General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBill Maher Remembers Johnny Carson 20 Years Later
Aug. 31, 1982, is one of those dates that is seared into my head, like a personal 1066 or 1776. That was my first appearance on The Tonight Show, which was the gateway to a career in my chosen field, stand-up comedy. It was the baccalaureate of stand-up, a test you took early on that would decide the rest of your life. If you did well, youd get invited back and you might be on to a career. If you didnt, it was pretty much over. You might do other shows, but the goal was always to do other shows in order to get The Tonight Show, and youd blown that. One thing I loved about Johnny Carson and I try to emulate at every turn: he was ruthless.
He was ruthless in the service of giving the absolute best product possible to the audienceand that means cutting people off. Sometimes (rarely) in the middle of a sentence, sometimes (often) from the show altogether. Johnny would use somebody with great frequency, theyd be on there every few months, so you knew Johnny liked them, and the person would think they were his best friend. Then one day: bam, like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, back of the head, never saw it coming. Bye-bye, Phyllis Newman, it was fun while it lasted, but weve wrung from you the entertainment quotient you were born with, and this show is for the audience, not the guests.
Thats how you stay on for 30 years. You know that you serve at the pleasure of the audience: they dont really love you; they love what you do for them. And if you stop doing it, theyll find someone else to love, as they should. As they have every right to. Johnny didnt ever do bad shows. He was at 100 when he was at his best and 95 at his worst.
As for that first appearance of mine, fortunately it went well, and I did two more that year, including New Years Eve, so they must have seen something they liked in me. My thoughts turned to, when do I get invited to sit down?, because that was the next level of arrival. Just being on once shut up the wiseasses and doubters from the neighborhood about whether you could really be a comedian. One night on Johnny and you really were a -comedianbut nowhere near a star. In the era I did The Tonight Show, it didnt really make starsit discovered new talent whod be seen there and then get their own show, like Roseanne or Freddie Prinze with Chico and the Man.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/bill-maher-remembers-johnny-carson-20-years-later.html
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)He was the absolute best at what he did - Johnny is the only true King of Late Night.
monmouth
(21,078 posts)and eyes glued to the tv. One of the first words he ever said was "Here's Johnny." We still laugh about it to this day.
applegrove
(118,900 posts)Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)And how they were both the same, and that he was going to vote Libertarian.
As for talent, he's about as entertaining as Emo Phillips.
monmouth
(21,078 posts)was either high or drunk or something and contributed absolutely nothing to the show. She would answer him in one word answers, absolutely awful. He dismissed her so fast there was a trail of smoke left behind. He announced after she was gone that she would never darken his doorstep again. Hilarious.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)monmouth
(21,078 posts)Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts). . . that his cigarette box had been broken while he was gone by the guest host, Don Rickles, who had accidently broken it?
Then Carson took a camera man with him as he walked across the hall and over to the studio where Rickles was filming his own tv show called "C.P.O Sharkey", and confronted Don about breaking his cigarette box?
That was one of Carson's best shows, in my opinion.
monmouth
(21,078 posts)monmouth
(21,078 posts)kskiska
(27,051 posts)I preferred Jack Paar, whose guests were interesting and sometimes eccentric personalities not necessarily in the entertainment field. He featured authors of the day (Alexander King), writers (comedy writer Jack Douglas), explorers (Peter Freuchen, Jean Pierre Hallet), politicians (Kennedys, Castro), and others like Peter Ustinov, Hermione Gingold, and even ZsaZsa occasionally. He filmed his own family travels to Africa and many other places. His program was on for an hour and 45 minutes every night, unlike Johnny's, and he was worn out after 5 years. It was a very funny and fascinating show. I was a teenager then and stayed up to watch him.
longship
(40,416 posts)I can't remember what he said, but he was pissed and left NBC stranded.
Myself, I always like Steve Allen, the original Tonight Show. It was always on the edge. I think he was one of the best.
Later, I came to much appreciate Johnny Carson for his love of science. He'd have Carl Sagan, James Randi, and many others who are known skeptics, as was he. All the sophomoric humor of the Tonight Show paled in comparison to the good he did.
Indeed, Johnny Carson is missed.
Just ask James Randi who is still going strong at 80+ years old.
kskiska
(27,051 posts)The joke was really tame and they cut it. He walked off and no one knew where he was. He turned up in Hong Kong and eventually came back. He was very temperamental and unpredictable, and that made the show even more interesting.
Each incarnation of The Tonight Show was totally different than the others - Jerry Lester, Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno. Just the title was passed along.
longship
(40,416 posts)He mentioned "WC" which in context was a double entendre for "Wesleyan Church".
That is what pissed him off. I might have walked off myself. The censors on the networks had power then.
Of course, we now have a sort of self censorship these days. It is not imposed from without, but from within. I believe the latter is far more insidious than the former.
hairy krishna
(12 posts)I remember because I used to watch him in the '70s when I would babysit and it so much fun. "Showbiz" was more interesting back in the day because the stars had substance. They weren't just models who acted.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)Me, I always tuned into the Carson show when Robin Williams was on. Williams could dismantle Carson and the entire show in seconds flat, just take it over and make it his own. Carson would try to keep up for a little while, but just would eventually give in and let Williams go all out.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)i really miss him.
politically we were probably as far a part as could be -- but he was the best.
Yavin4
(35,454 posts)He grew up during the depression in Nebraska.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)You are correct.
But of course - large swaths of the country really were dems at one point - w/ the mid west being the back bone.
Adenoid_Hynkel
(14,093 posts)Carson rips FOX for its Super Bowl red-white-and-blue coverage following 9/11: "When you look at the production -- give me a break!" Carson says. "Norman Mailer said something about patriotism being a nice thing, but just ease up a bit... It's nice to live in this country, but ease up!"
---
"Can you believe this Enron mess? I love how his good friend 'Kenny Boy' suddenly turned into 'Mr. Lay'... Give me a break! It will be a long time before we ever understand what's going on behind that story."
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)Remember this one?
stevedeshazer
(21,653 posts)Doesn't mean I didn't watch it!
Funny as hell.
longship
(40,416 posts)Is when Dean Martin staggered on stage, unannounced, and unplanned. He was slurring his speech -- he was toasted. Johnny siezed the bull and just let him go. I cannot remember who was sharing the couch with Deano. I would have liked it to have been Don Rickles, or one of my fav Tonight Show guests, Buddy Hackett. (Sho-Be-To, indeed!. Sorry, an allusion from The Music Man.)
Carson was always high entertainment camouflaged as sophomoric entertainment. He was great friends with many very intelligent people. Carl Sagan was a regular, as was James Randi, who exposed Peter Popoff as a faith healing fraud, and Uri Geller also, both on the Carson Show.
Love Johnny, always will.
Adenoid_Hynkel
(14,093 posts)tjwash
(8,219 posts)Nothing made that more painfully obvious than when Bill had Christopher Hitchens on his show. Hitch came on just oozing pro-iraq-war-hawk shit and took about 10 seconds to completely dismantle Maher, take over his show, and then started on the audience after it was obviously that Maher he had been put in his place as a rank amateur.
Dude was so out of his league, he couldn't even make eye contact with Hitch after that. The thing I always respected about Carson, is that he would have never let a guest take over his show like that.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)He'd been phoning it in for a while and it seemed like it was time for him to go. But a year later when that time came he was back at the top of his game.
UTUSN
(70,783 posts)MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)I loved him and I miss him