On DVD: 15-Disc Tonight Show Box Promises More Than It Delivers

As with most things in life, how much you enjoy Tonight: 4 Decades of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (Respond2 Entertainment) will depend a great deal on what you're expecting from it.

If you're a fan of the late-night king and just want to travel from the '60s to the '90s with him, you'll find plenty of great comedy bits (a who's-who of the era's comics did their time on Carson's stage) and musical guests (ranging from Vikki Carr to Luciano Pavarotti to k.d. lang). And if it's just a parade of outrageous hairstyles and wardrobe choices through the years that you're after, you'll be well-sated.

I have to say, though, for a 15-disc set boasting some 30 hours of material, I found myself disappointed that this collection didn't try to take a more historical overview of this iconic talk show. We get just one episode from the 1960s (the fawning booklet doesn't mention the fact that NBC, back in the day, erased years and years of early Carson shows, as well as the first two Super Bowls, just so they could reuse the videotapes), and while this collection features lots of Carson's favorite guests, it leaves out many of The Tonight Show's totemic moments.

I mean, where's Tiny Tim's wedding? Or the show where Carson barged in on a live taping of CPO Sharkey just to yell at Don Rickles for breaking his cigarette box? Or even the show's final week of tributes? (Carson left the air in 1992, but this collection goes no further than 1990.)

Even the episodes included aren't presented in their entirety -- the New Year's Eve broadcast of 1965 features embryonic appearances by Woody Allen and The Muppets, but Carson also teases the participation of hyperbolic TV psychic Criswell, which we don't get to see on the DVD. (I, for one, am dying to know what the Plan Nine from Outer Space co-star -- Jeffrey Jones played Criswell in Ed Wood -- predicted for 1966.)

If this box is an opening salvo for a more rigorously-curated series of Tonight Show releases, then more power to it. At the moment, though, it feels more like a collection of great-ish hits rather than a fitting tribute to a man who changed the landscape of television.