The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the Tonight Show franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, 1992.[1] Ed McMahon served as Carson's sidekick and the show's announcer.
For the entire Tonight Show franchise, see The Tonight Show. For the 1955–1956 CBS variety show hosted by Carson, see The Johnny Carson Show.The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
- The Tonight Show (franchise brand)
- Johnny Carson (Antenna TV repeats)
- Head writer:
- Walter Kempley (1963–1967)
- Hank Bradford (1969–1975)
- Marshall Brickman (1969–1970)
- Raymond Siller (1974–1988)
- Andrew Nicholls and Darrell Vickers (1988–1992)
United States
English
30
6,714 (list of episodes)
- NBC Studios
- New York City (1962–1972)
- NBC Studios
Burbank, California (1972–1992)
47–105 minutes
October 1, 1962 –
May 22, 1992
For its first decade, Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show was based at the RCA Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, with some episodes recorded at NBC Studios in Burbank, California; on May 1, 1972, the show moved to Burbank as its main venue and remained there exclusively after May 1972 until Carson's retirement.[2] The show's house band, the NBC Orchestra, was led by Skitch Henderson, until 1966 when Milton Delugg took over, who was succeeded by Doc Severinsen less than a year later.
The series has been ranked as one of the greatest TV shows of all time in polls from both 2002 and 2013.[3][4]
Format[edit]
Johnny Carson's Tonight Show established the modern format of the late-night talk show:[5] a monologue sprinkled with a rapid-fire series of 16 to 22 one-liners (Carson had a rule of no more than three on the same subject) was followed by sketch comedy, then moving on to guest interviews and performances by musicians and stand-up comedians. Occasionally, Carson interviewed prominent politicians such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Robert F. Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey, however Carson refused to discuss his personal political views on the show out of concern it might alienate his audience[6] and resisted efforts from his writing staff, particularly head writer and admitted liberal Marshall Brickman, to include more political material in the show.[7] Other regulars were selected for their entertainment or information value, in contrast to those who offered more cerebral conversation.[8]
His preference for access to Hollywood stars caused the show's move to the West Coast on May 1, 1972; The Tonight Show would not return to New York until 2014 when Jimmy Fallon took the hosting reins.[9] When asked about intellectual conversation on The Tonight Show, Carson and his staff invariably cited "Carl Sagan, Paul Ehrlich, Margaret Mead, Gore Vidal, Shana Alexander, Madalyn Murray O'Hair" as guests;[8] one television critic stated, however, "he always presented them as if they were spinach for your diet when he did [feature such names]."[10] Family therapist Carlfred Broderick appeared on the show ten times,[11] and psychologist Joyce Brothers was one of Carson's most frequent guests. Carson, in general, did not feature prop comedy acts (Carson was not averse to using prop comedy himself); such acts, with Gallagher being a prominent example, more commonly appeared when guest hosts helmed the program.[12]
Carson almost never socialized with guests before or after the show; frequent interviewee Orson Welles recalled that Tonight Show employees were astonished when Carson visited Welles's dressing room to say hello before a show. Unlike his avuncular counterparts Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas, and Dick Cavett, Carson was a comparatively "cool" host who only laughed when genuinely amused and abruptly cut short monotonous or embarrassingly inept interviewees. Mort Sahl recalled, "The producer crouches just off camera and holds up a card that says, 'Go to commercial.' So Carson goes to a commercial and the whole team rushes up to his desk to discuss what had gone wrong, like a pit stop at Le Mans." Actor Robert Blake once compared being interviewed by Carson to "facing the death squad" or "Broadway on opening night." The publicity value of appearing on The Tonight Show was so great, however, that most guests were willing to subject themselves to the risk.[8]
Show regulars[edit]
Ed McMahon[edit]
The series' announcer and Carson's sidekick was Ed McMahon, who from the first show would introduce Carson with a drawn-out "Here's Johnny!" (something McMahon was inspired to do by the overemphasized way he had introduced reporter Robert Pierpoint on the NBC Radio Network program Monitor). The catchphrase was heard nightly for 30 years, and ranked top of the TV Land poll of U.S. TV catchphrases and quotes in 2006;[13] it has been referenced in all media going from The Shining to Johnny Bravo to a "Weird Al" Yankovic album cut; it was even used for the character Johnny Cage in the video game series Mortal Kombat.
McMahon, who held the same role in Carson's ABC game show Who Do You Trust? for five years previously, would remain standing to the side as Carson did his monologue, laughing (sometimes obsequiously) at his jokes, then join him at the guest chair when Carson moved to his desk. The two would usually interact in a comic spot for a short while before the first guest was introduced.
McMahon stated in a 1978 profile of Carson in The New Yorker that "the 'Tonight Show' is my staple diet, my meat and potatoes—I'm realistic enough to know that everything else stems from that." After a 1965 incident in which he ruined Carson's joke on the air, McMahon was careful to, as he said, "never to go where [Carson]'s going."[8] He wrote in his 1998 autobiography: