To trace his TV career, Cavett was on ABC daytime from March 4, 1968 until January 24, 1969 (originally titled "This Morning"). Very few recorded clips survive, since the show was often live.
A few months later, he got a primetime summer show on the odd schedule of Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (May 26-September 19, 1969). That's the show which had the famous episode with Woodstock performers.
At the end of the year, he replaced Joey Bishop as host of ABC's late night show starting December 29, 1969. This show is usually listed as running until January 1, 1975 BUT -- in its last two years, it was not a nightly show. Instead, it rotated (one week a month) as part of ABC's "Wide World of Entertainment." This was a series of news, specials, reruns, foreign programs (such as Monty Python), movies, and even "Jack Paar Tonite," the short-lived return by Cavett's mentor and former boss, Jack Paar (January 8, 1973 until November, 1973).
After ABC canceled Cavett, CBS boss Fred Silverman snapped him up as a kind of roving reporter/entertainer, interviewing Barbra Streisand for a special and conducting various high profile forms of business. It's kind of the same way NBC employed Jay Leno in the mid-'80s, before he became permanent guest host on "The Tonight Show."
Eventually, Silverman suggested Cavett as a summer replacement for Carol Burnett. The Saturday night variety show aired August 16-September 6, 1975. His lead-in was the powerhouse lineup of "All In the Family," "The Jeffersons," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," and "The Bob Newhart Show." Yet the experiment didn't go smoothly. The first clip I found was from episode four (the last one), where he's wearing a John Travolta disco suit (years before "Saturday Night Fever") and expertly interviewing Cher.
Why didn't it work?
In his 1983 book "Eye On Cavett," he cautiously hints that the producers were the problem, but doesn't name them and doesn't say what all of the issues were. According to my research, the show was run by former "Sesame Street" Producers Carole and Bruce Hart. Cavett says they wanted a "concept" for the show, such as "Why is the packaging of a BIC pen so difficult to open?" The tapings were also an agonizing affair, taking several hours to shoot episode one. Cavett preferred going essentially live-to-tape, as he had for the past several years, but was overruled. It didn't help that his first choice for producer, Bob Precht (Ed Sullivan's son-in-law), had to drop out. Silverman suddenly left for ABC that spring, taking most network support with him. Then, Cavett learned that CBS had leased his preferred studio (The Ed Sullivan Theater) to ABC for use on Howard Cosell's "Saturday Night Live."
The writing likely wasn't an issue, since the writers were Christopher Porterfield, Marshal Efron, Alfa-Betty Olsen, Tom Meehan, Tony Geis, and Clark Gessner. The first two are frequent Cavett collaborators; the others, I'm not sure. The show was directed by Alan Meyerson and Clark Jones, and apparently it had two semi-regulars (i.e. "cast of zanies"): Imogene Coca and Leigh French. It's like a weird version of the hit "Tony Orlando & Dawn."
The guest list was also first-rate. Since there's very little video tape existing, this is what I've pieced together for an episode guide (with links to the clips I've found):
#1 (Aug. 16, 1975): Liza Minnelli, Henry Gibson, Doug Henning
#2 (Aug. 23, 1975): Peter Ustinov, Jean Stapleton, Neil Sedaka
#3 (Aug. 30, 1975): Jackie Gleason, LaBelle, and the cast of "Upstairs, Downstairs"... Jean Marsh (Rose), David Langton (Mr. Bellamy), Simon Williams (James), Gordon Jackson (Hudson), and Rachel Gurney
#4 (Sept. 6, 1975): Cher, Steve Allen, Barry Manilow, magician Slydini
Cavett is very complimentary to the guests when recounting the show in his book, saying the interplay between Cher and Slydini was "delightful." He adds that Steve Allen "clowned engagingly" through a sketch about old-time radio (with Marshall Efron as the sound effects man). The cast of "Upstairs, Downstairs" was "briskly cheerful." Nothing about Gleason, unfortunately. Apparently, after the first taping, he sent profuse notes of thanks and apology to Doug Henning and Liza. Peter Ustinov is described as a variety show unto himself. Cavett does say that Jean Stapleton "showed herself to be a brick in a near-beguiling sketch with Ustinov." That surprises me since Stapleton is thoroughly of the thespian tradition which Cavett loves, and she had been on the ABC show at least once (April 16, 1973). Did "brick" mean something different when the book was written (1983)?
Back to the show itself, Cavett says the episodes were likely dumped in a river by CBS... but the clip above has a "Decades" channel bug in the corner. So were they rerun on that channel, alongside his ABC late night episodes?
After the CBS experience, Cavett hosted SNL twice (proving that he could easily handle variety, so long as it wasn't a labored affair), and eventually had another nice run on PBS from October 10, 1977-October 8, 1982... until affiliates voted him off?! I don't get it.
Cavett would return on USA (cable) from September 30, 1985-September 23, 1986 with an excellent program. He left that show, unfortunately, to head back to ABC's late night berth on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from September 22-December 30, 1986. Incidentally, his replacement on USA was Robert Klein, whose show ran until 1988.
Cavett later had nice runs on CNBC (April 17, 1989-January 26, 1996) and TCM (2006–2007).
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