Homage d'Johnny: What was your favorite moment on Tonight Show during his reign?

Cafe Society
1

Mine include:

-George Gobel’s brilliant ad-lib when on with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Johnny, all of whom were in particularly sadistic mode: “Do you ever get the feeling that the world’s a tuxedo and you’re a pair of brown shoes?”

-Almost any appearance by Jonathan Winters

-The time that Johnny returned from a sabbatical and found his cigarette box had been broken by guest host Don Rickles the night before. Pissed, Johnny obsesses over the box then, when realizing that Rickles is shooting CPO Sharkey down the hall, he stands up and with cameras in tow marches through the wings, onto the Sharkey set, interrupts the shooting while the Sharkey studio audience goes absolutely wild and chews out Don for breaking the box. When a stunned Rickles introduces him to the audience Johnny replies “They know who the hell I am!” which makes them laugh even harder. Rickles was clearly shocked and embarassed (and if it had been anybody but Rickles it might have seemed like harassment).

-The time the guest was a backwoods farmer who made jewelry from quail droppings. He presented Johnny with a bolo tie and said, completely earnestly, “a big droppin’ for a big star!” Johnny was totally gracious.

-When his third wife filed for divorce and her ridiculous alimony demands (something like $250,000 per month) were the lead story on every news show and in ever paper, he came out and after the ovation said “Well… I can’t think of anything happening in the news today” and got a huge laugh. Then he said he heard from his estranged wife’s cat who was wanting $30,000 per month for Tender Vittles.

-Not a favorite so much as a memorable: I remember watching the night when Johnny broke character to thank everybody who had sent letters and shows of support when his son was killed. Over on the side the show’s producer (Fred de Cordoba) noticed that the show was running ahead of schedule and motioned “stretch it out” (this was revealed later). You couldn’t tell what Johnny was mad about, but you could tell that if he weren’t a total pro he would have been throwing a white-trash fit (which I understand he did as soon as they went to commercial).

-Any Art Fern sketch

-I actually remember this one and it’s probably the most copied Tonight Show joke of all time:

Johnny as Carnac: SIS… BOOM… BAH

What is the sound a sheep makes when it explodes?

He totally lost it.

2

I first saw James Randi on the Tonight Show. “The voice of God has a radio frequency of xx.x mHz, and it sounds just like Peter Popoff’s wife.”

When Charles Grodin was doing his “doesn’t want to be here” character:

Grodin: “You don’t actually care what I have to say, do you?”
Johnny (playing along): “Hell no!”

When, after then-Gov. Bill Clinton’s lengthy speech at the DNC, Johnny introduced him with a five-minute speech of his own.

Didn’t see it, but read about it: Johnny, after consulting w. the aforementioned Amazing Randi, totally shut down Uri Geller on his show.

Stump the Band.

When he was the vict–er, volunteer for a pair of knife jugglers, and kept on trying to sneak away.

The mini-hovercraft that removed the flooring from the stage.

Johnny, testing the “live-ball” theory of why home run counts were up, hits a ball from his stage. Cut to Letterman taping his show in NY: With a crash, the ball Johnny hit comes through his window and lands on the set. “Good wood, Johnny!”

Bill Cosby: “Voopaa, voopaa, ding: NOAH. Sorry, Johnny, that’s all I can remember”

Johnny asked Robin Williams about impersonating George H. W. Bush. Robin’s response: “First you take your John Wayne…and then you tighten up his ass…”

Johnny, impersonating Willie Nelson (with Julio Iglesias): “To all the women in my life/who now are someone else’s wife…” The audience cracked up.

Johnny, to Cliff Claven: “Great feeling, isn’t it? Now get the hell off my stage”

Goodbye, Johnny. There will never be another like you.

3

As far as his moments on other shows go, I loved his cameo as Larry, Darryl & Darryl’s benefactor on Newhart. “Your problem is that you’re cheap… cheap… cheap cheap cheap… cheap!”

4

Alas, I missed that one…

A couple more I forgot:

The Mighty Carson Art Players. I always got a laugh out of the various prop bits that they did – odd Christmas gifts, etc. The one that always leaps to my mind is when they did a “live” report (via miniature) of the ball dropping in Times Square. As Johnny plugged his nose and said stuff into a microphone, they would adjust the miniature as fast as they could.

