Who is Johnny Carson”
Huh? That’s the kind of outlandish claim that could only appear in a parody of Carson’s own “Carnac the Magnificent” sketches. Even Carson’s most ardent fans would find it far-fetched to say that the man who bows out this week after almost 30 years hosting “The Tonight Show” was much more than an amiable bookend to their morning alarm clocks. “How far-fetched is it?” a Carson audience would chime about now. So farfetched that all the recent preretirement blather about how kind he can be to guests drowns out the reality that Carson was mostly a Nebraska magician turned stand-up comic who got lucky and had good stamina. Right? Not so fast there. The fact of the matter is that Johnny Carson really has been a social escape valve (with excellent timing) for the very Americans who have brought some order to these last three up-and-down decades. Snickering at him–after hours, when the kids weren’t looking–was one of the few ways that long-suffering Middle America had of letting off some ste
” They told me he hosted something called The Tonight Show and it was on late. So I stayed up late to see this Johnny Carson and what I saw was The Tonight Show being guest-hosted by Bill Cosby. But I figured, everyone’s entitled to a night off. So I stayed up the next night and saw The Tonight Show being guest-hosted by Bob Newhart. Well, I figured, everyone’s entitled to a week off. So I waited until the following week, stayed up late and saw The Tonight Show being guest-hosted by Joey Bishop. Ladies and gentlemen, we are here tonight to honor a man who never shows up for work. Carson somewhat abated such jokes by making his absences more predictable, and by solving marital problems that had apparently necessitated some of them. Eventually, it became standard that someone else would guest host on Mondays, a Carson rerun would be offered on Tuesday, and Johnny would take X weeks per year off altogether. (The Tuesday rerun was sometimes a new show during Sweeps Weeks.) If Letterman dec
John William Carson, popularly known as Johnny Carson, was born 23 October 1995, and was a comedian and television host who was most widely known for his 30 years as host of The Tonight Show. He died on 23 January 2005, leaving behind his legacy as late night “king of comedy” whose brand of comedy was massively popular as well as influential to many entertainers. In 1987, Johnny Carson was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame, and over the course of his career was awarded six Emmy Awards, the Presidential Medal of Honor, and many more accolades. The entertainment career of Johnny Carson began at the age of fourteen when he performed as magician “The Great Carsoni” for the local Rotary Club in Norfolk, Nebraska. He served the Navy from 1943 to 1946, and then attended the University of Nebraska where he would graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Logic in 1949. Johnny Carson would then officially begin his career in the entertainment industry the following year when he began
