final credits - johnny carson
For thirty years as host of "The Tonight Show," Johnny Carson served up a nightcap of observation and humour that kept America up at night and buzzing at the water-cooler the next morning. He refined the talk show template first forged by Steve Allen and Jack Paar, and defined a television time-slot and format coveted by scores of followers. Over 4,531 shows, more than 22,000 celebrities, comics, politicians, musicians, artists and ordinary folk celebrating their 15 minutes of fame appeared on "The Tonight Show" during Carson's 3 decade run -- a guest list long enough to fill a couch 8 miles wide.
Carson's boyish Nebraska charm and air of modesty secured his bedtime intimacy with viewers. From "Heeeeere's Johnny!" to the topical monologue, the guests, and the broadly played skits, America seemed to never tire of him. Carson went out on top when he retired in May, 1992. In recent news it was revealed he was still sending out the jokes -- to his should-have-been heir apparent David Letterman. On his final show, Carson told his audience: "I found something that I always wanted to do and I have enjoyed every single minute of it." Apparently, so did America, and a generation of bleary-eyed fans will forever miss the man who so often leaned forward on his toes and looked behind himself to see what all the fuss was about. Carson died January 23, 2005 at age 79 of emphysema.
John William Carson was born October 23, 1925 in Corning, Iowa, one of three children born to Homer L. (Kit) Carson, a manager for Iowa & Nebraska Light & Power, and Ruth Hook Carson, an extroverted homemaker who had a flair for theatrics. Johnny had a younger brother, Richard, who became a television director and directed "The Tonight Show" for a time, and an older sister, Catherine.
When he was 12 years old, Carson read "Hoffmann's Book of Magic." He was intrigued by the stories he read about the great magician Harry Houdini, and was equally fascinated when a traveling magician called "Mortoni" came to his town to perform. Carson's own show business career soon started, at age 14, as the magician "The Great Carsoni," performing before the Norfolk Rotary Club and earning $3.
But magic wasn't his only interest -- on Sunday evenings he would lie in front of the family radio and listen to Jack Benny. His original style and timing were derived from Benny, something Carson always acknowledged. As a boy, Johnny would commit Benny's best gags to memory and recite them the next day in the schoolyard. He sent away for a course on how to be a ventriloquist, aware of the laughs Edgar Bergen was getting with Charlie McCarthy, and began to practice that along with his magic.
After World War II service in the Navy, Carson took a series of jobs in local radio and TV in Nebraska. He worked part time for radio station KFAB in Lincoln for which he created a comic western. After earning his bachelor's degree in 1949 (after only three years) he got another radio job at WOW in Omaha called "The Squirrels Nest" for which he was supposed to do interviews. At the time, celebrities made tapes available to local radio stations with answers to scripted questions. Local radio announcers would then add their 'questions' to the pre-recorded answers. But when Carson was assigned to "interview" Patti Page, the singer, he changed the questions. Instead of asking when she started singing, he instead asked, "I understand you're hitting the bottle pretty good, Patti -- when did you start?" Page's prerecorded voice replied, "When I was 6, I used to get up at church socials and do it."
In 1951, Carson moved to Los Angeles, getting a job as staff announcer at KNXT-TV. There he persuaded the station to give him a Sunday afternoon comedy show called "Carson's Cellar" which ran for 39 weeks. In those days, few people bothered to watch television in the afternoon. During one telecast, a furtive figure ran by in the background. Carson advised his viewers to pay it no mind; it was only Red Skelton and there just wasn't time that day in Carson's Cellar to have Skelton perform.
As it happened, Skelton was home that day, watching Carson in action and thoroughly enjoying what he saw. The next week Skelton showed up unannounced and demanded to be seen and heard. Soon, other established comedians, including Groucho Marx and Jack Benny, turned up to participate in a show they thought was funny even though it did not have the budget to pay them a fee. "Carson's Cellar" was not kept by KNXT but Skelton thought so highly of Carson's work that he hired him as a writer of his own comedy show, then on the CBS Television Network. The program provided Carson with a lucky break: when Skelton was injured backstage, Carson took the comedian's place in front of the cameras. He did so well that CBS offered him his own show, and the result was "The Johnny Carson Show." Carson's talent was there, but the show could not figure out a way to exploit it. It went through seven writers and eight directors before it folded, replaced by "The Arthur Murray Party" in which the dance instructor and his wife twirled endlessly.
