The Long History of ‘The Tonight Show’ and Its Hosts

Johnny Carson for 'The Tonight Show'
NBC / courtesy Everett Collection
This excerpt appears
courtesy of our partner site

The Tonight Show is currently the longest-running nighttime talk show on the air. It began on September 27, 1954, which was a whopping 69 years ago! Of course, the show has gone through some major changes through the decades but it is still at its core, a show that aims to share the news and celebrity interviews along with some laughs. In its inception, it was actually a 40-minute local TV show in New York that aired from 11:20 p.m. to midnight on WNBT.