Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media. It’s me again, Hello, Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News bonus edition. Earlier today, the normal Tuesday episode went out later today, I will have a Jimmy Kimmel bonus episode for you, as Jimmy Kimmel is returning to Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight, so that should be exciting. Give us all something to talk about this episode. My guest is Mark Malcoff.
You know Mark. He used to host The Carson Podcast. He currently hosts the Inside Late Night podcast. Boy, I hope they can find something to talk about. And as I discovered on the fly as we recorded this interview, that’s back today for a new season.
Totally accidental. I reached out to the guy because he was on my radar anyway because of the book, and then there was this whole Jimmy Kimmel thing, so that worked out for both of us. He also has that new book it is called Love Johnny Carson. In this conversation with Mark Malcoff, author of Love, Johnny Carson, host of the Carson Podcast, host of Inside Late Night, we’d talk about Johnny Carson, but also words like leno letterman, fallon Colbert and oh yes, Kimmel gets said. So here’s my conversation with Mark Malkoff and Johnny.
Mack started with a long winded question, I definitely want to talk to you about Carson a lot up front. I’m sure we’ll get to the other news of the week. I’m struggling here. If we could do like some sort of Marvel movie time travel and somehow insert Johnny Carson into this current era of kumbaya, we all get along. I don’t mind that you have another talk show at eleven thirty on the other network, and I’m not sure I can even get there.
But if I can, I’m struggling to imagine Johnny doing, say, what Stephen Colbert has done, or what David Letterman has done. I was trying to channel my inner Johnny this morning, and with all apologies, the best I could come up with would be a joke, something like I on the way over here, I saw Jimmy Kimmel working at the Windy’s and then looking left right, did that joke? Land? I can’t picture him doing a ten minutes die tribe about the government to the FCC as a Carson expert. What do you think, Johnny Carson would somehow do in twenty twenty.
Five, I think he would probably just be doing the same show that he did for thirty years. But I mean it did upset presidential administrations. Like Nancy Reagan called the show twice and was upset. Gerald Borg said it was a love hate relationship. Jimmy Carter’s mom, Lillian called Carson and ass, I don’t know if you can swear on this, but until she met him and went on the show, and then she thought she he was delightful.
So you know him, like Jay Leno, like Conan, they were always doing hammering whoever was in office. It was just you know, they were you couldn’t You’ve never knew where Johnny was voting. I mean, he would hammer. When he found out that the Reagans were upset with his jokes, he said, that’s surprising. He thought we were tougher on Carter or Jimmy Carter.
But I think it was since well Rogers just like you have people like this that just did this. But it was definitely very different for somebody to take like Colbert and Kimmel to take stanzas but it’s different, you know, people forget I think that first year when Colbert was on, he wasn’t taking his stance. He was getting cloppered in the Ravens. He was number three, He was doing the show he wanted to do, and Trump was on the show with him, and I thought he was easy on him, and Stevens acknowledged that. But I think Carson was just doing the same show.
I mean, his rule up until he retired in Burbank was no politicians in all office. And he broke it twice, only once for Reagan on the anniversary show in seventy two because they were out of videotape because NBC he found out how it erased the first ten years and they needed big stars, and Reagan did five minutes, and then once with Clinton only because he did saxophone and he was not famous. They booked him as a civilian, which was for the non famous people in eighty eight. Were in nineteen eighty eight when they got in trouble with the DNC speaking for thirty three minutes when he’s supposed to do fifteen, and he was getting just trounced in Carson’s monologue, and then those are the only two times, so he just yeah, it was it was a different show, and I just think times change, and yeah, and I think Johnny would definitely, I think, just get this huge kind of like just be baffled by the whole thing. Today.
I did see over the weekend some Trump joke circulating, one with a joke about Jennifer Flowers being the backup mistress. So there were a couple of things like that, but they were later in Johnny’s tenure. But yeah, I can’t imagine him doing you know, ten minutes about the way cold Err is doing it his way outside. I think two with Johnny and Letterman got into this as well. There’s a type of needling joke that’s just fun among friends, like a Mark Malkoff joke.
Punchline might be he’s probably watching a Carson rerun, like it’s a harmless joke, whether it’s true or not, as opposed to you know, digging in about you know why so and so is a horrible person. I think you’re right that it’s just a different time. Dave took a different approach the later years. I think after he said John Stewart on cable was, you know, was going after politicians and taking kind of a stance that Letterman, Yeah, Letterman just you know, he emulated he wanted to know what did Johnny do at this point in his career and trying to emulate him. But the thing that he the one thing that he didn’t was, yeah, he started to get a little bit with his political views, and I think that that probably gave room for the others to do it a little bit.
I mean, I do find the Colberts first season very interesting when he didn’t try to do that again, him and Kimmel a two hundred people, you know, staff and crew that depend on him. And I get why Colbert did what he did just because he was number one. When you’re number one and it’s working, you just keep doing what is working. But you definitely, like Carson was very much like you’re going to alienate fifty percent. Like I talk about it, like David Steinberg was doing a Nixon thing and Carson routine and Nixon it is getting some laughs, but at the braid, Carson just told Steinberg it’s like you’re losing half your audience.
It doesn’t bother me, but they’re not with you yet. And yeah, that definitely like, yeah, it’s definitely not where Carson would would would would would go to taking a stance, but it definitely he hammered. I mean he especially in New York. He was he had a lot of politicians on he had that. He had people like atheists like Marraton, like Merck, Madeline Murray O’Hare, the head of the NRA, the head of the Church of Satan, believe it or not, Jim Garrison from the JFK movie, who is a prosecutor who with the first real JFK kind of conspiracy.
