Obviously one of the big entertainment news stories of recent days has been the death of Johnny Carson – the king of the late night talk show.
Here in Britain of course, we’re not quite as knowledgable about Carson as Americans since the show basically didn’t get shown here. How many Briton’s realise that Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining is quoting Ed MacMahon introducing Johnny Carson nightly on The Tonight Show.
Anyhow, this is a roundabout way of pointing the interested listener to a piece of entertaining audio from the Paul Harris Show on KMOX (a great show by the way which sadly isn’t webcast – I have to make do with occassional mp3s that Paul Harris puts up). He has a great interview with a guy called Mark Evanier which last a good half an hour – so is quite a download. As well as having some fascinating stories about Carson, there’s a bit which British listeners will be familiar with. Most will be familiar with the famous encounter that Michael Parkinson had with Rod Hull on his TV show. And we all know that Parkinson’s hostility towards the act was not fake. Listen to Carson’s take on Hull in the middle of this audio (Yup, Emu appeared on the Johnny Carson show!).
Johnny Carson
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2 responses to “Johnny Carson”
Carson was shown in the ITV London region for a short time in 1981, up against Parkinson. Guess what? He bombed, just like Letterman did.
Another interesting fact (from Fox News) is that Carson’s show at one time was responsible for 14% of all of NBC’s income.
I watch Letterman every morning, thanks to the miracle of Sky Plus, a Windows Media Encoder, and an old iPAQ I’ve rescued from the Drawer of Old Gadgets. He’s tops.
Didn’t know about ITV showing Carson. I suspect that it was for a very short time.
I’ve heard that the actual figure for Carson’s show was 17% or even 20%, so who knows. But not bad for something that starts at 11.30.
I’d never have guessed you were a Letterman fan from, say, your sweatshirt! Just as well ITV2 treats the show so well putting it out at the peak times of (consults tonight’s listings since it changes nightly) 1.25am and 5.10am. That’s what I call a Late Show.
Still I prefer The Daily Show With Jon Stewart which is broadcast daily on, er, yeah well. I get it via BitTorrent. But don’t worry, channel Five haven’t really worried whether people are getting hold of US shows via the net – http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1396825,00.html. It’s not like their biggest rating shows are US imports (like their most watched show, CSI, and their most expensive purchase, Joey).
But I’ll be watching Letterman next Tuesday when ITV2 should show what’ll probably be his tribute to Carson.