ABC's Wide World of Entertainment

Did You Know?

• Monty Python's Flying Circus taped its last episode in December 1974.
• The Python group, represented by Terry Gilliam, sued ABC for copyright infringement over the compilation.

Credits

Unable to find a single talk show to compete with NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, ABC aired a collection of comedy specials, documentaries, mystery movies, music concerts, and talk shows with various hosts. Included were The Dick Cavett Show, Jack Paar Tonite, Good Night America, the live concert series In Concert, the UK-originated anthology series Thriller, and Comedy News. Initially, Paar, Cavett, comedy specials, and mystery movies each received one week per month. Two nights of music concerts, broadcast every other Friday on weeks where specials or movies were broadcast, completed the monthly schedule. The 1975 and 1976 editions of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve were also broadcast as Wide World Specials.

Zapruder film

On the March 6, 1975, episode of Good Night America, host Geraldo Rivera featured JFK assassination researchers Robert J. Groden and Dick Gregory. They broadcast the Zapruder film on network television for the first time. The public reaction to this screening spurred the creation of the Hart-Schweiker investigation, influenced the Church Committee probe into U.S. intelligence activities, and led to the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

ABC Late Night

By the summer of 1974, the comedy and variety specials, along with most talk shows, had been canceled. Reruns of television films took their place, and on January 12, 1976, the block was renamed ABC Late Night. Besides movies shown under the ABC Movie of the Week banner, the network aired repeats of prime-time series like Police Woman, Mannix, Starsky & Hutch, Soap, Barney Miller, Charlie's Angels, and Fantasy Island. The only original programming came from Geraldo Rivera-hosted specials and the sketch comedy show Fridays.

Not every affiliate carried all these programs. ABC Late Night ended on October 22, 1982, and was replaced by the talk show The Last Word on October 26. That show aired its last episode on April 22, 1983, and was followed on the next Monday by One On One, hosted by Greg Jackson, who had hosted The Last Word. One On One was canceled in July 1983, leaving ABC without regular late-night network programming—except for Nightline and a brief 1986 block featuring a revived Dick Cavett Show alternating with an interview show hosted by Jimmy Breslin—until World News Now launched on January 6, 1992.