25 Years Since Johnny Carson's Last Show

Of course.

 

So, reading the few dissenting opinions about Carson:
I will say that I absolutely agree his style of interviewing guests was and certainly is unparalleled.
But I must say: Toward the end of Johnny's run on the Tonight Show, late 80s and early 90s, I was a little embarrassed for him. It seemed that the old school kind of humor he was still doing just wasn't funny, to me, anymore. Letterman's sarcastic insights and his taking the hot air out of some celebs changed - for better or worse- late night comedy just as Johnny himself did 25-30 years prior. I still admired his conversation style, and I'd get frustrated at Lettterman for not really talking to his guests. But The Tonight Show blackouts, the 50s style references, and the like wasn't funny toward the end.
I think current late night TV is way too "clever" and over the top with graphics and presentation (not to mention the super lame "musicians get the last 3 1/2 minute slot" idiocy. There no stately conversations anymore, but I'm in the minority there.

 

"One for my Baby"....

 

The fact is that Johnny's humor and style was tied up in an old style that we were used to from those days. When you look back on him, it's as comfortable as a perfect pillow, you mom's homemade cookies, and your grandparent's' house on Xmas day. Putting it down and saying it was outdated is almost insulting to us 'cause it was in our DNA. The fact for me is that times and tastes changed and while Fallon isn't my tastes, he's the glory boy now. Humor is different and we ain't the demographic anymore. I will say, that sometimes I've watched Seth, and he actually does real interviews. One time he had Selleck on and he wasn't there to talk about anything. They just bs'd about Magnum and other stuff. Of course, if you're of a certain political stance, you probably wouldn't make it past his first 10 minutes, so I have to put up that warning.

 

I love watching all the old Carson show's, because it really is just about the guests. And occasionally he'll drop a zinger, then get straight back to the interesting conversation.

 

Absolutely. Johnny didn't feel the need to make the conversation all about him; he used the monologue and opening skit for his material and let the guests shine the rest of the show.

 

Ah... ya-ha... that was a ZING-er. A very funny jolk.

 

How many of us "kids" were sung to sleep by his monologue while our parents were in the living room watching the Tonight Show before they went to bed.

 

Back in the 70's he was my nightcap and off to bed.

 

Carson wore very well. Yes, by the 80s and 90s, he was a comfortable old shoe, not watercooler fodder for twenty-somethings. But he was never embarrassing. As time wore on, his demographic simply aged.

Letterman started as the quirky, funny, do-anything-once upstart. But as time went on, he became increasingly ascerbic and not always pleasant.

When Carson left the air, it was the unwelcome end of an era for many who still watched his show at the end of every day. When Letterman left the air, many who'd started as fans felt that, yeah, it was probably time.

And I know that Letterman is coming back via Netflix. It will interesting to see if a few years off has rounded off some of the less pleasant edges he'd developed in the later years...

 

That camera angle wasn't used in the initial broadcast. Fun fact.

 

I highly recommend the PBS documentary on JC narrated by Kevin Spacey. It's fantastic through and through.

 

In all your examples there was room for both. Nothing "needed" to happen, they just came along
and filled (or created) a need.

 

I just watched this Carson routine, which I remember watching "live" (= time of original broadcast) many years ago. It is some extremely clever comedy writing, and shows Carson's talent as an impersonator. In this clip, he is playing President Reagan, being briefed by Howard Baker:

 

I think a youngish Johnny, Johnny in his prime, however you wanna put it, could handle any situation we have today with the required class.

 

I feel the same.

 

It seems like forever ago now. Many things have changed what's funny today. I'm the first person to laugh at a good joke. Today's jokes have to be PC, so I miss the guests Johnny had who opened up on his show. He entertained a generation.

 

The difference today is that all ratings are way down, so every show panders to small sub-sets of demographics. There is little point in a middle-of-the-road approach because no one can command a large enough audience anymore. It's why you have far more political talk shows, because there is a small but very loyal Millennial audience for that kind of liberal humor.

As viewing audiences continue to shrink for any one program, you'll see more and more talk aimed at very niche audiences. It's better to find a stable core audience than hoping you can appeal to everyone.

 

wasn't that old style vaudeville... we were well out of that demographic but we had reruns of bugs bunny, get smart, Bowery Boys, Marx Brothers, Abbot & Costello that served as a Rosetta Stone to that style of comedy music and conversation. On one hand times do change but on the other the skills set has been vastly reduced. The multitalented multitaskers of the 1930s still hold up even today. I don't know if Sean Penn Owen Wilson and George Clooney will ever be as much of an entertainment bargain as a James Cagney or Don Ameche were.

Oh well .. there are opportunities in narrow casting.. anyone with an iPhone and wifi can recreate the days of Jack Paar in their bedroom . Perhaps it'll catch on...

 

rarely missed Johnny when he was King of the Talk Shows...great memories...

 

can't believe I've been on the forum since opening month! Damn time go too fast.

 

The worst problem I started to see around 1990 was that Johnny began making mistakes in his opening monologue, and I wasn't the only one noticing it. I think this was one of several factors that led to Carson to retire in May of 1992, because he realized he had already passed his peak and it was just going to be downhill from here on. I also think he wanted to go out on top, when the ratings were still very good, plus he had lasted a solid 30 years, which is a long, long run for anybody doing the same show on the same network.

 

I don't think it's accurate to say it's millennials, because the least political of the three late-night network talk shows (Fallon) is the one that's got the highest ratings in the 18-49 demographic. The most political show (Colbert) is winning in total viewership, but that presumably means it's a bigger draw among older viewers.

At any rate, it is a different world we live in, since there are so many more options for TV, as well as for news, and as you note the result is that every show is targeted for a niche market. It's pretty amazing to think that at his peak in the 70s, Carson only had maybe five other channels to compete with at most.

 

I just found this nugget from Antenna-TV:

 

Being English, all I really know of JC is the reputation, a few clips seen here and there, and the Beach Boys song about him. So with that last one in mind, a couple of questions: When guests were boring, did he really fill up the slack? And did the network make him break his back?