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Where's Johnny?
By Bob Shayne, July & August 2002
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Carson hasn't just avoided the spotlight since retiring in
1992. He's actively pushed it aside. His public appearances
go something like this: In 1993 Johnny was named a Kennedy Center
Honoree and attended the televised ceremony in Washington. That
same year he portrayed himself on The Simpsons, ending
Krusty the Clown's comeback special by juggling a 1987 Buick
Skylark. In 1994, in one of the great late-night cameos of all
time, Carson strolled unannounced onto David Letterman's
Late Show (which was spending a week in L.A.) and sat
behind Dave's desk, never saying a word as the audience went
berserk. Four years later, he was asked to appear on the 50th
annual Emmy Awards (a request he's received more than once).
His response, reportedly, was that he'd "rather sit in
Malibu and watch the hummingbirds mate."
In 1999, Johnny suffered a heart attack at his home and underwent
quadruple bypass surgery. When Letterman underwent the same
procedure the following year, Johnny sent a message: "Tell
Dave I've been there and to drink a lot of red wine."
Two years ago, Johnny wrote two short humor pieces for The New
Yorker, urged on by his friend Steve Martin. And just to
prove he never forgot his origins, Carson donated $500,000 in
2001 for a new library in his hometown of Norfolk,
Nebraska—where he'd returned in 1996 for the 100th
birthday of his grade school penmanship teacher—and $75,000
in March for a skateboard park in his birthplace, Corning, Iowa.
Recently, Johnny gave his first interview in nearly nine years to
Esquire. "You've got to know when to get the hell
off the stage, and the timing was right for me," said
Carson, who says he's seen his famous next-to-last show with
Bette Midler more than once. But he admits he won't be back
on TV. When NBC asked him to appear on its much-hyped 75th
anniversary special, he predictably declined.
There's a long-standing myth that Johnny intentionally put
bad jokes in the monologue. His pained, all-suffering ad-libs
could be the show's funniest moments, but Johnny died a
little each time a joke bombed. And the writer who wrote it might
be looking for work when his contract expired.
There were generally five or six writers on salary at any given
time, each hired for 13-week cycles. When they learned their
contract was not being renewed, they'd just pack up and move
on. Only one writer, Nick Arnold, ever had the chutzpah to
protest. Nick was a 20-year-old would-be comedian with a severe
case of cerebral palsy that made walking and talking difficult,
and made it tough for audiences to sit through his act. When
after several years Johnny decided it was time to drop Nick from
the roster, Nick stormed into his office, yelling and
gesticulating, angrily telling cerebral palsy jokes until Johnny
started laughing and relented.
Elfin 300-pound writer Pat McCormick was the only other staff
member who seemed to play by different rules. He came and went as
he pleased and was on and off the staff many times. During the
streaking craze of 1974, Pat once raced across the
stage—buck naked—during Johnny's monologue.
Afterward, Johnny refused to let NBC fire him. (I'll always
remember Pat not for his tush but for a classic joke he wrote
after a major California earthquake: "Due to today's
earthquake, the God Is Dead rally has been cancelled.")
The first thing Johnny did each day was review five or six sets
of jokes—usually about 20 jokes per set—submitted by
each of the writers. He took pride in deciding almost
instantaneously which ones to put onto cue cards for the
monologue, completing the entire process within minutes. Frankly,
I always thought that rush to judgment was the main reason some
of those jokes died.
While Johnny made the creative decisions, Fred was the heavy who
put them into effect. The last thing Johnny wanted was
confrontation. He was supposed to come to a monthly meeting with
the talent coordinators where we'd pitch him on new talent
and production ideas, but he often found an excuse to put the
meeting off for another month.
When I joined The Tonight Show as a talent coordinator,
two opposing forces were pulling both me and the show. One was a
directive from NBC begging us to find younger, hipper guests to
attract a younger, hipper audience. The other was the
conservative taste of Fred, Peter, and, at times, Johnny.
Striving to "hip up" the show, I championed a bizarre
comic named Steve Martin, who came out with an arrow through his
head (which he never acknowledged), blew up balloon animals that
didn't quite work, and joked about a book he claimed to have
written, How to Write Well English. He was doing
conceptual humor before it had a name.
I showed Fred a clip of one of Martin's performances. "I
don't think the kid is right for Johnny," he grumbled.
For weeks I tried to put him out of my head, but I knew Fred was
wrong, and finally, cautiously, I showed the film to Johnny
himself. At the next monthly meeting, Johnny watched it,
chuckled, and said, "Okay, let's give him a shot."
Steve appeared a few weeks later. He was hilarious. Now he and
Johnny play poker together.
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