Comedian David Brenner passed away on Saturday of cancer. He was 78.
Brenner has the distinction of appearing on The Tonight Show more often than any other guest. He also was a regular guest host for Johnny Carson in the 1970s and early 1980s. Brenner briefly became a competitor with Carson when he hosted a short-lived late night talk show called Nightlife with David Brenner in 1986-87. I liked that show. Apparently, I was the only one.
Here is Brenner’s
Tonight Show debut in January 1971. Carson had to implore him to come back out on stage for a curtain call. As Johnny put it with a Yiddish accent, “I did good — why should I come back?” Well, he would come back more than 150 times.
