Howard Stern has really been ripping on Carson the last couple of days. While he certainly isn’t the best source of information, you don’t need to feel like it’s patently false just because he says it.
Anyway, among the things I’ve heard from Howard. . .
Joan Rivers said Carson never talked to her or anyone during commercials.
He wasn’t friends with anyone, even Ed McMahon, who has been playing the “friend” card since his death.
Most of the people who are remembering him so fondly, none had even talked to him for about 10 years. Merv Griffin talked about how Carson basically “shut the gates” at his house.
He didn’t like Leno and Leno didn’t like him. He didn’t even mention Leno on his farewell show.
Carson was power hungry and controlling and had certain people fired for personal slights.
Dick Cavitt said that Carson was mean when he was sober and even meaner when he was drunk.
Howard said that Carson slapped his wife in front of others.
Personally, I seem to recall that McMahon, at the time, went on Arsenio and maybe Letterman, but not on Leno.
I think it’s well known that only if a comic did well would Carson ask him to come sit on the couch.
And not that any of those things make him less of a genius/entertainer which he was, but are people really “rewriting” the man in his death?
Why would this be a bad thing? Presumably, sitting on the couch is a special honor, not to be diluted by indiscriminately inviting everyone to hang out with Carson.
Is it true that he had a bi-racial granddaughter that he refused to acknowledge? A friend of mine told me this. I was skeptical, but I couldn’t find anything about it either way.
I’ve never been a fan, but I don’t have a problem with any of those, aside from the slapping his wife. So he wasn’t very friendly - that’s the best you can do to dig up dirt on someone? Yeesh!
(I’m thinking it’s David Letterman who never talks to his guests during commercials. Or that was the case at the beginning.)
He was definitely a private person, and I can see how people like Joan Rivers might not understand it, and translate it to being cold and unfriendly.
Yesterday NPR had someone on from Norfolk (?), Nebraska, where Carson was raised, and they talked about the millions of dollars that Carson gave the town over the years for various projects – without being asked.
Too many reruns and guest hosts in the final years, so that I pretty much gave up on the show years before he left.
What really bugged me about the reruns is that they’d be too recent to be interesting as documents of the time they were made; instead, they’d only be like six months old.
Well, the point is that everyone you hear this week is saying what a wonderful guy he was.
Kind of like inviting comedians to sit on the couch. . .if every son of a bitch is a nice guy when they die, what do you do for the ones who were actually nice?
I’m not hearing a lot of “geez, he was a sweetheart” stuff – more about his importance as a TV figure, which is very much the point. There’s been quite a bit of commentary on his shyness, reserve, whatever.
Methinks people are going to be really racking their brains for something to say when Howard Stern dies.
(About the only thing that occurs to me after some thought is that he sometimes had good taste in enemies.)
I don’t see the problem with this. Who wanted to watch Carson talk to a lousy comedian?
Really. When Howard Stern dies, most people are just going to shrug and say “Oh well, I never liked him much anyway.” He’s going to be lauded about as much as Geraldo Rivera will be.
Of course we rewrite history when someone dies and everybody says how totally wonderful the person is. All these tributes are lies and half-truths that say nothing about the person.
I don’t disbelieve anything in Trunk’s post. Some of the particulars may be exaggerated or out of context, but they are consistent with what we know about Carson’s character. He was a lousy drunk for many years, he was divorced nastily three times, he was extremely private to the point of aloofness, he was upset that NBC gave the show to Leno, he used his enormous power just like everybody else in Hollywood.
When Garry Shandling did The Larry Sanders Show, he obviously was spoofing the whole talk show business. But I kept hearing that it was mostly based on his experiences with Carson. That’s the reality behind the curtains. The audience never wants to see it or think about it.
I was going to leave Mr Carson alone since he has passed on. Of course now that a negative thread has been started, I’ll state my opinions.
He STOLE a lot of routines from others. Steve Allen originated Karnac. (Steve didn’t call it Karnac but the routine was precisely what Johnny Carson did).
The Tea Time movie sketch was stolen from Jackie Gleason.
Every now and then he’d get in his “digs” about people he didn’t like - particularly his ex-wives.
I believe he mentioned Jay Leno once (after THE decision was made). An interview was going badly and he quipped, “can someone get Leno to start now?” (Something like that.)
He’d complain about how hard it was to be the host of the “Tonight Show”. Gee Johnny, I bet McDonald’s would have given you a much better career path - paper hat, name tag and all.
He’d try to act like the “common guy”. Example - when David Horrowitz was talking about the “Coat of Arms” scam whereby companies just made up the designs for whatever your name happened to be, Johnny felt he had been taken because he had previously ordered one. Yeah, with all those millions the phony coat of arms must have sent him to the poor house.
Ever wonder if it was more than just his feelings that were hurt when Leno was chosen over Letterman? At the end of the old “Late Show with David Letterman”, every night there would appear in huge letters CARSON ENTERTAINMENT. I’ve always wondered if Letterman had been chosen, would Carson have had a “piece of that action” so to speak?
Ask the “Youngbloods” what they think of good old Johnny and the snippy way he announced why they would not be appearing on his show.
Well, I could say more but I’ll let the man rest in peace. If you feel I’ve been unfair, feel free to “pounce”.
I think an important thing to remember about Carson is that just before he “chose” to retire, the press was full of reports that NBC was about to ask him to step down, or, failing that, not renew his contract. His ratings were slipping, Johnny himself was pretty much only going through the motions, and NBC were eager to bring in some new blood (no one was then sure whether it would be Letterman or Leno). Not to dis Johnny, but he was already beginning to overstay his welcome, and it’s a little irksome to hear all these tributes saying no one can helm a talk show as well as he could, when audiences at the time were plainly starting to disagree.
As for not talking to the guest during the commercial break, that’s a common tactic of the talk show host; you don’t want to risk losing any good stuff during the break, so you just chill for a few minutes. I know here in Chicago, Steve Dahl and Garry Meier (local radio duo for many years) never spoke to each other during the breaks. With four hours to fill, every minute of spontaneity counts.
I know I am in the minority, but I actually like Leno much better than I liked Carson…
However, I saw the Johnny Carson show live once, and he certainly did speak with his guests during the commercial breaks during the taping I attended.
My main fault with Carson was the same old schtick…same mugging at the same moment, same routines pretty much for the entire 30 year run, and some of his regular guests (Monti Rock, Kreskin, Animal Kingdom guy) were really tiring the first few times, and really got tiring the 40th time they were on the show.
Still, 30 years of night time television is one hell of an accomplishment…and like the proverbial old shoe, it was always comfortable to fall asleep with the tv timer on and the audience once again echoing, “how cold is it?”
Carson was “aloof” because personal favors from him had huge dollar consequences and everyone he knew, saw or came within a thousand yards of wanted as many “favors” as they could muster from him. Scorsese’s The King of Comedy can’t have been too far off the mark, especially the "I hope you get cancer! line.
And doing the show took a physical toll on him. According to Letterman, Carson’s lips were white with nervousness before every show. I have flipped burgers for a living, and I have been on stand-up comedy stages; nothing in one is even remotely comparable to the other.
When McMahon kicks, we’ll hear the stories of his offscreen life. Would you hang with him if you didn’t heve to?
He had an open invite to come by Leno’s show but has, to my knowledge, done so only once: to promote some charity he was involved with. It was a visibly perfunctory visit.