Unitard! I meant “unitard”, a blue one. There might be a shapely, buxom blonde in a yellow leotard but she doesn’t speak French.
Damn! I just realized I was right the first time, it was indeed a blue leotard.
You are correct, sir! I think inter-generational friction has a lot to do with some of the expressed animosity towards Carson. For many people who came of age after the mid 60’s, Carson was of the “old guard”; he was part of “The Establishment”; he was more relevent to people your parents’ age than you. You can see this tension reflected in the snippy comments Lorne Michaels made about Carson over the years (and, likewise, Carson about Michaels and SNL during the early part of that show’s run). That’s also probably why Howard Stern’s been blasting Carson these last few days (but, let’s face it, aside from a few people like David Letterman, Stern generally has no respect for most celebrities–living or dead).
The story about the Youngbloods was interesting. I recall reading sometime in the late 70’s that Carson actually didn’t have a closed mind about rock and was even a fan of the Rolling Stones. The reason why he had a problem booking rock acts on the Tonight Show was because too many of them were insufferable prima donnas. I now think Carson was likely referring to the Youngbloods fiasco (and an earlier incident with Buffalo Springfield) when he made this comment.
To paraphrase what I said earlier, a thread consisting of nothing but negative comments is a thread of lies and half-truths just as much as the tribute threads are.
Real life is much more complicated and therefore much more interesting.
Some months ago, I saw an interview with Ed McMahon and he stated that he’d played cards with Carson on a regular basis. He didn’t talk much about Johnny’s health, but he indicated that Carson was in good spirits and just enjoying not being in the spotlight.
Last night on The Tonight Show, Leno spent the entire broadcast talking about how wonderful Johnny was. Now, if Leno didn’t really like Johnny, he wouldn’t have to do that. He could have spent just a few minutes talking about Johnny, and then gone on with the show. Instead, Jay talked about Johnny, showed clips, and had Ed McMahon, Don Rickles, Bob Newhart, and Drew Carrey on the show to talk about Johnny.
In an interview on NPR yesterday, Dick Cavett said, “I wish I knew who had hurt Johnny so to make him such a private person.” To me, that sounds like Cavett felt that whatever problems Johnny may have had, they weren’t Johnny’s fault.
As for Johnny saying nasty things about his ex-wives on air, well, how many people do you know who say nice things about their exes? Very few. Hell, a number of comics have made careers out of saying nasty things about their spouses and exes (Rodney Dangerfield, Henny Youngman and Phyllis Diller spring to mind).
Whatever flaws the man may have had, he brought joys to millions of people, which is more than most of us can say.
It didn’t help that the divorces were tabloid fodder and you couldn’t avoid the stories. Imagine if they had E! and so forth back them.
In the mid-80s, Joan Rivers was the preferred guest host for Carson. The brand new Fox Network, seeking a big name, signed Rivers to host a talk show to compete with Tonight. For whatever reason (accounts differ) Rivers didn’t tell Carson before the story leaked to the press.
Carson had been probably the single biggest booster of Rivers’ career, and he felt she betrayed him by going up against him, and doubly betrayed that she didn’t tell him before he found out like everyone else.
After Rivers left, Gary Shandling and Jay Leno (and eventually just Leno) became the “permanent” substitute hosts.
Your eyes were probably, like mine, on something other than her clothing. 
That’s really cool, ianzin! Thanks to the SDMB, I’m now 2 degrees of separation from Johnny Carson. 
So…since Carson attended parties with Frank Sinatra, I’m 3 degrees of separation from Ol’ Blue Eyes…and 5 degrees from Zeppo Marx!
Stern has always a been a tasteless crass oaf towards any other entertainer who is popular, apparently because he feels that no one save himself should be appreciated by a radio or TV audience. He made nasty comments about Carson, other popular FM morning DJs, because he’s a self-absorbed :wally
The fact is that Howard Stern, if you take away the shock, if you take away the potty humor, is really nothing.
And when her show tanked, she lashed out and blamed everybody, asserting “maybe I’m too New York Jewish for certain people”–as if being Jewish has stymied the careers of this nation’s finest comedians.
BTW, thanks for straightening out the truth regarding NBC being unhappy with Carson. Talk show hosts go through cycles of popularity. Witness Letterman and Leno.
