Thirty Years of Carson Online, On DVD

12 Aug, 2010 By: Chris Tribbey

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More than 3,300 hours of “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson has been archived online at JohnnyCarson.com, with clips available for the first time to the public, media and others who may want to license the content.

Along with the 30-year library going digital, Carson Entertainment Group (CEG), which manages licensing rights to the show, said it will release of series of DVDs of the show in 2010, including a deluxe collector’s boxed set.

“We have received so many inquiries and requests for this material over the years that we have taken steps to make the materials more accessible and instantly searchable,” said CEG president Jeff Sotzing. “Segments have been used in films like Fargo, Talk to Me and Watchmen, as well as in commercials and other productions.”

The archive had been stores in various media formats in a Kansas salt mine until 1999, and it wasn’t until 2009 that CEG approached Deluxe Archive Solutions to move the entire collection to digital. Deluxe went further, and developed metadata for the collection, including links to full transcripts from the show.

“The Carson library represents both an important record of our recent past and serves as a model for media archives in the future,” said Tyler Leshney, VP of Deluxe Archive Solutions. “We are enormously proud to have worked with such an amazing piece of American entertainment history.”

On Oct. 26 CEG and Respond2 Entertainment will street Tonight: 4 Decades of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, which features more than 50 shows covering 30 hours of “The Tonight Show.” Bonuses include never-before-seen interviews with actress Loni Anderson, comedian David Brenner and animal handler Jim Fowler. List price is $119.99.

Carson died in 2005 at the age of 79.

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