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... is here no more."Heere's Johnny!" cheered Ed As we started the party in bed. For a whole generation Carson feted the nation And now "Heere's Johnny!" is dead. Extract from today's NYTimes: "In his monologue and in his time, Mr. Carson impaled the foibles of seven presidents and their aides as well as the doings of assorted nabobs and stuffed shirts from the private sector: corporate footpads and secret polluters, tax evaders, preening lawyers, idiosyncratic doctors, oily accountants, defendants who got off too easily and celebrities who talked too much. All these oddments were sliced and diced so neatly, so politely, so unmaliciously, with so much alacrity, that even the stuffiest conservative Republicans found themselves almost smiling at Mr. Carson's Nixon-Agnew jokes and uptight doctrinaire liberal Democrats savored his pokes at Lyndon B. Johnson and the Kennedys." http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/artsspecial/index.html?hpMr. Letterman said: "All of us who came after are pretenders. We will not see the likes of him again. He gave me a shot on his show and in doing so, he gave me a career. A night doesn't go by that I don't ask myself, 'What would Johnny have done?' " Mr. Leno said: "No single individual has had as great an impact on television as Johnny. He was the gold standard. It's hard to believe he's actually gone. This is a tremendous loss for everyone who Johnny made laugh for so many years." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/arts/television/24rcar.htmlHere is the monologue from Johnny Carson's final "The Tonight Show" on May 22, 1992:"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." http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/23/carson.monolgue/
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Funny thing, I never did like Johnny Carson much.
To me he was too slick, too polished, and too packaged to be worth more than a quick look at the screen.
His timing was perfect...like a robot. And as we all know, a crack team of sharp writers supplied him sharp jokes as worker bees supply their fat queen the royal jelly. Jack Parr was spontaneous. Steve Allen was intellectual. And Ed McNaman is phony.
But no matter, Johnny Carson was Johnny Carson and the world was better for it.
I guess I'll never hear the phrase "Heeere's Johnny!" without thinking of Jack NIcholson and his ax in the movie "The Shinning".
Now that was real art.
Johnny Carson, though, will always be a key part of the World that I know and the World that I think is the best World going.
Good night, Johnny.
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Good night, Johnny.For one who wasn't too taken with him in life, no-one has honored him more in death than you did with those three heart-felt words, themilum. Thank you. And, now, let's heere' it from Steve Martin, writing in today's NYTimes [Op-Ed]: Extract: Your gift - though I'm sure you wouldn't have called it a gift - was, as I see it, a blend of modesty and confidence. You wanted to do the job and do it well. You allowed the spirit of your idols, Stan Laurel and Jonathan Winters among them, to creep into you, and you found a way to twist their inspiration and make it new. In you I saw simplicity, joy, politeness, sympathy. Your death reminds me of the loss of America's innocence, the distance we have come from your sly, boyish leers to our flagrant, overstated embarrassments for parents and children.
If I could wake you up for a minute, I would ask you to tell me how good you thought you were. "Between you and me," I think you would whisper, "I know I was great in a subtle, secret way." I think you would also say: "I enjoyed and understood the delights of split-second timing, of watching a comedian squirm and then rescue himself, of the surprises that arise from the fractional seconds of desperation when the comedian senses that the end of his sentence might fall to silence."
Your Nebraskan pragmatism - and knowledge of the magician's tricks - tilted you toward the sciences, especially astronomy. (Maybe this is why the occultists, future predictors, spoon-benders or mind readers on your show never left without having been challenged.) You knew how to treat everyone, from the pompous actor to the nervous actress, and which to give the appropriate kindness. You enjoyed the unflappable grannies who knitted log-cabin quilts, as well as the Vegas pros who machine-gunned the audience into hysterical fits. You were host to writers, children, intellectuals and nitwits and served them all well, and served the audience by your curiosity and tolerance. You gave each guest the benefit of the doubt, and in this way you exemplified an American ideal: you're nuts but you're welcome here.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/opinion/25martin.html?oref=login&hpNew York Times Multimedia Presentation - "A TV Legend Dies":
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/artsspecial/index.html?8dpc
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