The Boston Phoenix
November 26 - December 4, 1997

[TV at 50]
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Johnny Carson

The Tonight Show

[Johnny Carson] Beginning when I was 13 or 14 -- when weekend bedtime had long ceased to be an issue -- I would watch The Tonight Show as often as I could. In the summer, virtually every night. It didn't matter who was on. Some of these people seemed to exist only on Johnny's show and in someplace called Las Vegas: Shecky Greene, Buddy Hackett, Don Rickles. Truman Capote seemed to be from Mars. I couldn't believe he was a famous novelist. And there were the juxtapositions: Rodney Dangerfield sitting next to James Mason. ("How are you doing?" Rodney deadpanned to the British actor after one explosive series of riffs.) For a long time, the show came from New York and was 90 minutes long (105 if you lived near an NBC affiliate that broadcast a 15-minute 11 o'clock newscast). I fell for the whole urbane party setup -- the carpeted riser, the couch, the twinkling night sky backdrop. It was bizarrely adult, as exotic as New York itself. Was Johnny my favorite "character"? Did I want to be him? No. I wanted to be on his show. It was the world.

-- Jon Garelick

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David Addison Edison Carter Johnny Carson

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