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As it moved into its second year last week, the show had chalked up five industry awards and a higher rating than successful Steve Allen several years ago in the same time slot. At a time when live shows are fading fast from every channel, the Paar show is seen over a record 115 stations and has collected as many as 38 sponsors, ranging from Minipoo shampoo to Corega denture fastener. One measure of the show's import is the loyalty of most of the guests; they are paid only "scale" ($320 per appearance), but most of them love the show for its fun — and for the publicity.
Today it is already fashionable to forget how few people gave the show a chance to survive at all with a tough TV audience —night people already addicted to six-gun cowpokes or to the time-defying charms of late movies, with their youthful Gables and ageless Garbos. Could the All-American boy with the dimpled chin and the dinky toupee move the merchandise against such competition? At first NBC bigwigs were talking about a well-integrated variety show. Says Paar: "A television executive doesn't know what he wants to do, but he can put it on paper. I let them all talk and write memos and I secretly made plans."
The Characters. Paar's plans consisted mostly of organized planlessness. During the past year Jack has tantalized a tame lion with doses of catnip, tangled with a pickpocket named Dominique, who lifted his wallet, belt and wrist watch, sweated through a few falls with a professional wrestler named Killer Kowalski. He has worn funny hats, taken off his pants, climbed up the studio walls. But always, the high points were provided by the talkers — guided or goaded, driven or drawn out by Jack.
There was Dody Goodman, corn-fed elf and professional birdbrain, whose irrelevance and irreverence were fun until Paar got rid of her in an unseemly family squabble (TIME, March 24). Elsa Maxwell appeared for weekly off-with-their-heads chats, chopped at so many well-known necks (including Winchell's, Presley's, Princess Grace's) that Jack was only half kidding when he rolled his eyes and groaned: "Call the lawyers." For a few frenetic nights, Zsa Zsa Gabor leaned over her cleavage and rattled her host into some now famous fluffs. "It will cut him!" she squealed, in the middle of his Norelco razor pitch. "It won't cut anything!" roared Jack, who could have happily cut off Zsa Zsa's blonde tresses when he realized what he had said.
Gradually a corporal's guard of regulars formed, including gifted Pianist Jose Melis, suave Announcer Hugh Downs and Singer Betty Johnson, who all served as Paar's foils. The regulars became as familiar as comic-strip characters. Leading characters at present : Genevieve, French singer with a haphazard haircut and accent to match, and an oldtime comedian named Cliff Arquette, with drooping pants and rustic repartee. Despite her sophisticated air, it is naively charming Genevieve who represents innocence on the show and Cliff, despite his cornball appearance, whose trigger-quick ad libs speak for sophistication. But the biggest character remains Jack Paar — and he represents neither innocence nor sophistication, but something in between.