Johnny commented something like, “And the crowd is growing by leaps and bounds here,” as hands reach in and set up little miniature figure sets all over the place. As they went into the final countdown, another hand reached in and with one finger, pushed the styrofoam ball down the pole.

Another guest appearance: In the first practical joke on the first “TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes” show, they filled the trunk of Ed McMahon’s limo with all sorts of office equipment and supplies, then had security stop him at the gates to the studio for an inspection and search.

As Ed was getting all worked up, Johnny walked out there in a security supervisor’s uniform, and started asking questions. Ed just stared at him, poleaxed, for a minute or so.

Comedy gold, that one was.

5

In the late 1970s, one of Johnny’s guests was a shy, beautiful woman who had been kicked out of the Marine Corps for appearing in a Playboy ‘Women of the Military’ pictorial.

She was describing the flow of events: how she applied, was accepted, etc.

She went on to describe how Corps leadership found out about her appearance, “And then, when the magazine came out, and some officers in the Pentagon saw it…”

Johnny turned away from her to look at the audience with a gaze of mock amazement. Slapping his face in shock, he deadpanned to her, “Those gentlemen read that… trash!?”

Johnny’s delivery was everything: it captured the risqueness of the topic, sympathy for the victim and the hypocrisy of the military brass, in one perfect line.

Just writing about it twenty-five years later makes me laugh until I have tears in my eyes.

On second thought, they’re maybe not all from laughing.

We’re gonna miss Johnny.

6

A fine and gentle man. I reflect upon the horrid death of his son, an event no person should have to endure. Perhaps they are together again.

(Sorry, bummer, I know.)

7

RobuSensei wrote:

Sadly, years later Jay Leno had Gellar on and kissed his ass royally, imploring skeptics to be “open minded.” Funny how believing something is more open minded than disbelieving.

8

The very first thing that comes to mind is the night Red Skelton was on. The show was still 90 minutes long then. Skelton just kept going and going - All the other guests got bumped except for Florence Henderson, who was able to sing just one song, just before the closing credits. Carson just let him go, doing whatever the hell the guy wanted to. IIRC, it was Skelton’s last TV appearance before he died.

And there was the night when Carson started a joke on his show, and gave the punchline as a guest on Letterman’s show.

9

The Chip Lady:
Johnny had a lady on who had collected potato chips that looked like celebrities. As she’s showing off her collection, she looks down to get the next chip and Johnny reaches into a bowl of other chips he had beside his desk, and takes a bite of a chip with a loud crunch! The look on the lady’s face was priceless as she thought Johnny had consumed one of her prized chips!

The Axe Thrower:
Before my time, but I’ve seen the footage.
An axe thrower is tossing his hatchets at a life sized outline of a person on a wood wall. He tosses one that lands right between the legs, pointing up like a perfect erection. No words necessary.

10

The axe thrower was Ed Ames. Johnny’s comment “Welcome to Frontier Bris” made Ed laugh. His second comment “I didn’t even know you were Jewish” had Ed literally doubled up laughing.

11

I loved every moment, from the parting of curtains to the rolling of credits. The man had class and panache that Leno, Letterman & O’Brien never will, and was the consummate professional. Johnny was always impeccably dressed, deeply tanned, and had a flair that one doesn’t see today.

His Carnac the Magnificent sketch was my favorite, as you might suspect.

12

Came in specifically to mention “sis-boom-bah” and I was beaten to it by the OP. Definitely one of the best moments of pure absurdity in the history of television.

13

Oh, thought of another surreal moment, but not one that directly came from Carson. He had post-stroke Bette Davis on as the first guest, followed by Martin Short. Short sits on the couch and does the preliminary hello chit-chat with Carson, then turns to Davis and barks “BETTE!” which startled her. He then did some impersonations, including several seconds of her. After which Bette asked him “Do you do me?” Short replied, as Bette, “Well, you’re so hard to do.” To which she responded “Well then, perhaps it’s best you don’t try.” I was never sure if this meant Bette had just lost it or what, but I prefer to believe that she knew exactly what she was saying and she was insulting Martin Short for his impertinence by implying that his Bette Davis impression sucked.

14

** Otto** - never saw that one myself, but my husband remembers it differently. He says Short did some impressions, Bette leaned over and said, “Do you do me?” and Short started to impersonate her. Wherupon Bette snapped, “I didn’t ask you to do it, I just asked if you could.”