Carson then moved to New York and spent months doing guest performances on various shows in an effort to rebuild his career. A few acting roles came Carson's way, including one on "Playhouse 90" in 1957, and he did a pilot in 1960 for a prime-time series, "Johnny Come Lately," that never went to air.
One of the other shows Carson appeared on was "The Tonight Show," whose host was Jack Paar. In 1957 Carson was hired as the host of "Who Do You Trust?" an ABC network show that featured a lot of interaction between host and guests and which also featured Ed McMahon as its announcer. He worked the show for five years and it was ABC's most highly-rated daytime programme.
In March of 1962, the emotional and excitable Jack Paar decided to leave "The Tonight Show," which he had inherited from the comedian Steve Allen. Paar had been the host for five years. Carson was offered the job, accepted it, but could not start work for six months because ABC would not release him from his contract. Various performers filled in -- among them Art Linkletter, Robert Cummings, Joey Bishop, Jerry Lewis, Groucho Marx, Donald O'Connor, Jan Murray, Soupy Sales, Mort Sahl, Steve Lawrence, Arlene Francis, Jack E. Leonard and Hal March. The show's ratings plummeted.
Watching "Who Do You Trust?" one afternoon was David Tebet, an NBC programming executive who had recently been made vice president for talent relations. Tebet saw something in the game-show's host and lobbied hard to bring him to NBC as Paar's replacement. To win Carson over, he had to negotiate a contract that specified 12 weeks of vacation a year for Carson, and the condition that he be able to bring along his sidekick, Ed McMahon.
On October 1, 1962, Carson made his debut as the "Tonight" show's host, and his first guest was Groucho Marx [although some sources list Rudy Vallee as the first guest]. Within a few months of taking it over, Carson not only restored the ratings enjoyed by Paar but improved on them. The show became a hit and was on its way to becoming television history. However, it wasn't all easy. In 1967, for instance, Carson walked out for several weeks until the network managed to lure him back with a contract that reportedly gave him $1 million-plus yearly. He made headlines with such clever ploys as the December 17, 1969 on-show marriage of eccentric singer Tiny Tim (Herbert Khaury, age 37) to Miss Vicki (Budinger), a 17 year old fan of Tim's, which won the show its biggest-ever ratings: the audience was estimated at 58 million (still the all-time record for most-watched installment of a talk show). The couple separated in 1972, and divorced in 1977.
In 1972, Carson moved the show from New York to Burbank, shifting the centre of power in television from New York to Los Angeles. Moving the show to California allowed for easy access to Hollywood's elite, making it possible to trump New York-based shows in the competition for celebrity appearances. That same move was critical in the changeover of television from live to taped performances. In the late 1970s, respect for Carson's consistency and staying power came in the form of four consecutive Emmy Awards. Politics increasingly provided monologue fodder for him as he skewered lawmakers of every stripe, mirroring the mood of voters. His Watergate jabs at President Nixon were seen as cementing Nixon's fall from office in 1974. It was one thing to lose Cronkite, but to be skewered by Carson was usually fatal.
Carson was secure in his power, asserting independence over sponsors, television executives and politicians. Over time, the network tried to rein him in. In 1979, NBC President Fred Silverman began to complain publicly that Carson took too much time off and that he ought to rely less on repeats of past shows. Just as publicly, Carson promptly announced his intention to quit the show as soon as his contract expired. A frightened network then capitulated as he knew it would, giving him even more time off than he had before as NBC knew that even Carson's re-runs made every other late-night competitor seem puny. Carson was asked if this suggested that NBC was in trouble and he replied, "that's like saying the Titanic had a small leak."
Carson not only won the biggest salary in television, $5 million a year, but also wrung from the network a series of commitments for other shows for his production company. His Carson Productions created and sold pilots to NBC, including "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes." Carson himself made occasional cameo appearances on other TV series. The total deal was worth more than $50 million, an unheard-of amount in that era of television. Perhaps more importantly, Carson gained full ownership of his show from the network. He would realize all future profits on resale of his "Tonight" material, a deal that generated many more millions as videocassettes of his classic performances were sold to the public.
