Bill Maher Remembers Johnny Carson 20 Years Later

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Aug. 31, 1982, is one of those dates that is seared into my head, like a personal 1066 or 1776. That was my first appearance on The Tonight Show, which was the gateway to a career in my chosen field, stand-up comedy. It was the baccalaureate of stand-up, a test you took early on that would decide the rest of your life. If you did well, you’d get invited back and you might be on to a career. If you didn’t, it was pretty much over. You might do other shows, but the goal was always to do other shows in order to get The Tonight Show, and you’d blown that. One thing I loved about Johnny Carson and I try to emulate at every turn: he was ruthless.


He was ruthless in the service of giving the absolute best product possible to the audience—and that means cutting people off. Sometimes (rarely) in the middle of a sentence, sometimes (often) from the show altogether. Johnny would use somebody with great frequency, they’d be on there every few months, so you knew Johnny liked them, and the person would think they were his best friend. Then one day: bam, like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, back of the head, never saw it coming. Bye-bye, Phyllis Newman, it was fun while it lasted, but we’ve wrung from you the entertainment quotient you were born with, and this show is for the audience, not the guests.

That’s how you stay on for 30 years. You know that you serve at the pleasure of the audience: they don’t really love you; they love what you do for them. And if you stop doing it, they’ll find someone else to love, as they should. As they have every right to. Johnny didn’t ever do bad shows. He was at 100 when he was at his best and 95 at his worst.

As for that first appearance of mine, fortunately it went well, and I did two more that year, including New Year’s Eve, so they must have seen something they liked in me. My thoughts turned to, when do I get invited to sit down?, because that was the next level of arrival. Just being on once shut up the wiseasses and doubters from the neighborhood about whether you could really be a comedian. One night on Johnny and you really were a -comedian—but nowhere near a star. In the era I did The Tonight Show, it didn’t really make stars—it discovered new talent who’d be seen there and then get their own show, like Roseanne or Freddie Prinze with Chico and the Man.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/bill-maher-remembers-johnny-carson-20-years-later.html

[BlueJazz]

1. I've always liked Bill...from day one.

[hifiguy]

2. I still miss Johnny Carson.

He was the absolute best at what he did - Johnny is the only true King of Late Night.

[monmouth]

5. My eldest (now 50) would wake up for his bottle at 11:30 precisely. He would be awake for the intro

and eyes glued to the tv. One of the first words he ever said was "Here's Johnny." We still laugh about it to this day.

[applegrove]

14. Yes. He was wonderful.

[Major Hogwash]

3. And I remember 2000, when Maher went around saying Gush/Bore about the election

And how they were both the same, and that he was going to vote Libertarian.

As for talent, he's about as entertaining as Emo Phillips.

[monmouth]

4. I'll never forget the night he had Diane Keaton on . She

was either high or drunk or something and contributed absolutely nothing to the show. She would answer him in one word answers, absolutely awful. He dismissed her so fast there was a trail of smoke left behind. He announced after she was gone that she would never darken his doorstep again. Hilarious.

[stevenleser]

16. Reallly? I found it on youtube, it doesnt seem so bad...

[monmouth]

28. The show I'm thinking of she was wearing a hat. It was so long ago, I could be wrong.n/t

[Major Hogwash]

26. Do you remember the show when Carson came back from vacation and found out . . .

. . . that his cigarette box had been broken while he was gone by the guest host, Don Rickles, who had accidently broken it?

Then Carson took a camera man with him as he walked across the hall and over to the studio where Rickles was filming his own tv show called "C.P.O Sharkey", and confronted Don about breaking his cigarette box?

That was one of Carson's best shows, in my opinion.

[monmouth]

29. It was a hoot, Rickles handled that well. Good stuff...n/t

[monmouth]

30. I do remember that. Rickles was great also. Good times..n/t

[kskiska]

6. Johnny was okay, but his show was geared mostly toward show biz

I preferred Jack Paar, whose guests were interesting and sometimes eccentric personalities not necessarily in the entertainment field. He featured authors of the day (Alexander King), writers (comedy writer Jack Douglas), explorers (Peter Freuchen, Jean Pierre Hallet), politicians (Kennedys, Castro), and others like Peter Ustinov, Hermione Gingold, and even ZsaZsa occasionally. He filmed his own family travels to Africa and many other places. His program was on for an hour and 45 minutes every night, unlike Johnny's, and he was worn out after 5 years. It was a very funny and fascinating show. I was a teenager then and stayed up to watch him.

