One of the pioneering TV creations of NBC president Pat Weaver, it demonstrated the potential for late-night programming and led to the later development of The Tonight Show.

Hornsby's sudden demise forced NBC to postpone the show and rush to find new hosts on short notice.

Pat Weaver, an NBC executive at the time, noticed the positive feedback that Jerry Lester (then hosting Cavalcade of Stars for Dumont) and his manic personality had received on a recent appearance on NBC and offered Lester the hosting position almost immediately.

Lester performed sketches with his crew of sidekicks (including some of the earliest TV appearances of brassy Barbara Nichols), running through standard nightclub comedy routines and introducing the show's vocal group, the Mello Larks.

[2] Other Broadway Open House cast members were tap dancer Ray Malone, accordionist Milton DeLugg, announcer Wayne Howell and vocalists Jane Harvey, Andy Roberts and David Street.

DeLugg often played a song he wrote with Stein, "Orange Colored Sky", which became a hit for both Lester and for Nat King Cole.

Stan Burns, Allan Sherman, Art Henley, Alan Sands, and Cal Howard were the writers.

There are those who dispute Weaver's credit for The Tonight Show, including hosts Steve Allen and Jack Paar.

With her new name, she sat on a stool with a sign around her neck saying "Girl Singer," did breathing exercises, and soon performed as a reader of poems and plays, while Lester made occasional jokes about her "hidden talents."

[6] Lester was retained as a rotating host for a new early prime-time variety show the next season, Chesterfield Sound-Off Time, along with Fred Allen and Bob Hope.

[This quote needs a citation] NBC had tried unsuccessfully to do late night television with the comedian Jerry Lester and with Morey Amsterdam in the early 1950s, but that did not go over well with the viewers.

But Fred Allen was one of the great humorists in the history of entertainment to that time, and the nation was still in shock because people had just seen him the previous Sunday night.Broadway Open House was an early influence on the comedy stylings of George Carlin who spoke of the show in an interview with the Television Academy recorded December 17, 2007.

Everybody mentions Steve Allen, which is the proper place to begin the genealogy of The Tonight Show itself, but a lot of them leave out Broadway Open House with Jerry Lester.