Many of Carson's best moments from his early years in the show will never be seen again because of a colossal error by an unknown NBC technician who, looking for space to record new material, taped over hundreds of hours of old "Tonight" shows. The loss of so much of his work appalled Carson, who made moves later in his career to ensure that he and he alone would control his work.
In 1980, after more walkout threats, the show was scaled back from 90 minutes to an hour. Carson also eased his schedule by cutting back on his work days. A number of substitute hosts filled in, including Joan Rivers, David Brenner, Garry Shandling, Jerry Lewis, David Letterman and Jay Leno, Carson's eventual successor. The decision to scale back the show to an hour ushered in a new late-night time slot, which was occupied first by Letterman and then by Conan O'Brien. This second late-night front eventually generated hundreds of millions of dollars for NBC.
In addition to reducing the show to an hour, Carson also had NBC stop showing re-runs of the show on Saturday nights. This left NBC with an open time slot which was ultimately filled by a new variety program featuring comedy and satire: Saturday Night Live.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Carson was host of the Academy Awards five times. And his knack for political influence was once again proven in July, 1988 when he had then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton on his show a few days after Clinton came under widespread ridicule for a boring speech at the Democratic National Convention. Clinton traded quips with Carson and played "Summertime" on the saxophone. Four years later, Clinton won the presidency.
NBC was purchased by General Electric toward the end of Carson's tenure and he showed his new bosses no mercy. He did not like General Electric very much because he felt the company did not treat his show very well. On the occasion of the Christmas season of 1991, he did a monologue in which he announced that GE had sent him a holiday card that announced that "in lieu of a gift, a GE employee has been laid off in your name." Asked why the NBC logo was a peacock, Carson said he did not know but speculated that it might be because GE "couldn't find a multicolored weasel." He liked to call GE "the conglomerate with a heart."
There were times over the 30 years when "The Tonight Show" seemed to lose ground to current taste. But Carson kept working the material and the ratings would always rise again. Many talented performers tried to best him in the same time slot, including Joey Bishop, Joan Rivers, Dick Cavett, Pat Sajak, Arsenio Hall and Merv Griffin. He beat them all.
Preferring to retire at the top of his game, Carson voluntarily surrendered the "Tonight" show to Jay Leno on May 22, 1992. However, his graceful exit from the show did not avoid a messy, bitter tug-of-war between Leno and fellow comedian David Letterman to take over his throne. Leno became the fourth man to hold the job after Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Carson, and Letterman landed on rival CBS.
After his retirement from "Tonight," Carson was expected to appear occasionally on NBC programs. He never did. He made one brief appearance on CBS, appearing with his old protégé David Letterman. He also 'appeared' as himself in an episode of the animated series "The Simpsons." Many offers came his way for anniversary specials, but he declined, preferring to "just let the work speak for itself."
In 1987, Carson was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. He won a Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honour, in 1992. And in 1993, he was celebrated by the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors for career achievement.
During his reign, Carson was one of the most powerful performers on television, discovering new talent, rescuing old performers from oblivion and earning millions of dollars for his network, the National Broadcasting Company. In his heyday he generated approximately 17 percent of the network's total profit and was its most lustrous star since Arturo Toscanini. His show was the biggest single money-maker in NBC history.
Paul Anka and Carson himself wrote the show's bouncy theme song. Ed McMahon was his jovial announcer, intoning "Heeeeere's Johnny" and guffawing at Carson's every joke. Skitch Henderson was the original bandleader, replaced in 1967 by Doc Severinsen. The man often seen behind the monitor was Carson's longtime producer Fred de Cordova.
On a 1979 broadcast of CBS' "60 Minutes," Mike Wallace asked Carson "What would you like your epitaph to be?" Carson thought for a moment and reached for the traditional line of a talk-show host: "I'll be right back."
For more about Carson and "The Tonight Show", visit the program's official web site.
