''Weekend'' is an American

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program that aired on

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from 1974 to 1979. It originally aired once monthly on Saturday nights from 11:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. Eastern time, the same time slot as Saturday repeats of ''

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' was an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the ''Tonight Show'' franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, ...

'' during its first season, then to replace ''

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'', once a month on those weekends when the ''SNL'' cast was not producing a show. The program was awarded a George Foster Peabody medal in 1975 and attracted a cult following.

Overview

The program was hosted by Lloyd Dobyns, who also did much of the reporting. The show's creator and executive producer was past (and future) president of

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.
Together, Dobyns and Frank were largely responsible for the distinctive writing and quirky style of the program. The opening theme was the guitar intro to "

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" by

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. As a forward-focused executive, Frank brought in a woman, Clare Crawford-Mason, as the show's producer. In 1978, after four years of critical success and moderately good ratings for that hour, NBC moved ''Weekend'' to prime time. After airing once a month in various time slots in September, October, and November, the network placed the program weekly on Sunday nights at 10 P.M. Eastern time starting in December 1978.

Linda Ellerbee Linda Ellerbee (born Linda Jane Smith; August 15, 1944) is an American journalist, anchor, producer, reporter, author, speaker and commentator, noted as longtime Washington correspondent for NBC News and host of NBC News Overnight. She is widel ...

was added as Dobyns' co-host and co-lead reporter. Placed against strong programs on ABC and CBS, the show eventually died of poor ratings. A few years later, Ellerbee and Dobyns reunited to anchor another late-night NBC news program, '' NBC News Overnight''. The program was known for an offbeat format, a somewhat less serious tone than such programs as '' 60 Minutes''; comic relief included the use of humorous images (e.g., a trio of magazine covers, '' New York'', ''

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'', and the completely fictitious ''New Yorkest''), and the occasional animated cartoon, such as '' Mr. Hipp''. At the end of each broadcast, until the program began airing weekly, a sequence would be played of a rotating phonograph record with

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explaining when the next broadcast would take place. In the spring of 1978, when ''Weekends late-night run ended, Dobyns noted that "Your Subscription Has Expired", but stated that ''Weekend'' would be back that fall, in prime-time. At the end of the last broadcast in 1979, the voice intoned, "...there will be no more ''Weekends''."

References

{{reflist 1974 American television series debuts 1979 American television series endings American late-night television shows 1970s American television news shows NBC late-night programming NBC original programming NBC News Peabody Award-winning television programs 1970s American late-night television series