Don Giller

They were in NYC holding auditions for their upcoming series "Buffalo Bill," starring Dabney Coleman. The show would premiere the following June.

In a few years Tom and Jay would split apart over career disputes. Tom would create "Alf" while Jay's interests led him to create "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd."

I had intended to upload the LN appearance only, but then I realized I should also include those talk-show stand-ups I had recorded five decades earlier.

I dug out the tape yesterday and digitized it last night. It was at double the recording speed on the left channel with other "stuff" going on on the right.

Using the defunct audio editing application Peak, I slowed them down by half, extracted the channel I wanted and created new files in full mono. Then finally got to listen to these recordings for the first time in over half a century.

The first is from The Merv Griffin Show. Unlike everything about me, I didn't document the recording date at the time. When I catalogued all my reel-to-reels in SF in 1977-78, I wrote down "circa 1967?"

But tonight I found the exact date: Merv introduced the duo and mentioned that they began a stint at the "Plaza 9" "yesterday." That's all I needed. I dug out my New Yorker DVD collection and began with 1967.

Each issue begins with columns of entertainment announcements around the city -- Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, jazz clubs, and cabarets. "Plaza 9" was the first in the "cabaret" section.