The Dick Cavett Show : Episodes airing on "Decades"

Episodes airing on "Decades"

The Decades network has been airing episodes -- here are some of the guests:

Shirley Temple, from circa 1972 -- aired Feb. 10, 2016: Shirley is the sole guest. Quite a bit of siren noise at times (fire truck or ambulance).

Joan Rivers
Joe Namath (NFL)
Jim Brown (NFL)

"No cheesecake [photos]." -- Hazel (Shirley Booth)

Re: Episodes airing on "Decades"

Some of the shows are hit and miss. The Adam Clayton Powell episode was a hoot, and he upstaged both Joe Namath and Joan Rivers.

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Re: Episodes airing on "Decades"

shirley temple was a very insightful interview.the same with jackie robinson.it was strange to see jackie 2nd on the bill behind a guy with 2 wolves.jackie could have filled the entire show.

Re: Episodes airing on "Decades"

One of the reasons I found both of those fascinating: we're so used to seeing their younger selves. I agree, an entire show could've been devoted to a Robinson interview.

Once in a while, Decades will make an error on a show date. A couple of weeks ago, the date one of the presenters stated did not agree with the date given in a caption (added to the bottom of the screen).

I was also going to mention that Antenna TV recently aired a 1984 Cavett appearance on The Tonight Show. Among other things he revealed how the letters in the name "Spiro Agnew" can be rearranged... into "grow a penis" -- ! LOL (of course the word for the male sex organ was deleted from the broadcast).


Re: Episodes airing on "Decades"

the johhny carson reruns makes me appreciate just how good johnny was. cavett tried to compete with him but couldnt come close.first, dick isnt funny and second he interrupts his guest too much, trying to say something witty or urbane. i wish he would not have kept side tracking his guest.

Re: Episodes airing on "Decades"


the johhny carson reruns makes me appreciate just how good johnny was. cavett tried to compete with him but couldnt come close.first, dick isnt funny and second he interrupts his guest too much, trying to say something witty or urbane. i wish he would not have kept side tracking his guest.

Oh, my my, I really disagree with that.

Although no one was going to compete with Johnny's ratings, and his monologues (for a while) were great --- he made his bombing even funnier than when the jokes worked, his interviews weren't terribly insightful and weren't designed to be. Carson tried to keep things light (and make himself look bright, which he was) but very little was gleaned from those interviews.

Dick Cavett, on the other hand, wasn't burdened with trying to keep his show feeling like a fast-moving carnival. So the interviews went a bit deeper (which was why some people would do Cavett's show who avoided Carson's more flippant format). And, eventually, when Carson shifted into "automatic" as he did in his final decade, Cavett (who always seemed engaged) had already ended his show.

Carson was the best at what he did and was highly intelligent, but he eventually began phoning it in, and he felt the need to keep most conversation overly breezy. And, as Cavett himself observed, Carson drank too much.

Johnny Carson's TONIGHT SHOW is hard for me to watch in reruns, and it looks much better in out-of-context snippets. It otherwise doesn't age too well, not so much because of the bygone eras it covers, but because it stays a bit too vacuous in tone and, in retrospect, it feels a little dead.

Not so with Cavett. No, not every episode is dazzling, but the interviews are a tad more substantive, so it winds up the superior period piece.

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LBJ's mistress on JFK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXeutDmuRA


Re: Episodes airing on "Decades"

i just watched phil silvers from about 1981 and it was a very good interview.perhaps dick had learned not to interrupt as much by then or maybe he had a real interest in what phil had to say. he even joked that phil "liked to talk". i had no real interest before hand but silvers had so many good stories to tell. dick did well to just let phil carry the show.

Re: Episodes airing on "Decades"

Duke Ellington was on last nite & started to mention info on some vintage jazz 'cats' but DC interrupted him to ask another question. Johnny, Charlie Rose, Merv, etc.. all do it too. If only they weren't under their director's pressure to keep things moving, so afraid of quiet spots... which usually helps celebs divulge interesting stuff no host could ever imagine to ask!

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I think I agree with you, madman58. I was watching the show with Fred Astaire and it seemed like Mr. Astaire had a lot of interesting things to say, but Cavett kept cutting him off with these flip, glib comments that didn't add anything to the conversation.

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Yeah, Astaire being a quiet, polite gentleman... if interrupted would let DC take the floor, arghhh! Agree, Dick makes stupid jokes instead of just letting the guest shine.

Re: Episodes airing on "Decades"

Cavett's interview of Astaire I thought was not one of his best. He did better with Ginger Rogers.

The Phil Silvers eps were pretty remarkable -- at times, a person who's new to his past and Broadway, etc. pretty much would need footnotes to really understand a lot of the anecdotes. Still though, where else can you find such a substantive talk?

Far less satisfying: Gloria Swanson, who wanted to talk almost exclusively about income taxes!! Very frustrating from such a great star of silents and later. At that time, much of her earliest work remained "lost," but she was eventually proved right about at least some not being -- and significant films were later recovered.

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For me, Cavett is so much better than Carson. Carson always appeared uncomfortable to me and he would always resort to insulting others when things got awkward.

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Is the airing of the show on Decades the first time it's been aired since its original broadcast?

Re: Episodes airing on "Decades"

turner classic has shown some of these.

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Dick Cavett and Johnny Carson were two different shows. Carson was fluff, Cavett substance. I'm watching the 9/7/72 episode right now with Mel Torme' and Jane Fonda. This show aired just months after Fonda came back from her infamous visit to North Viet Nam and a day or two after the Munich Olympic hostage crisis. A deep, serious, frank discussion of the situation in Viet Nam ensued. Cavett was very blunt in his questions and Mel Torme' shocked the heck out of me as he basically sided with Fonda. You rarely saw anything like that on Carson, while it was SOP for Cavett. The third guest was Dr. Wardell Pomeroy with the Kinsey Report, and hearing a discussion on homosexuality, women and the frequency of orgasm, male impotency and the differences in the sexual appetites of the upper and lower class was jaw dropping, as they say today, for 1972. Carson was kissing up to actors promoting their latest project, animals, past their prime celebrities and an occasional face-in-the-crowd every man.

Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

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watched it today as well. torme actually was a pretty good interviewer.i am glad cavett let the show flow.sometimes he steps on it.jane has regretted till this day sitting on that anti-aircraft gun.
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