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  1. `Jay Pennington `Jay Pennington

    Great to hear more about the Don Rickles bit, and to get confirmation that it was planned, on the Tonight Show side anyway. Makes sense that they paid the Aaron Ruben the courtesy of a heads up.

    I find it interesting he mentions having prepared a handheld camera on a 100′ cable. As Johnny walks over, the camera he’s on is clearly a normal studio camera, with the operator is doing his best to keep up, probably having to deal with cables and other things in the way. Once Johnny’s in Studio 2, they cut the cameras there. What I’d like to know: in the control room, were they able to punch to Studio 2 cameras on the fly, or did they have to drop in these shots in post from Sharkey’s tapes? That, and I wonder if he’s misremembering about having a handheld camera, because I don’t see evidence of one being used. They occasionally cut back to the Studio A camera, seemingly barely into the hallway and zoomed in. Perhaps what he was thinking of was the fact that there was a handheld mic on a long cable available for Johnny.

    • Mark Malkoff Mark Malkoff

      Thanks, Jay! When the show was originally broadcast Johnny and Rickles interaction was shown only by one camera which was a Tonight Show camera in the hallway shooting into studio 3. It was only later in the anniversary shows that they edited in the footage captured in studio 3 by the CPO Sharkey cameras.

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