Paar's Last Tape

For five years Jack Paar stood TV's most remorseless watch for NBC, the nightly Tonight show. Then by choice he tapered off the last three seasons with a mere weekly caper. Last week, at 48, Paar went off the air altogether to boss a TV and FM station he bought control of (putting up $1,350,000 in cash) in Poland Spring, Me.

The network, believing that he was one of the industry's formative performers, tried to blow his valedictory* into a gala, but Jack felt otherwise. "I want to get out the easiest way possible," he decreed. "They say I'm emotional, and I am. I don't know what I'd do if I saw people around." So when Paar came on, there was no studio audience. All that could be seen was a tieless Jack and his German Shepherd, Leica, seated midway back in the taping theater.

"Welcome," he opened, "to 'Jack Paar and His Friends.' " It was virtually the only abrasive brush of the hour. "Some people," he cautioned, "expect a tearful farewell. Others expect I will take a few swings." But Jack held back both tears and hostilities. His "easy way out" was to limit his contribution to a few bridges of continuity--the rest of the show was a splice-up of some of his favorite vignettes from past seasons. There he was again as the bowlegged, barelegged (except for anklet socks) toreador fleeing a rampaging bull in a Madrid ring. Or replaying his "Now a message from Alka-Seltzer," which was unexpectedly punctuated by a belch from Jonathan Winters. Or sending Richard Nixon to the piano and leading Bea Lillie off with a fond pat on her backside.

"You can only work a field so many seasons in a row before it becomes barren," he said at the end. "I don't think Paar's half acre is completely worn out, but it has gotten a little dry lately." Yet "some day I may re-enter the lists --with a new saber neither broken nor bent--and plow up the field all over again. Come on, Leica, come on. We're going home."

* This week's Paar show, and the next nine, are reruns.

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