Word: skitch
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...DIED. SKITCH HENDERSON, 87, avuncular, Grammy-winning maestro of TV's Golden Age; in New Milford, Conn. Born Lyle Russell Cedric Henderson, the classically trained musician got his start on radio shows starring Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby (who gave him his nickname) before landing a job as the Tonight Show's first bandleader. With his Vandyke beard and audience-participation games, he was a key part of the show, bantering with Steve Allen and, later, Johnny Carson. After a jail stint for income-tax evasion, he founded the symphonic orchestra New York Pops, which he directed until his death...
...earliest episodes established a format that has varied hardly at all in "The Tonight Show" or most any other late-night talkfest: the theme song (Steve's own "This Could Be the Start of Something Big"), the bantering band leader (Skitch Henderson), the announcer (Jack Lescoulie), the opening monologue, the host's desk and the guest's couch, the featured spots for singers (Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Andy Williams) and comics (including Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Shelley Berman...
Before Johnny shed Jody, he acquired an announcer named Ed McMahon. This was to become one of the enduring show-business partnerships, but not until some rules were established. Carson's first Tonight show bandleader, Skitch Henderson, remembers the "many times I watched Johnny trying to get rid of Ed." Then McMahon stopped reaching for his own laughs and settled into the long-running role of Mr. Subservience...
...Stokie, conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra, is an old hand at the game. He patiently drilled his musicians for the day when he could talk his neighbors, the New York Philharmonic, into a friendly match. So there he was zinging in the first ball while Umpire Skitch Henderson scrutinized his style. Even though the Philharmonic had a ringer in sometime triangle player George Plimpton, Stokowski's sluggers drummed out a 15-10 victory. "They're younger," allowed a Philharmonic musician. Not so, snapped the maestro: "When we play a game...
...Skitch Henderson and his orchestra playing the traditional tunes...