Film critic Roger Ebert offers In memory of Johnny Carson, a recollection of his appearances with Gene Siskel on the Tonight Show.
The new owner of Carson's childhood home is a private real estate company that wants to turn it into a memorial. Historic Properties Inc., based in Norcross, Ga., bought the five-bedroom house for an undisclosed price in a deal sealed February 18, 2005. The talk show host lived in the home from ages 8 to 18.
Jim Pruett of and Rick Runge of South Dakota bought the home in March 2003 for $150,000 and spent about $20,000 renovating it in hopes of selling it at a profit. The men had listed the house on the Internet auction site eBay and with a local real estate company. They also asked the city to buy the house and use it as a tourist attraction. There were no takers until after Carson's death and Historic Properties made an offer. Oren said Historic Properties has no specific plans for the property but plans to somehow honor Carson. The company specializes in restoring, preserving and operating buildings of historic significance.
Carson was known as a very private man, but his personal life sometimes became a matter of unavoidable public record. He suffered contentious divorces and personal tragedy. Carson had three sons: Christopher, born in 1950; Cory, born in 1953; and Ricky, born in 1952 and who died in an automobile accident in 1991.
Carson was married four times: Joan "Jody" Wolcott (1948-1963); Joanne Copeland (1963-1972); Joanna Holland (1972-1983); Alexis Maas (1987-2005).
Carson's impact on television and show business is immeasurable. His exit was the subject of the book "The Late Shift : Letterman, Leno, And The Network Battle For The Night" by Bill Carter, which was later made into an HBO movie of the same name. Jack Nicholson's reiteration of "Heeeeere's Johnny!" in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 "The Shining" provides that movie with one of its more terrifying moments. And in a case of art imitating life imitating art, Garry Shandling's send up of the talk genre "The Larry Sanders Show" was both a tribute and a poke at his mentor.
An appearance on "The Tonight Show" marked the official 'arrival' for many of today's stars. If Johnny offered his trademark thumb to forefinger circle of approval after a performance, the rest of the industry took note. Equally powerful was Carson's ability to de-rail a career. Case in point: Joan Rivers, who went from being his most regular guest host to a pariah for daring to mount a late-night show to challenge his without first informing him. As a result, Jay Leno was named exclusive guest host.
Carson's guest selection was nothing if not all encompassing. He balanced promoting new talent like a Barbra Streisand or David Letterman; providing a welcome spotlight for show business warhorses like Don Rickles and Buddy Hackett; advancing the careers of emerging stars like Woody Allen, Steve Martin and Jay Leno; and helping older performers like Jimmy Stewart and William Demarest stay in the public eye.
The following is a partial list of Carson's 22,000 guests.
Movies:
Woody Allen, Fred Astaire, Lauren Bacall, Warren Beatty, Marlon Brando, Chevy Chase, Cher, Glenn Close, Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, Joan Crawford, Tom Cruise, Billy Crystal, Tony Curtis, Bette Davis, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Faye Dunaway, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, Judy Garland, Lillian Gish, Gene Hackman, Tom Hanks, Rex Harrison, Charlton Heston, Dustin Hoffman, William Holden, Anthony Hopkins, Rock Hudson, Gene Kelly, Burt Lancaster, Jack Lemmon, Steve Martin, Walter Matthau, Robert Mitchum, Eddie Murphy, Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier, Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, Orson Welles, Robin Williams, Natalie Wood.
Television:
Steve Allen, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Bill Cosby, Walter Cronkite, Ted Danson, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Gleason, Arsenio Hall, Pee-wee Herman, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Michael Landon, Angela Lansbury, Dean Martin, Groucho Marx, Mary Tyler Moore, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Jack Parr, Burt Reynolds, Don Rickles, Roy Rogers, Roseanne, Tom Selleck, Phil Silvers, Red Skelton, Ed Sullivan, Danny Thomas.
Music:
Paul Anka, Louis Armstrong, the Beach Boys, Tony Bennett, Clint Black, David Bowie, James Brown, the Carpenters, Ray Charles, Bing Crosby, Placido Domingo, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, Jimi Hendrix, Lena Horne, Jefferson Airplane, John Lennon, Liberace, Little Richard, Madonna, Johnny Mathis, Paul McCartney, Bette Midler, Liza Minnelli, Luciano Pavarotti, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, the Supremes, Lawrence Welk, Stevie Wonder, ZZ Top.
