Paar Exhumed

"Jack's back!" proclaimed ABC. "Television's most exciting personality returns to late night! He's as witty, warm, irreverent, unpredictable and controversial as ever." At least part of the network's ballyhoo was accurate. After eight years Jack Paar had indeed returned as a TV regular, and, yes, he was on late at night.

For viewers who had watched Paar in the late '50s and early '60s, however, the new Jack Paar was an acute attack of dej`a vu. A large dollop of nostalgia was in order, of course, but younger viewers must simply have been dumbfounded by Paar's smorgasbord from the past. Almost all the old faces--living and dead--were there. Peggy Cass sat in as Paar's answer to Ed McMahon, introducing Paar and doing commercials. Genevieve, whose funny French accent Paar discovered, was a guest, along with such other oldtime regulars as Jonathan Winters. Even Pianist Oscar Levant, who died last year, came back--in a replay of a show from the early '60s.

At times the clock seemed to have stopped in 1961 or '62, the year Paar quit NBC's Tonight Show. Paar found some old home movies of John Kennedy, to which he added his own maudlin commentary, speaking in an almost eerie way of "the President"--as if J.F.K. still resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In the exhibitionistic '70s, Paar's notion of sly comedy often seemed notably dated too. When Goldie Hawn came on, for instance, he joked about her flat chest. Two nights later he introduced Lee Meredith, a big-bosomed beauty from Neil Simon's comedy The Sunshine Boys. Again the same tiresome joke--in reverse.

Part of Paar's trouble was technical snafus. The first night his microphone went dead, and there were miscues for commercials. Beyond that, Paar--quite understandably--was more than usually nervous. "Look at me," he said. "I look confident and serene. Would you believe that I put both feet through the same hole in my Jockey shorts?"

In many ways Paar's vulnerability, his corniness and even his egocentricity are more appealing than the bland professionalism of a Johnny Carson, the empty-headed grin of a Merv Griffin, and the sometimes annoying coldness of a Dick Cavett (who will also have one week each month on ABC's Wide World of Entertainment). If Paar irritates, he also occasionally engages and surprises. "One thing Paar had, which I think he still has," says Robert Carman, the show's executive producer, "is his hold over people, the fear that if you turn him off, you might miss something."

There is room, certainly, for fresh faces and fresh views on the talk shows, which have settled into a deep rut of predictability, with the same authors selling the same books and the same actors shilling for the same movies. In selecting guests, Paar has announced a policy of "avoid the flock." Along with the not-so-golden oldies, his first week offered a new and funny comic, Kelly Monteith, and a remarkable sleeper in the person of Michael Meyers, a young doctor and sometime actor with an endless supply of hospital horror stories.

Like Cavett, however, Paar's real problem may be the ratings, which ABC used to cut back Cavett despite considerable protest from his fans. So far, even allowing for curiosity and nostalgia, the reaction to Paar has been less than stunning in New York and Los Angeles, the only two cities that have overnight reports. Preliminary reports, however, are inconclusive, and Carson, who seems to spend as little time as possible on his own show, does not have a permanent lease on the Nielsens.

Paar, at least, seems certain of his success. "God," he said with customary familiarity, "is kind to pregnant women, drunks and Jack Paar."

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