Can’t say he is or was my favorite but Steve Allen was the first late night talk show host. His piano and song improvisations were awesome and I do believe that the Foster Brooks debut was on the Allen show. If I remember right, Steve nor his wife, Jayne Meadows knew that Foster was scheduled when he came in a sat next to Jayne whilst going through his drunk routine.
American radio and television talk show host Jack Paar (1918 - 2004) sits behind his desk and talks on the set of the NBC talk show 'The Tonight Show,' renamed 'The Jack Paar Show' while Paar was host, NBC Studios, New York, New York, late 1950s or early 1960s.
I took another gander at some of the answers including my own and then thought about the likes of Arthur Godfrey, Bob Hope, Jack Benny etc on the early entertainment radio broadcasts. If there were shows today on the radio similar to those of yesteryear, I doubt seriously if I’d spend much time listening to the highly opinionated stylings of what radio has become.
We listen to Art Bell reruns every Saturday night on radio with timer, if we don't fall asleep, I always listened to Bell on Coast to Coast. Savage Nation those two I guess are my favorite.
We do the same thing, nearly every night. We leave it to play all night, though. Coast to Coast with George Noory has never done it for me.
We have a timer on the radio, set it for 90 minutes so we here most of it. Sometimes all of it of course.
Were usually asleep by the time he comes on; we listen to it mainly now for Jakes tinnitus'ear ringing.We do listen to it more on Saturdays when Bell comes on.