In addition to his usual monologue, Cavett opened each show reading selected questions written by audience members, to which he would respond with witty rejoinders.

The Candide snippet became Cavett's theme song and was used as the introduction to his later PBS series, and was played by the house band on his various talk show appearances.

Among those receiving such special treatment (some more than once) were Groucho Marx,[1] Laurence Olivier, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn (without an audience), Bette Davis, Orson Welles, Noël Coward (who appeared on the same show with Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Tammy Grimes and Brian Bedford), John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Janis Joplin, Ray Charles, Alfred Hitchcock, Fred Astaire, Woody Allen, Gloria Swanson, Jerry Lewis, Lucille Ball, Zero Mostel ("on some shows I've had just one guest, but tonight I have Zero"), Bob Hope and David Bowie.

These shows helped showcase Cavett's skills as a host who could attract guests that otherwise might not do interviews, at the expense of some of the excitement that might ensue from the multiple-guest format.

In January 1973, despite a vociferous letter campaign, ratings forced the show to be cut back to occasional status, airing one week a month under the umbrella title ABC's Wide World of Entertainment.

As a result of continuing coverage of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination that took place earlier that morning, Cavett's show did not begin until 11 am, and was interrupted at 11:20 for 30 minutes of further updates on the unfolding tragedy.

On the following two mornings, the show began at its regular time of 10:30 am, and was once again devoted exclusively to assassination coverage, and presented without commercial interruption.

We plan for our sound to go inside the soul of the person…and see if they can awaken some sort of thing in their minds, because there are so many sleeping people.Hendrix then performed "Hear My Train A Comin'" with the house band and played the guitar with his teeth at the end of the song.

Jimi Hendrix was scheduled to join the others, but was unable to appear at the afternoon taping that occurred only a few hours after he had performed at the late-running festival.

Hendrix performed "Izabella" & "Machine Gun" with his band, Billy Cox, Mitch Mitchell and Juma Sultan.

When the show returned, the next guest, Dr. Aaron Stern, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist and director of the MPAA's code and rating administration, was brought out, and Frechette and Halprin were not interviewed further.

This impromptu interview was well received by the audience and, among other things, humorously acknowledged Cavett's talk-show competitors such as Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin.

Director John Cassavetes and actors Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara appeared on the show to promote the movie Husbands.

All three guests were highly intoxicated, and "for thirty-five minutes they smoked, flopped around on the floor, and generally tormented Cavett, whose questions they'd planned to ignore.

"[3] Retiring Georgia governor Lester Maddox, appearing in a panel discussion with author Truman Capote and football great Jim Brown, walked off the show in the middle of a conversation about segregation.

Capote, after watching Maddox walk offstage, paused and quipped, "I've been to his restaurant and his chicken isn't that finger lickin' good."

Left alone on stage, Maddox cued the band and began singing "I Don't Know Why I Love You Like I Do" as Cavett reappeared in the wings to join in.

Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí appeared on the show with silent-screen star Lillian Gish and baseball legend Satchel Paige.

Cavett asked Dalí why he had once arrived to give a lecture at the Sorbonne in an open limousine filled with heads of cauliflower.

Dalí responded with a barely coherent discourse regarding the similarity of the cauliflower head to the "mathematical problem discovered by Michelangelo in the rhinoceros' horn."

Cavett's reaction to this is contested: he claims that both he and Hamill realized immediately that something was wrong, while other accounts have him addressing the unconscious man with "Are we boring you, Mr.

[8] As the show began taping, a visibly belligerent Mailer, who admitted he had been drinking,[8] goaded Vidal and Cavett into trading insults with him on air and continually referred to his "greater intellect".

The headbutting and later on-air altercation was described by Mailer in his short book Of a Small and Modest Malignancy, Wicked and Bristling with Dots, including a description that does not jibe with the videotape and which was disputed by Cavett decades later in his New York Times online column.

[12] Critic John Simon revealed on the air that during the most recent commercial break, fellow guest Mort Sahl had threatened to punch him in the mouth.

A show with Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton resulted in nine animals being added to the endangered species list after Cavett commented on them.

Marlon Brando, who just months earlier had rejected his Academy Award for The Godfather to protest the plight of American Indians, appeared on the show with representatives of the Cheyenne, Paiute and Lummi tribes to promote his views.

[18] Pianist Oscar Peterson expertly demonstrated the styles of Art Tatum, Erroll Garner, Nat King Cole and George Shearing.

[23] Reruns of the show currently air weeknights on the Decades cable network, though 90-minute episodes have been cut to fit a one-hour slot, and musical performances are almost always removed, presumably for licensing reasons.

In a scene from the 1977 Woody Allen–directed film, Annie Hall, Allen appears on the show in character as comedian Alvy Singer, with Cavett interviewing.

There is a scene in the 1994 film Forrest Gump, where Tom Hanks in the titular role, appears in the show together with John Lennon.