I think one of my favorite examples of Carson’s aplomb was when he got totally involved in a conversation about stage names with Dyan Cannon. The two of them started reeling off other celebs’ birth names. Carson said, “And Cary Grant’s real name is Archibald Leach!” Cannon grimaced for a second and said, “Yes, I know… I used to be married to him.” Carson exclaimed, “YES! YES you did! I knew that!” and then gave up any pretense of cool and just dissolved into laughter.

I think Johnny was at his very best when he screwed up, because he was totally willing to just go with it.

15

Three in particular:

  • the time he said something to one of his guests, who took mock offence and walked off. The other guests followed him off, so there was Johnny with an empty stage and air time to fill. He had to do something to fill the time - so he started stripping (just to the waist - it was a family show). Then the guests came back on, with the men all stripped down (not Rosemary, of course). Carson just looked at the camera and said “Welcome back to Rawhide.”

  • one time the San Diego zoo brought some lovely little big cat kittens on - leopards or something. Johnny held one, played with it, etc. They brought it back a year later, all growed up, in a cage. Johnny approached it a bit apprehensively while the zoo guy went on about how a year ago this was just a little kitten that had been so playful and friendly with Johnny. As Johnny put his face close to the cage to look, the cat lashed out at him with its paws, smashed into the top of the cage, loud booming noise. Johnny ran right across the stage to Ed McMahon and literally leapt into his arms.

  • the egg show with Burt Reynolds and Dom Deluise.

16

There were two audience put-ons that I recall:

The most memorable was Foster Brooks, who was relatively unknown at the time, who Johnny introduced as a tax expert who was going to talk about the new tax codes. The audience watched in shocked silence (as did I) as Mr. Taxman, obviously inebriated, attempted to carry on a conversation. Johnny deadpanned it throughout until the audience caught on. It was hands down one of the funnier gags he did.

The second one I remember was a simple one. He had props construct an exact replica of his desk out of breakaway material. After the monologue, Johnny strolled over to the dais, ‘tripped’ on the edge and fell face first into the desk, which exploded into bits.

17

Oh, man, how could you ask for just one?

One more, and then I have to crash for the night:

The night when Ed had…had a few, and was trying to hide it.
Johnny: “You don’t think you’re really fooling anyone, do you?”

On preview (dammit, the floodgates of memory are opening!), I can remember at least three occasions when they had that breakaway desk. The other two involved a fruitcake (carried onto the set by forklift), and Oddjob (from “Goldfinger”), if I recall correctly.

18

Similar to the Diane Cannon faux pas, one night his guest was Sammy Davis Jr… Sammy made a comment about how in his day he was “a black star as big as Webster [Emmanuel Lewis]” to which Carson commented “Well, at least Webster is a star you can see eye to eye with”. Davis looked stunned and the audience howled- Carson had only meant it as a height joke, but Davis did a mock bow and said “Double whammy— you got that the height AND the eye!”, reminding Carson that he (Davis) had a glass eye. Carson was both embarassed and unable to keep a straight face. (Today he’d be on the front page of USA Today with 30 statements from the American Association for Prosthetic Eye Wearers condemning him.)

One night his guests were Louie Anderson and Peggy Lee. Peggy was a nightmare guest who insisted on blathering on and on about her recent health problems and even Great Carson, who usually excelled at steering buzzkill guests into lighter waters, wasn’t able to get her back on track. When she started talking about her quadruple bypass Louie, then about 400 lbs, leans over and asks “So just for some comparison shopping, who’d you go to and what’d he get for one of those?” Carson fell apart and the evening was salvaged (except Peggy, who was probably never on the show again, probably didn’t understand the laughter).

19

Once he had some Eskimos on who were demonstrating various *events in Eskimo athletic competition. One of his guests was a lovely Eskimo lady who explained the various events. She gave Carson a walrus bone, also. I don’t remember whether that was used in an event, or was just a gift. Carson said something like, “Oh, cool. . . a walrus tusk!” The woman replied something like, “Well. . . that’s not a tusk. . . it’s really the bone in his. . . male organ.”

Carson then drops it on the desk and just looks at it, picks it up, and lightly starts tapping it on his desk, saying, “Lucky devil!. . . Does it stay like this all the time?”

BTW, if anyone hasn’t posted it yet, here’s a search engine for Carson’s guests. It’s not 100%, but it is still pretty good:

http://www.johnnycarson.com/carson/search/index.jsp

20

Yep, “Siss…Boom…Bah” was the one I thought of right away.