out in all fairness that the authenticity of this memorandum, said to have been written by Paar to himself, has been questioned...
...As he sees it: 'Paar's law formulates the hypothesis that when Paar comes, can trouble be far behind?' " Since Jack had the tigers on as guests the first night, including one who had bitten him while the home movie was being shot, I thought he might surprise everybody by biting the animal back while on the air...
...I said to my wife: 'You know, I've given telethons for people in better shape than this man!' " If Jack had asked me what to do next, I would have told him: "Forget it, Jack...
...And I know a little about him...
...It was a stupid move to attack Nachman in the first place...
...Yesterday could make everybody forget the Paar-Nachman feud of 1973...
...And when poor David got cancelled, in TV Guide there were two scurrilous articles about the inside workings of The David Frost Show that she and this husband sold to TV Guide...
...But he didn't...
...Monday night (February 5): "Three weeks ago we asked a journalist, Gerald Nachman, to come," Paar explains in his monologue, kicking off his second week...
...Then I want to ask him some questions...
...Jack, forget about journalists altogether...
...Paar returned in kind with an attack calling the noted journalist "the chinless wonder...
...We'll pay him the same as anybody else and I will be very courteous and he can ask me any question he likes...
...The opening monologue made Dick Cav-ett sound like Samuel Johnson talking to Boswell (on one of Johnson's better nights...
...As Jack's second banana ABC had recommended (among others) Jim Bouton, author of Ball Four and sports reporter on WABC-TV's Eyewitness News team...
...Traditionally, the thing to do is to offer your opponent a choice of weapons...
...It actually resembled the Jack Paar-Dorothy Kilgallen brouhaha of the '50s...
...But Jack was adamant about having Peggy Cass, his dear friend and the lady he calls "the wittiest woman I've ever met...
...These four things were eventually chiselled on the wall in very large letters...
...This thing you have with Nachman is like having a feud with Dody Goodman...
...Anybody in the White House would make a more interesting target...
...Time will tell...
...Unfortunately, he wasn't able to lure Alexander King to his show the first week...
...I know that Jack said his primary purpose in returning was to help Dick out, but for God's sake, he has a reputation as a wit to uphold...
...So, we will not have Mr...
...The unpredictable Jack Paar, I'm sure, will find some way of continuing the dispute in future months, although there is a cloud in this picture...
...But the ever unpredictable Jack did not ask my advice...
...It was Paar at his most waspish...
...If he had asked me, I would have said: "Drop it, Jack...
...These offerings undoubtedly appealed to the six people in the TV audience who enjoy home movies...
...Nobody cares about Nachman...
...Paar is the acknowledged master of the rapier wit—whereas Nachman is good at the epee...
...In fact, so little of the unexpected happened that ABC officials were jubilant when Paar finally turned on New York Daily News TV critic Gerald Nachman at the end of the week...
...But he did uncover those fresh personalities, Genevieve, Hans Conreid, Jonathan Winters and Ms...
...Yet, were Paar's insults so spontaneous...
...Better yet...
...I have been told that this Nachman destroyed several people—one comic, I just heard, was destroyed by a review...
...The major innovation the dean (emeritus) of American talk shows seems to have brought out of retirement with him from Westchester is home movies...
...This reporter received a copy of a memorandum the "unpredictable" Paar supposedly had in his pocket the evening of January 12...
...This is the list that used to be on the bulletin board of the sixth floor of the NBC Building from 1958-63...
...Friday morning (January 12): Nachman writes a review of the first week of Paar shows...
...I want Mr...
...He told the kid: "You've got to fight me on my court and with my audience as the judge of who won the duel...
...Oscar Levant...
...It read: THINGS TO DO TODAY (Friday): 1. Buy more film for my Brownie camera...
...In case you missed the beginning of the Paar-Nachman feud—ranked by some veteran observers with the fight in the '50s between Jerry Lewis and John Horn of the New York Herald Tribune—here is the chronology...
Vol. 56 • April 1973 • No. 8