Sports:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Muhammed Ali, Arthur Ashe, Wilt Chamberlain, Wayne Gretzky, Magic Johnson, Billie Jean King, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mickey Mantle, Joe Namath, Pete Rose.
Politics:
Bill Clinton, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, George Wallace.
Carson's last guests were Bette Midler and Robin Williams on May 21, 1992. Carson hosted the final broadcast without guests and it reached an audience of 50 million. The last word belongs to Johnny. He delivered his final monologue on May 22 and here is what he said ...
Around the studio, we are still on an emotional high from last night; we have not come down yet. I want to thank Robin Williams and Bette Midler for last night, for giving us an excellent show. They were absolutely sensational.
The show tonight is our farewell show; it's going to be a little bit quieter. It's not going to be a performance show. One of the questions people have been asking me, especially this last month, is, "What's it like doing 'The Tonight Show,' and what does it mean to me?"
Well, let me try to explain it. If I could magically, somehow, that tape you just saw, make it run backwards. I would like to do the whole thing over again. It's been a hell of a lot of fun. As an entertainer, it has been the great experience of my life, and I cannot imagine finding something in television after I leave tonight that would give me as much joy and pleasure, and such a sense of exhilaration, as this show has given me. It's just hard to explain.
Now it's a farewell show. There's a certain sadness among the staff, a little melancholy. But look on the bright side: you won't have to read or hear one more story about my leaving this show. The press coverage has been absolutely tremendous, and we are very grateful. But my God, the Soviet Union's end did not get this kind of publicity. The press has been very decent and honest with me, and I thank them for that . . . That's about it.
The greatest accolade I think I received: G.E. named me "Employee of the Month." And God knows that was a dream come true.
I don't like saying goodbye. Farewells are a little awkward, and I really thought about this -- no joke -- wouldn't it be funny, instead of showing up tonight, putting on a rerun? NBC did not find that funny at all.
Next question I get is what am I gonna do? Well, I have not really made any plans. But the events of this last week have helped me make a decision. I am going to join the cast of Murphy Brown, and become a surrogate father to that kid.
During the run on the show there have been seven United States Presidents, and thankfully for comedy there have been eight Vice Presidents of the United States. Now I know I have made some jokes at the expense of Dan Quayle, but I really want to thank him tonight for making my final week so fruitful.
Here is an interesting statistic that may stun you. We started the show Oct. 2, 1962. The total population of the Earth was 3 billion 100 million people. This summer 5 billion 500 million people, which is a net increase of 2 billion 400 million people, which should give us some pause. A more amazing statistic is that half of those 2 billion 400 million will soon have their own late-night TV show.
Now, originally NBC came and said, what we would like you to do in the final show, is to make it a two-hour prime-time special with celebrities, and a star-studded audience. And I said, well, I would prefer to end like we started -- rather quietly, in our same time slot, in front of our same shabby little set. It is rather shabby. We offered it to a homeless shelter and they said 'No, thank you.' I am taking the applause sign home -- putting it in the bedroom. And maybe once a week just turning it on.
But we do have a V.P.I. audience -- V.P.I. audience? We could have had that, too. What I did was ask the members of the staff and the crew to invite their family, relatives and friends, and they did; with some other invited guests. My family is here tonight; my wife, Alex, my sons Chris and Cory. My brother Dick and my sister Katherine, a sprinkling of nephews and nieces. And I realized that being an offspring of someone who is constantly in the public eye is not easy. So guys, I want you to know that I love you; I hope that your old man has not caused you too much discomfort. It would have been a perfect evening if their brother Rick would have been here with us, but I guess life does what it is supposed to do. And you acccept it and you go on.
About tonight's show. This is not really a performance show. This is kind of a look-back retrospective. We are going to show you some moments in time. Some images of the many people, and there have been some 23,000 people. We are going to show you a little excerpt of how the show is put together, so go get some more cheese dip and we'll be back in just a moment.