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Johnny Carson Filmography
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Johnny Carson: The Tonight Show
Carson became the host of NBC's
The Tonight Show on October 2, 1962. His co-host was Ed McMahon thoughout his entire tenure with the program. His first guest was
Groucho Marx, who had been one of many substitute hosts following the departure of
Jack Paar. Carson shared writing credit on "Johnny's Theme", the title music for his version of the program, which was co-written by
Paul Anka.
No video of Carson's first appearance on
The Tonight Show is known to exist, however an audio recording of the broadcast has been played on television. Carson began his first monologue by crying "I want my na-na!"
For millions of people, watching
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at the end of the evening became a ritual, and Carson became a well-known entertainer loved by many. Most of the later shows began with music and the announcement by Ed McMahon "Heeeeeere's Johnny!," followed by a brief comedic monologue by Carson. This was often followed by comedy sketches, interviews, and music. Carson's trademark was a phantom golf swing at the end of his Tonight Show monologues. During his tenure, The Tonight Show was often referred to as "the Johnny Carson show" or just "Carson".
Common bits and characters included:* "Carnac the Magnificent", where Carson played a psychic who gave the punchline to a joke before revealing the setup* "Floyd R. Turbo", a dimwitted yokel responding to a TV station editorial* "Art Fern", the fast-talking host of a movie program who advertised products and romanced his attractive blonde assistant, played by Carol Wayne, when the camera was off* "Aunt Blabby", an old woman who bore more than a passing resemblance to comedian
Jonathan Winters' character "Maude Frickert"* "Stump the Band", where studio audience members ask the band to try to play obscure songs given only the title* "The Mighty Carson Art Players", which spoofed news, movies, television shows, and commercials
Carson was often at his best, however, when sketches went wrong, as they often did. If the opening monologue fared poorly, the band would start playing the song "Tea for Two" and Carson would start to dance, which invariably earned laughs from the studio audience. Alternately, Carson might pull down the boom mike close to his face and announce "Attention K-Mart shoppers!" Carson had a talent for declaring quick quips to deal with unexpected problems.
Another tradition evolved over the years so that anytime Carson would say a phrase in his monologue such as "It was so (hot/cold/dark/etc.)..." someone in the audience would invariably call out "How ---- was it?" which would set up Carson's rejoinder "It was so ----, that ...." and complete the joke (the contemporary game show The Match Game had a similar tradition). According to a later biography of Carson, however, it was actually against the rules for someone in the audience to interrupt Carson this way, and anyone who called out "How ---- was it?" was invariably removed from the studio.
The Tonight Show received an enormous audience on December 17, 1969, when Tiny Tim married Miss Vicki during the show.
The show was originally produced in New York City, with occasional stints in California. It was live in its early years, then switched in the late 1960s to "live on tape" (uninterrupted unless a serious problem occurred). In May 1972 the show permanently moved from New York to Burbank, California, and Carson stopped doing shows five days a week. Instead, on Monday nights there was a "guest host" (leaving Carson to do the other four each week).
Joan Rivers became the "permanent" guest host from September 1983 until 1986. Thereafter,
The Tonight Show returned to using various guest hosts, with
Jay Leno the most frequent. Leno then became the exclusive guest host in the fall of 1987. Eventually, the pattern became relatively set. Monday night was for
Jay Leno. Tuesday night was for the
Best of Carson, which were rebroadcasts of earlier episodes (usually of a year previous but occasionally back into the 1970s with edited episodes).
Frequent guest hosts included:* Joey Bishop (177 times)*
Joan Rivers (93 times)*
Bob Newhart (87 times)*
John Davidson (87 times)* David Brenner (70 times)* McLean Stevenson (58 times)*
Jerry Lewis (52 times)*
David Letterman (51 times)
Virtually all of the pre-1970 shows were lost to history when an NBC employee decided to reuse the videotapes for other purposes. Many other episodes were reportedly lost in a fire. The later shows are stored in an underground film archive in Kansas.
In 1973, Carson had a legendary run-in with popular psychic Uri Geller when he invited Geller to appear on his show. Carson, an experienced stage magician, wanted a neutral demonstration of Geller's alleged abilities, so, at the advice of his friend and fellow magician
James Randi, he gave Geller several spoons out of his desk drawer and asked him to bend them. Geller proved unable, and his appearance on
The Tonight Show has since been regarded as the beginning of Geller's fall from glory.
Carson was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987. His other awards include 6 Emmy Awards, and a George Foster Peabody Award. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1993.
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