page_title: Steve Allen
section_title: The Tonight Show
hierarchical_section_title: Steve Allen / Career / The Tonight Show
caption_attribution_description: Promotional bookmark for the Steve Allen and Morey Amsterdam television programs which were seen on WNBT-TV, New York. The bookmark carried a promotion for Allen on one side and Amsterdam on the other. The promotion was shared with Pocket Books and Cardinal Books, who were publishers of paperback books.
context_page_description: Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was an American television personality, radio personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, writer, and an advocate of scientific skepticism. In 1954, he achieved national fame as the co-creator and first host of The Tonight Show, which was the first late night television talk show.
  Though he got his start in radio, Allen is best known for his extensive network television career. He gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. After he hosted The Tonight Show, he went on to host numerous game and variety shows, including his own The Steve Allen Show, I've Got a Secret, and The New Steve Allen Show. He was a regular panel member on CBS's What's My Line?, and from 1977 until 1981 wrote, produced, and hosted the award-winning public broadcasting show Meeting of Minds, a series of historical dramas presented in a talk format.
  Allen was a pianist and a prolific composer. By his own estimate, he wrote more than 8,500 songs, some of which were recorded by numerous leading singers. Working as a lyricist, Allen won the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Original Jazz Composition.
context_section_description: Leaving CBS, Allen created a late-night New York talk/variety television program that debuted in June 1953 on local station WNBT-TV (now WNBC-TV). The following year, on September 27, 1954, the show went on the full NBC network as The Tonight Show, with fellow radio personality Gene Rayburn (who later went on to host hit game shows such as Match Game, 1962–1982) as the original announcer. The show ran from 11:15 p.m. to 1 a.m. on the East Coast.
  While Today developer Sylvester "Pat" Weaver often is credited as the Tonight creator, Allen often pointed out that he had created it earlier as a local New York show. Allen told his nationwide audience that first evening: "This is Tonight, and I can't think of too much to tell you about it except I want to give you the bad news first: This program is going to go on forever ... You think you're tired now. Wait until you see one o'clock roll around!" It was as host of The Tonight Show that Allen pioneered the "man on the street" comedic interviews and audience-participation comedy breaks that went on to become staples of late-night TV.
caption: Bookmark promotion for Allen's late-night show
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