13 years ago today Johnny Carson died

Late Night TV hasn't been the same since Johnny left.

 

I don't watch any of them now except if there is a guest I really want to hear from, but usually the interviews are extremely poor quality, so it's music guests performing that will grab me at all. I did watch Charlie Rose maybe every third night, but he's gone, and would watch Tavis Smiley once in awhile, also gone.

Carson was great because he didn't overdo things like so many do, he had pacing and stamina. Too many are the star 'character' to the point of suffocation. Letterman also used to be able to not have everything be about him (his brand?) or was self-deprecating enough usually... to get out of the way and sort of be with the audience rather than having to be front and center almost every moment. I'm sure Jack Paar was the perfect talk show host going from the clips I've seen, but that was before my time. I liked Dick Cavett even when he was showing off with references and name-dropping, his interviews of Groucho and Hitchcock among others were truly great, the entertainment elite played to his strengths though, but he was competent and willing to take risks. Really, so much depends on the guest, maybe they started having to try to make up for a lack on that side of things, the guests got where they were more guarded and just interested in promoting something specific?

 

I never watch Colbert. I can't believe that anybody does. I'm bored after about 1 minute of watching his humorless persona.

Jimmy Fallon is very gentle, even in his monologues and I enjoy watching him when I'm in a certain mood. He's extremely musically accomplished and is very Carson-like.

Jimmy Kimmel is absolutely hilarious (but extremely dirty) with his Jack Benny type feud with Matt Damon, his nutty relationship with his sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez (who was allegedly a parking lot attendant at ABC where one of Jimmy's writers "discovered" him), and the other outrageous stunts that he pulls. If the humor wasn't so filthy, I think that he could have been another Carson (recurring characters etc) and one of the great comedians of our time..

 

Kimmel is in a way a successor to Rick Dees, who had a similar-minded "stock company" of sidekicks during his short-lived late night talk show on ABC.

 

I liked Kimmel better on "The Man Show," but the Juggies might've had something to do with that....

 

He remains personable to this day.

 

Sorry, I'm late to the celebration of the late, great Johnny Carson. Johnny was the KING, no two ways about it. Do I feel that his always having too many guest hosts near the end and his own strange, out of the usual celebrity lifestyle, that certainly didn't match what I had imagined in my head, I still feel that while in front of a camera, this guy was the sh#$!

There is no one today, or even any in the past ten years, with exception of the original "odd, but fun loving", NBC version of Letterman, before he slowly became a terrible, terrible curmudgeon on CBS, who even comes close to Johnny Carson, in my opinion. I had a short lived fascination with Jimmy Fallon, but he grew old and repetitive very quickly and now that I barely even know who ANY of his guests are anymore, I'm done with him. Jimmy Kimmel is way too stiff, although I do applaud his "honest" approach against the "politics" of today, some of which, sadly even impacted his own child. Colbert was truly brilliant at times, back when he was on Comedy Central, but that band director of his alone on his CBS show, kills me even bothering with him anymore. Speaking of bothering with, just WHY is Conan still on the air? How much money is he losing for TBS??? I vote for another hours worth of "Big Bang Theory" re-runs! James Corden is CBS' new "Hey, we finally found a goofball that is actually relating to the younger viewers, let's sell him out and overexpose him, now"! Congratulations CBS, you've done it, as there is no other TV personality that I can't stand more than this guy and his alter ego twin, Sir Ryan Seacrust.

One other guy who kind of deserves a mention and that is Craig Ferguson. Ferguson had a short run of brilliance, but sadly something happened to him, either in real life or behind the scenes at CBS, which made him become yet another arrogant late night personality. When he was really on top of his silly little show, he really was off the top funny to watch. The following clip is one of my favorites of his ridiculous bits that he used to do. Bad acting (on purpose), but watch the realness of Ferguson, when the writers attempted to get one over on him, just after the 3:30 mark of the clip.



RIP Mr. Carson and thanks for all of the laughs!

 

My memory of Johnny is that of an old man who was like an aging baseball pitcher who'd lost his fastball. He could still throw a decent curve now and then, but he wasn't dominant.

To me, the best I ever saw was Letterman from the late '80s to the early '90s. I also really liked Conan in the late '90s. The Conan of today is a shell of his former self, and it pains me to watch him go through the motions.

 

Johnny was before my time (I was 11 when he retired), but I became a fan through his 2002 Esquire interview. After I read it, I started collecting the DVDs and I now subscribe to the official YouTube channel and catch the reruns on Antenna TV. He still resonates.

