Clark is not only the man known for hosting American Bandstand and producing The $10,000 Pyramid. He brought the world a very popular show in the 1980s called TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes.
The idea was no more Clark’s idea than rock and roll was. Making fun of radio screw-ups from old broadcasts goes back to the Jack Benny radio days; a couple of shows revolved around Benny pulling out a transcription and lecturing his staff on their mistakes (who then heard the sound of Benny making his own). In 1954, Jubilee Records released “Pardon My Blooper” with the sound of “oops!” from various radio and TV shows (some in the series of LPs were controversially re-created). Perhaps that’s where Jack Paar got the idea of devoting part of his Tonight show of December 31, 1958 to showing things that didn’t quite go right on the air. Here’s a story about it from the Associated Press wire service dated January 7, 1959. (The photo to the right is Paar; the one to the left is Jack Lescoulie).
The Whole World Loves a First Class Mistake
By CHARLES MERCER
New York (AP)—Many people admire polished performances, but the whole world loves a booboo. Television had its share in the year—just past—and can look forward to more as long as people remain human.
TV performers sometimes confide in close friends their most embarrassing moments in the air. But it took Jack Paar to rebroadcast his to the entire nation.
By re-showing the kinescopes of some of his booboos on his NBC-TV New Year's Eve show, Paar may have started a new programming trend. There's certainly a backlog of material to draw from.
There was, for example, the production of "MacBeth" in which a stage hand was caught on camera as he set up a cauldron and thereby became the play's fourth witch. There also was the production in which an actor frantically labored to light a fire and finally gave up with a muttered “Damp wood!”
The most commonplace goofs are slips of the tongue, such as “I Love Loosely” or “NBC Prevents Pinky Lee.” One announcer who meant to say “We're down to our last pack of cigs” heard himself saying, “We're down to our last sack of pigs.” Nearly everybody has heard about the slip by a radio announcer of decades ago who said, “And now the President of the United States, Hoobert Herver.” NBC commentator Chet Huntley was thinking of that slip when he introduced Herbert Hoover Jr.: “And now to the rostrum, where we’ll hear Herbert Hever . . . Hoobert Hover . . . Hoober Hooper . . . er, Her-vah . . . Herbert Hoover Jr.” People frequently think the cameras are off them or the show ended before the moment has arrived.
At the end of the puppet show, “Art Carney Meets Peter and the Wolf,” not long ago, a figure rose and ran across the stage before fade-out. ABC President Oliver Treyze, watching the program, yelled, “Fire that man!” He couldn’t, because the man was not an ABC employee. He was master puppeteer Bill Baird, who thought the show had ended.
On the "Today” show a cake was knocked over and the frosting ruined just before it was to be used on a commercial. A prop-man rushed out to a nearby drugstore, bought a container of foam shaving cream, and gave the cake a tasty-looking but soapy frosting. All would have been well if Dave Garroway had not taken an unrehearsed, unscripted bite. His grimace of disgust was seen across the country.
No anthology of goofs would be worthy of the name if it left out the commercial on the Paar show in which an actor demonstrated an electric shaver.
Zsa Zsa Gabor, sitting beside Paar, murmured, “it will cut him.”
Paar was understandably disturbed. “It will not!” he shouted. “It won't cut anything.”
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