[longship]

7. I actually remember the night Jack Parr walked off

I can't remember what he said, but he was pissed and left NBC stranded.

Myself, I always like Steve Allen, the original Tonight Show. It was always on the edge. I think he was one of the best.

Later, I came to much appreciate Johnny Carson for his love of science. He'd have Carl Sagan, James Randi, and many others who are known skeptics, as was he. All the sophomoric humor of the Tonight Show paled in comparison to the good he did.

Indeed, Johnny Carson is missed.

Just ask James Randi who is still going strong at 80+ years old.

[kskiska]

21. Paar walked off because NBC censored a joke about a watercloset

The joke was really tame and they cut it. He walked off and no one knew where he was. He turned up in Hong Kong and eventually came back. He was very temperamental and unpredictable, and that made the show even more interesting.

Each incarnation of The Tonight Show was totally different than the others - Jerry Lester, Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno. Just the title was passed along.

[longship]

22. Not just a water closet...

He mentioned "WC" which in context was a double entendre for "Wesleyan Church".

That is what pissed him off. I might have walked off myself. The censors on the networks had power then.

Of course, we now have a sort of self censorship these days. It is not imposed from without, but from within. I believe the latter is far more insidious than the former.

[hairy krishna]

11. Johnny was on for 90 minutes initially

I remember because I used to watch him in the '70s when I would babysit and it so much fun. "Showbiz" was more interesting back in the day because the stars had substance. They weren't just models who acted.

[MadHound]

8. Carson was alright, there were some memorable guests,

Me, I always tuned into the Carson show when Robin Williams was on. Williams could dismantle Carson and the entire show in seconds flat, just take it over and make it his own. Carson would try to keep up for a little while, but just would eventually give in and let Williams go all out.

[xchrom]

9. he was the very best late nite talk show hist ever..

i really miss him.

politically we were probably as far a part as could be -- but he was the best.

[Yavin4]

10. Johnny Carson Was A Liberal

He grew up during the depression in Nebraska.

[xchrom]

12. I remember him as being a Reagan fan - but I hope

You are correct.
But of course - large swaths of the country really were dems at one point - w/ the mid west being the back bone.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

13. He was pretty critical of FOX and Chimpy in a 2002 interview

Carson rips FOX for its Super Bowl red-white-and-blue coverage following 9/11: "When you look at the production -- give me a break!" Carson says. "Norman Mailer said something about patriotism being a nice thing, but just ease up a bit... It's nice to live in this country, but ease up!"

---
"Can you believe this Enron mess? I love how his good friend 'Kenny Boy' suddenly turned into 'Mr. Lay'... Give me a break! It will be a long time before we ever understand what's going on behind that story."

[xchrom]

15. The ENRON Thingy I remember - all of it a nice catch. Nt

[Elwood P Dowd]

17. Ed McMahon drunk on Carson's show - 1977.

Remember this one?

[stevedeshazer]

18. Of course I don't remember it.

Doesn't mean I didn't watch it!

Funny as hell.

[longship]

24. Best drunken Carson Show...

Is when Dean Martin staggered on stage, unannounced, and unplanned. He was slurring his speech -- he was toasted. Johnny siezed the bull and just let him go. I cannot remember who was sharing the couch with Deano. I would have liked it to have been Don Rickles, or one of my fav Tonight Show guests, Buddy Hackett. (Sho-Be-To, indeed!. Sorry, an allusion from The Music Man.)

Carson was always high entertainment camouflaged as sophomoric entertainment. He was great friends with many very intelligent people. Carl Sagan was a regular, as was James Randi, who exposed Peter Popoff as a faith healing fraud, and Uri Geller also, both on the Carson Show.

Love Johnny, always will.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

25. I think Doc may have had a few before this one:

&feature=fvst

[tjwash]

19. I like Bill...but he is no J.C.

Nothing made that more painfully obvious than when Bill had Christopher Hitchens on his show. Hitch came on just oozing pro-iraq-war-hawk shit and took about 10 seconds to completely dismantle Maher, take over his show, and then started on the audience after it was obviously that Maher he had been put in his place as a rank amateur.

Dude was so out of his league, he couldn't even make eye contact with Hitch after that. The thing I always respected about Carson, is that he would have never let a guest take over his show like that.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

20. Carson's last year or so after he announced his retirement was great television.

He'd been phoning it in for a while and it seemed like it was time for him to go. But a year later when that time came he was back at the top of his game.

[UTUSN]

23. the Well O.K. forum, but well O.K. n/t

[MrScorpio]

27. Johnny was the man

I loved him and I miss him