Oh yeah, I was watching Hardball tonight and found out that McMahon was a Marine and served almost right up until he started working with Johnny. Ya think that a Marine would take shit off of a Navy guy like Johnny, if Johnny treated Ed poorly?
Okay, here’s my catty remark, based totally on speculation. People have described him as classy for walking away from the limelight the way he did. This guy was a huge smoker for many years and died from emphysema. I’m wondering if he wasn’t real anxious to be seen in public with his oxygen tank.
To his credit, I used him as an excuse to my parents to stay up late many times. I save my disgust for Bob Hope, who used to think it was a real “treat” to walk on and crash the party when somebody else was an invited guest.
Yeah, it would have to be the Jewish thing. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that she’s not funny, huh?
I will always have a little soft spot for Robin Williams, no matter how much I generally dislike him, because of this one time he was on the Tonight Show when Bob Hope was also a guest. Robin was doing publicity for (IIRC) the movie Toys, and was totally “on” from the moment he took his seat until they introduced the next guest. He was going so fast with the jokes everybody was laughing their asses off. And Johnny was, at times, leaning over holding on to his desk because he was laughing so hard he was about to fall out of his chair. I was rolling right along with them. It was just awesome.
And then the next guest, Bob Hope, came out. He was so pissed at having to follow that, he was just livid. And that just made it that much better.
I distinctly remember numerous occasions when the Tonight Show would return from commercial and you could see Johnny and the guest in the middle of a laugh, or finishing a conversation.
I think he just didn’t want to talk to Rivers, and with her ego that translated into, “he doesn’t talk with anyone”.
Not true. Carson had regular poker nights where the likes of McMahon, Tom Dreesen, Chevy Chase, Don Rickles, Bob Newhart, Fred DeCordova and a handful of other friends were regulars.
It sounds to me like Johnny maintained a ‘normal’ life in Hollywood, where that’s a sin. Most of us have a close circle of friends that we accociate with, and we don’t do the cocktail circuit and hang out with different people every day. But Johnny was the King, and many celebrities would no doubt be horribly offended if they offered friendship and he didn’t accept. A blow to the ego. Kind of like calling the beautiful girl in school conceited because she doesn’t like YOU.
Yes. Johnny retired from showbiz. When he left, he maintained ties with those celebs who became close friends, and cut ties with the others who were just part of the job. Just like when people retire from the factory they don’t continue to hang around it or invite the boss and co-workers over for barbecue, except for the ones who became good friends.
I imagine that to a Hollywood ego, finding out that the top dog on the block considered you ‘just business’, was pretty intolerable. Hence the bad faith.
Leno’s problem was Helen Kushnick. He let her be his public face, and she was a total bitch, strong-arming everyone in sight. After Leno had the tonight show, there was another major incident where she was threatening guests that they’d be boycotted from The Tonight Show if they appeared on Letterman’s show. I believe that eventually led to her firing, if I recall correctly. But I think she burned more than a few people around Jay. Leno himself is a guy much like Carson - very private, very ‘normal’. Carson did astronomy and tennis, and Leno hides in his workshop and restores cars. From what I know, Leno worships Carson, and his monologue last night sure seemed heart felt. Perhaps Leno was a little hurt that Johnny didn’t like him, if that’s true. But Johnny did pick Leno to be permanent guest host (or at least accept the pick), so perhaps the stories of bad blood are exaggerations.
There’s always two sides to any firing. I imagine that those who were fired had more than a few nasty things to say about it.
Those two I hadn’t heard.
Perhaps Ed just felt strange going back to his ‘old show’ and seeing how it had changed. Perhaps he didn’t want to taint his memory of the show. But in any event, he was on last night.
I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but I just can’t imagine an intelligent public figure like Carson who rose from obscure beginnings in a small town equally non-close to NYC and LA to being the most famous celebrity in the nation and one who knew there would always be cameras clicking and people watching him whenever he was in public and tabloid employees literally going through his trash being stupid enough to slap his wife in public. Now he may have worked her over with a baseball bat and a CB antenna when they got home, but for the sake of his career he’d probably have refrained in front of witnesses. He seems like the type who would have been mortified by anything resembling a public scene.
I googled “youngbloods ‘tonight show’ carson”. Couldn’t find much except a reference that they had been promised tow songs then Carson renigged- seems they chose to walk rather than just do the one song.
Can you fill us in on the details and the snippiness?
No, and I usually don’t pester people about their spelling, but you need to take care the next time you write the word “reneged.”