Joseph Planta's Commentary - thecommentary.ca

Monday, 24 January 2005

Johnny Carson

By Joseph Planta

VANCOUVER - The life and death of famed late night talk show innovator Johnny Carson provides lessons worth noting in this time soon after his passing. In the thirty years that he was the host of the Tonight Show, Carson embodied the phenomenon of late night television, and for many aspiring comics, romanticised the uphill quest to where he was sitting. Carson was hardly a pioneer in the late night genre of television. Steve Allen and Jack Paar are credited with the creation and birth of the modern talk show which Carson inherited. His career as a comic started in the game show field, where he hosted a number of programs like Who Do You Trust? He wasn't the first host of the Tonight Show; yet in the thirty years he spent at its helm, he revolutionised the industry, not to mention the niche in which he dominated.

In the thirty years he was the host of the Tonight Show, he easily made the program the most prestigious in late night television, and for a long time the only successful one. Pretenders came and went, and successors were groomed but no one could reach the pinnacle that Carson held for so long. Despite so long in the public eye, and achieving the infinite success that any aspiring star would want, he embodied the class and grace that all stars should only aspire to. His Midwestern upbringing instilled an innate mix of the affable with the serious; the acerbic with the shy; the standoffish with the entertaining. He could do well in front of a ten million-sized audience, but put him in a room with ten, as friends of his would attest, and he'd bomb. He had that humility and sense of loyalty that came straight through the television screen-it's something that Jack Paar had, that Craig Kilborn seemed to have in his all too short tenure in late night; and something that Letterman has certainly tried to emulate, which honestly he has.

Truth be told, the topic of today's missive was to have been the story that broke last week about Carson being active writing jokes for the Letterman show. Peter Lassally, Carson's old producer, who also produced Letterman's show after Carson retired, told critics at the winter press tour in Hollywood that Carson would occasionally provide jokes to Letterman, which would be included in the CBS talker's monologue. At once, it was nice to hear that the old comic Carson was keeping his talents honed, feeding his own one-liners to the heir apparent; at another, it was a curious development in the dram of the late night comic wars that ensued nearly 15 years ago, when Carson's successors and their handlers were preparing for and inching for the king's expected abdication. It has been widely whispered that Carson favoured Letterman-which is probably true considering that in his final television appearance ever, it was on Letterman's CBS Late Show that he deigned to appear, not the franchise he helmed for thirty years, the Tonight Show.

Superlatives used now at Carson's passing that he and his program were a 'staple of American culture,' he being a 'legend,' and the world of show business losing a 'great big star' are apt and true. It is intriguing to note this enthusiasm in remembering him at his passing, when in fact he's been long out of the public eye for over a decade. Much like Ronald Reagan, who died last summer, after being out of the public eye for a decade or so, at the time of his passing, cable news outlets went wall-to-wall, culling old clips of a warrior in his glory days. It was comforting. We realise how much we missed him. Unlike many in this vainglorious culture, Carson knew when his time was up and set his own schedule rather than adhere to anyone else's. He left 'em wanting more, which was probably humble. Some may have thought it was arrogant, to leave the public wanting more, despite the fact it was the public's adulation that let him have his fame and money, and that splendid pad in Malibu. Then again, because he was who he was, because he was beloved, and he did put in some thirty remarkable years of service, he was allowed to lead the rest of his life in relative anonymity. At the end of his television career, he accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom, accepted a Kennedy Center Honor, and made that one appearance on Letterman, but that was it. When NBC was celebrating its 75th, GE chair and friend Bob Wright asked, but he waved off the offer to just come out and wave to the audience. The Oscars wanted him to host, he turned them down. Steve Martin and Billy Crystal, on two separate occasions when they each hosted, called to ask if he'd cameo in their opening entrances. He revelled at the thought of their offers, laughing at the thought of how funny they'd be, but he declined. When Leno was throwing a 40th anniversary for the Tonight Show, he sent his regrets. When Larry King'd call, he demurred. When he retired from the Tonight Show, he seemingly just retired. He kept his word. He earned his sleep.

Carson's impact and the legacy he leaves behind is immeasurable and incalculable. The monologue he delivered after his entrance to that rousing theme that Paul Anka composed was topical, biting, and timely. It paved the way for countless "Weekend Update" newsreaders on Saturday Night Live, not to mention Letterman, Leno, Dennis Miller, and of course the standard-bearer today, Jon Stewart. Speaking of SNL, were it not for Carson refusing to see his own re-runs in the late night slot on Saturday at 11.30, Saturday Night Live would never have been concocted.

For better and worse, Carson was legendary for the star status he accorded. His salary was astronomical despite only working three-day weeks. This inspired many a performer to walk out in an effort to curry more dough. We all forget that the Tonight Show went on five-nights-a-week despite his absence for two. So potent was the formula, people would still tune in, of course not in the droves that would when he was hosting. He revolutionised the television production world when in 1972 he moved his Tonight Show to the West Coast, after decades in New York. Therein ushering a tendency of television to tape rather than transmit live. And of course, the comics that came and went, who were created and who flourished in the light of Carson's Tonight Show. Black comedians like Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock claim a debt of gratitude to guys like Richard Pryor, but it was Pryor and George Carlin who owe a bit of their prominence to Johnny Carson. A comic himself, Carson knew what a successful shot on the Tonight Show meant. Today, the cachet accorded a comic's performance on Leno or Letterman doesn't have the bite it once had, but in Carson's time, it was everything. That beckoning wave he'd offer to comics whose set killed, was of legendary status that comics would dream of, and would boast or relish in were they so fortunate.

Johnny Carson was the last great, real link to show business in its glory. Carson knew Fred Allen; who knows who he is now? He worked with Red Skelton; Jack Benny was a fan; and Groucho Marx was on his first show. No one would dare have the courage to have some of the old timers like Jack Benny or Phyllis Diller on. They were old; too passé. You'll recall in the early 1990s, Arsenio was the great black hope of late night. Jimmy Stewart and Bob Newhart as guests seemed wearing. Carson would have them on regardless. As well, while Arsenio was fist pumping, it wouldn't be impossible for Carson to attempt a little soft shoe to the tune of "Tea for Two." Think Letterman could do that now? Letterman had Jerry Lewis on Friday night, though wonderfully nostalgic, I could feel the audience would have wanted Paris Hilton instead, or would have been more comfortable with Lindsay Lohan.

His death Sunday, at 79, from emphysema, reminds us that he was one of the last television performers to smoke on camera.

When Carson started on the Tonight Show in 1962, it was a staple much like Ed Sullivan, What's My Line? or the Miss America pageant. Then tastes changed, and fashions waned, but Carson was a constant. He went through the '70s with sideburns, wide lapels and ties that had huge knots. In the 1980s, his dress became conservative much like the times, and his hair faded to the glorious white that topped his head into the 1990s, when he finally decided to pack it in and give others a shot.

Like any old television trouper, he told Mike Wallace years ago he'd want his epitaph to say, "I'll be right back." Would that it were.

Johnny Carson, 1925-2005.

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