I especially wanted to see what they did for their opening monologues – Leno, who inherited Carson’s show, and Letterman, the one Carson considered his real successor.
I believe Letterman had already scheduled repeats for this week. His remarks won’t be heard for another seven days.
I didn’t see Leno’s opening monologue, except for the last few seconds. He was speaking about Carson, and seemed to be quite emotional, but I can’t tell you exactly what he said. It was followed with a montage of clips from the Carson years on the show.
After that, the guests were Ed McMahon first, then followed by Bob Newhart and Don Rickles who came out together. The last guest was Drew Carey, but I changed the channel at that point.
Letterman was a repeat.
Leno didn’t so much have a monologue as a eulogy. He discussed Carson’s history, his run with the show, how all talk show hosts owe at least part of their success to Carson, and rolled some clips. The rest of the show was turned over to guests sharing memories and stories.
He did seem very emotional, understandably.
Conan was a repeat as well, but the Late Late Show opened with Ferguson’s memories of how he became aware of Carson, and how he made America feel like a small town to him. “Everywhere you went, people knew who Johnny Carson was.” He took great comfort in that, being “a 22 year old scared Scottish kid, full of bravado and the drink,” and alone in NYC.
I didn’t see what Kimmel did.
Leno started with a very abbreviated version of his standard opening, came out and did a few minutes about Carson. As PastAllReason said, it was quite emotional. Leno said Carson was the perfect late-night host, and credited him for starting the careers of hundreds of performers (including Leno.)
I clicked over and saw that Letterman had a Christmas wreath on the set. Surmising it to be a rerun, I clicked back over and watched the rest of Leno.
On last night’s Daily Show, the “Moment of Zen” clib was Johnny coming on stage as “Karnac the Magnificent,” taking a pratfall and have demolishing the set, followed by one of Johnny struggling to skateboard in a huge concrete bowl, followed by a “Thank you Johnny” title card.
Carson Daly’s tribute to Carson was interesting. Daly realized what a lousy talk show host he is, so he slashed his own wrists and bled to death on stage while begging the audience for forgiveness.
Actually it was Ed Helms in the Bowl. That was a follow-on to the report on Tonik [sic] “extreme” health insurance.
I TiVo’d it and will be burning it to disk…I save shows like this. I also have the 9/11 tribute concerts…my little collection of historical television.
I only watched part last night as I had to get up early today, but it was pretty emotional to see Ed McMahan come out with the old Johnny Carson musical intro playing.
What I have seen of it was pretty classy for a tribute, and well done. Considering Carson’s family said there will be no memorial service, this was a pretty good ersatz.