As for current late night TV, ever since Leno retired (the second time) I’ve been able say there isn’t a host I don’t like. Bee, Colbert, Corden, Fallon, Kimmel, Klepper, Maher, Meyers, Noah, O’Brien, Oliver, Thede; they’re all great for different reasons.

 

I’m curious as to how much prep work was done by Carson (or Letterman) and their guests beforehand. Today it seems that the interviews are discussed and scripted beforehand, and that the host and guest have to feign surprise at each other’s questions and responses. The above clip of Dean and Johnny would never happen today, and the late night viewer is all the poorer for it. But it also begs the question: could any of the hosts now be able to handle such a situation with the ease and humor of Carson?

 

I beg to differ; I loved him when he first came out in 1980 and had that "quirky" show in the mornings. For the last few years I've found him creepy, which is why I stopped watching him. He should've called it quits a while ago.

 

Is there any footage or audio recordings of Carson's complete standup appearances anywhere? I have not been able to find anything - what a shame if we have nothing to document what he was really like in a Vegas appearance.

 

This appearance from the 1965 Frank Sinatra spectacular is perhaps the closest we’ll get to Carson’s nightclub act.

 

Wait...if you think Carson was the penultimate, who do you think was number one?

 

Jay Leno is the only one ive been able to tolerate since Johnny Carson.

 

Are we talking about the same guy?

 

being a teacher i constantly tell students you should try to learn something new every day.

thank you for the lesson, i learned something today.

and BTW johnny was the ultimate!

 

That he was.

 

Until mentions in this thread, I'd forgotten that Conan is still on the air. He has become completely insignificant, and you rarely hear about him or his show. I agree that Letterman from the '80s through the early '90s was excellent, and Conan had his time. Letter stayed way too long and Conan...well, he got short shrift from NBC, but his time has passed, too. Jay Leno was hilarious back when he was a frequent guest on Carson/Letterman. When he got the Tonight Show, he kinda turned into bland milquetoast.

 

From what I've read, Carson had a staff person pre-interview his guests to elicit topics that might be discussed, and Carson was given some notes about those pre-interviews to draw from. That's why you'll sometimes hear him say things like "I'm told a funny thing happened to you at the airport recently..." That's him referring to something he learned from the pre-interview. But Carson stringently avoided seeing or chatting with his guests before the show to keep things fresh. And at best he only had a general idea of what stories the guest might tell, and he was ready and willing to deviate from pre-planned topic areas if the need arose or the guest wanted. Carson's shows also were filmed in 60 minutes of real time, so they have a live, spontaneous feel. If something unexpected happened, they just kept going, they didn't stop the cameras.

By contrast, today's three network shows are all heavily pre-planned. Guests know the questions they will hear in advance, and in many cases the chats are actually rehearsed (or done in multiple takes) so the filming of a show takes more than an hour.

Could today's hosts handle a more spontaneous environment? I think Colbert could... he's very quick-witted, a skilled conversationalist, and an experienced improvisor. But for whatever reason, he chooses not to do so and has a fairly canned, rehearsed show. Unfortunately I think a lot of it comes down to the guests. The big stars (and their managers) do not want to risk them looking stupid, so most of them are not willing to participate in a chat that is done with genuine spontaneity. And since the ratings in general are driven more by the guests than the hosts, none of the hosts want to embrace a format that would scare off the big stars.

 

In my opinion, the best part of Letterman and Conan (when they were at their peak) was the sketches that they'd do after the monologue. That was the memorable stuff, the classic bits. But both of them got lazy after a while, and either stopped doing sketches (Letterman) or just went through the motions (Conan). Letterman survived on his interviewing skills. But Conan is not much of an interviewer, which partially explains his ratings nosedive.

Actually, I think Carson was kind of like that, too. I only saw the last few years of Carson (when he hardly ever did sketches, aside from Karnac), and his show was usually boring to me. But then I 'd watch reruns of some of the classic bits that he did in the '70s, and I was rolling on the floor.

It takes a lot of energy and stamina to be funny for 20+ years. Carson did his show for 30 years and was funny for ~27 of them; Letterman did it for 33 years and was funny for ~27 of them. Conan is on year 25 and he stopped being funny (to me) after 15 years or so, shortly before he got the Tonight Show gig.

 

What other kind of milquetoast is there?