Nearly every major comic from the 70’s and 80’s got their big break doing the Tonight show. Leno, Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne, David Brenner, Robin Williams, and even Joan Rivers all got career boosts from the Tonight show. The badge of honor was getting invited to sit down next to Johnny. That only happened if their comedy bit on the show rocked. Many comics have thanked Carson for their big break.
I can’t think of any modern comics that got career boosts from appearing on Leno, Letterman, Conan, Craig Ferguson or any of the other talk shows.
So what happened? Why aren’t these guys finding the new talent and giving them their big break?
Leno talked about Johnny Carson in his book. Johnny often went to the comedy clubs to see new acts. He made a point to find unknown guys like Letterman when he first begin doing the LA clubs. Johnny had a keen ear and knew when a comic was ready for the Tonight Show spotlight.
Craig Ferguson does seem to feature more comics than the other shows. I like Craig’s show a lot.
I thought late night shows do still have comedians on regularly, though I could be wrong. I’d guess that the reason it’s not such a big deal any more is because far fewer people watch the shows these days, particularly in the target demographics. I know I haven’t watched any of them in, oh, close to a decade now, which is why I said I could be wrong. Carson used to be HUGE. EVERYONE watched at least part of his show every night. There’s nothing any more that has that kind of penetration into peoples’ homes.
None of the current talk show hosts are as culturally important as Johnny Carson was. They don’t have the social clout to bestow some kind of gift of “now you’ve arrived” by getting someone on the show.
None of them have the audience share, stability, or security that Carson has. Each show is a struggle not to get cancelled.
Back when there were three channels on TV, and whatever you could see through the static on the UHF band, being on TV was a bigger occasion. Fewer shows drove up the cultural significance of each existing show, as it limited what you could see, and what you could talk about around the water cooler. Carson sounded louder in the nations ear, so to speak. This extended into his later years in the early cable age due to the habits of viewers and the quality of his show. No talk show since has had his significance. In the age of hundreds of channels, I don’t know that anyone ever will. Comedians might appear on other shows, but it will never have the same weight and meaning as appearing on Carson did.
Right. There are also more talk shows than ever and other outlets like YouTube, so a network talk show is less important to getting your big break in the first place.
The stand up “business” has gone downhill in recent years. Much harder to break out and become a big success. People just got tired of the brick wall comedy clubs.
Letterman rarely had comics on for a long time but now has one on every couple of weeks. Many are nobodies and some of them are kind of good. But some aren’t. In particular, some are doing classic sexist “My wife …” jokes and such. But of the ones I’ve seen, none are “wow” comics. I remember the first time seeing Kinison or Roseanne where you knew right away this person was different.
One difficulty with TV, is that many of the best new comics are too blue for TV. They really don’t fit on network TV. Comedy Central will have on more daring people but they are still limited to some extent. (And frequently not very good.) HBO rarely does anything with new comics anymore. The last “Young Comedians” show was so long ago it’s sad.
Back when Carson was doing the Tonight Show, a comedian doing his act on the show was often the first time he was seen by a substantial audience. A comedian would go directly from comedy clubs to national television.
Nowadays there are intermediate steps. A comedian might start out at comedy clubs but he’s going to do internet videos and cable shows before he’s big enough to appear on a network show. So they already have an audience and are no longer being “discovered” on talk shows. Instead of getting a big break, comedians advance through a series of small breaks.
I can’t think of any big successes, but both Leno and Letterman have given comics their first network television appearance. But it’s just not the kind of exposure it used to be as other’s have described. For a long time Johnny was it for late night television, it had a much bigger impact then, and Johnny himself had more power in the industry than either Leno or Letterman, individually or combined.
That depends on what “that long” means to you, I guess. His first Letterman appearance was 17 years ago and he’d been dead for 8 years. Speaking of which, damn. He was really funny.
I wish the Tonight show had featured more up and coming comics over the years. Even if it didn’t have the same career changing impact as Carson. It would have at least given the young comics a boost.
But, the decline of the comedy clubs isn’t helping. There’s not as many places for young talent to start and learn anymore.
This is true and, because of this, having one of the late night hosts championing you isn’t going to “launch” your career the way the Carson phenomenon would.
But that doesn’t mean that the late night hosts couldn’t choose to make it part of their “mission statement” that they would use their position to nurture new talent. Any of them could make the choice “Hey, I’m not going to only have established acts on the show, I’m not going to only feature performers who are already successful. I’m going to make it a point of sharing new talent, performers in whom I see something special.” They could choose to host a first T.V. appearance for someone once a week, or two times a month, or just once a month. Or it could be just have an intern out regularly at small shows looking for someone special and if six months go by before finding another comic who really makes an impact then they’ll wait that six months.
Again, this endorsement from the host would never have the same effect as the Carson invite to the couch but that doesn’t mean the hosts couldn’t make it important just as a point of running an interesting show that shares new talent.
Honestly, I can’t say whether any of the late night hosts are doing this because I don’t watch any of their shows enough. Maybe some of them do this.
Folks in this Thread are throwing out the names Letterman, Leno, and Ferguson but for this question of finding interesting new comics I think the best late night host to look at is Chelsea Handler. Now I personally am not a huge fan and don’t watch her show much, but I do know that she’ll book people because she personally thinks they’re funny and have an interesting perspective- regardless of how much buzz they have going for them. Sure, they’re featured in a round table format rather than actually doing their stand-up routines so it’s not the exact same thing, but I do think it’s a point of pride for Handler to highlight different and new voices.
My understanding is that the market got way, way, way oversaturated. Some good comics started and learned in those places, but the scene also turned into a cliche and churned out a lot of dreck. And in response to all of that, eventually the alternative comedy thing started to happen, and that’s definitely good because that’s how it’s supposed to happen.
They do. None of the standups who get time on Craig Ferguson’s show are big names. I can’t speak about the other shows because I don’t watch them. (I do watch the Comedy Central shows but they don’t do these standup sets because they’re only half an hour.)
Leno used to eat snacks on Dave’s show. Drove him nuts. Not sure if Letterman was just goofing or it it really bugged him. Never knew for sure with Dave.
There was one young black comic that Leno used to feature around 97 or 98. May have been Chris Tucker? Can’t recall for sure. But he was really edgy and funny.