So they definitely did the politics the first ten years over there. But again you just had no idea where his politics lie. He did do something for Lyndon Johnson in his inaugural, which he did definitely wish he didn’t looking back, but it was like non political. It was like so many stars were there and basically the attitude was like it’s for the new president. You want to support them.
But he he really tried to stay out of politics. If Sinatra corralled him in one of the Reagan inaugurals, because he was Frank Sinatra and he Johnny kind of owed him, which I talk about in the book. So he did. He entertained one of the Franks and Reagan inaugurals because Sinatra was producing, but he didn’t want to do it. I have so many threads I could pull on, including the fifty percent stuff, but I want to save the Jay Leno conversation for later.
Let’s talk about your book. Sure, I’d like to hear you say the title, because I can’t tell if it’s like I got a love note from Johnny Love Johnny Carson. It’s love Johnny Carson. So how do you pronounce the book? The book is called Love Johnny Carson.
And the reason it’s called Love Johnny Carson is because I talked to over four hundred people, and overwhelmingly they would tell me, either when we were recording or not recording, or an email form, that I love Johnny Carson. They would say, yeah, I love Johnny Carson. And I was like, the I didn’t expect that to happen. Just I basically, you know, I’d read some of the books, and I had heard with people like Joan Rivers and just a few people, like two or three people that were the loudest megaphones over the years that would repeat stuff about him. And there’s only a handful of people if that that really had bad stuff to say.
But definitely seemed like that those were the loudest voices. So I was very I don’t know, it was conflicted going into the podcast because I just didn’t want to put negative stuff out there. I just didn’t want I wanted to tell the truth, whatever the truth was, but I thought it would maybe be seven episops because it would go to negative. And I was shocked when I talked to his friends and I talked to people that worked there, and it was like, he’s unrecognizable. I really believe in this book talking to the four hundred people, I mean, this is the conclusion I made.
And I think if people listen to the Carson podcast that overwhelmingly the people loved him and the stuff that how he acted with his friends. Universally, they would say he was the same Johnny on the show as he was with them, but they had to feel Curson, I had to feel comfortable with the person, but they would say he was nearly the same Johnny. His second wife said the same thing. Yeah, he was a bad drinker. He would acknowledge it on the show, not only with Mike Wallace in sixteen Minutes in nineteen seventy nine, he would talk about the drinking he struggled with the drinking.
He became a different person, which I go into. He would admit he had huge flaws from perfect extremely sensitive individual and that goes with my book with him banning some guests that I go into. He was just for somebody that was in the public eye and that famous it really are. He would get his feelings hurt all the time. He was one of those people that would say the critics.
He never believed when guests would come on and be like, the critics don’t hurt me, have a that thick skin, and it’s like not always hurt. He would read all the press. He read all those books, negative books about him. He just he would read the press on him, but it would hurt, and he would talk about that. I mean, yes, sensitive guy.
I listened to the Carson podcasts. Uh, you know, I guess you could have gone out of your way to books if we dig deep enough. Somebody hates me, hates you, hate Johnny Carson. You could have gotten on somebody. But it’s what you said that everybody really liked him personally.
I did try to get Joan Rivers. I tried to get Waye Newton, I tried to get only a handful of people that I knew. But if if I knew Elaine Boosler, a people that had problems, none of them would talk to me. Please continue to hearing. I was going to name drop Joan Rivers.
I worked with Joan in you know, two thousand and two thousand and two, that range when she had a radio show with w OAR, and she you could tell the whole breakup bothered her, but she didn’t have a bad word to say about Johnny Carson off the air, behind the scenes. You know, obviously things went sideways there and it bothered her, but she had nothing but reverence for Johnny Carson. I think when she got a mic in front of her and a camerash, the venom would spew. But like I think, like I think, when she was with talking to people, it was a lot of it was just like he was the best straight man. He knew how to set me up and made my career.
I do go very in deep in depth with that story. I met Joan a few times and she’s like twice and she’s just very nice and like I’m her pressed to find. I mean, the people I know ultimately loved her so much. People that worked with her, the people that knew were and I write about this and I defend her that the people that worked on the Tonight Show. There’s a lot of people I talked to that loved when she was over there guest hosting, and I wanted to make note of that.
But we I do go in very specific about the versions of the people that were at the Tonight show and what happened on there and and what some of miss Rivers friends and people that knew her thought. And it’s like it’s such a night and day story with Joan Rivers was there and always like I just couldn’t believe, like somebody really smart, Like I’m not gonna mention names, but there’s like one comedian that recently was talking about the Joan Rivers thing and just like how they both believed to this day, it was so simplistic that Johnny just you know, Joan didn’t tell him, so he never talked to her again. The end of story. Didn’t have to air his dirty laundry and the specifics publicly. He didn’t owe anybody that and he didn’t.
I mean, somebody asked him one time during because after this monologue, a lot of times he would take questions from the audience. Somebody like asked him, what are your thoughts in Joan go in to Fox and he’s like, I wish her the best. I mean after he never mentioned her on air after the show got canceled, he never mentioned her publicly that I’m aware of. I mean, he was a couple two journalists. I would have handled it differently, or I don’t think she handled it well.
But like, yeah, he wasn’t going to get into like a back and forth thing about it. But I go into a lot of depth, and there’s a lot of revelations about what according to the Carson staffers and according to some of miss Rivers friends, what happened was. The book blessed at all? Did you talk to the estate? The nephew, Jeff Satzings is the controller of the estate.
I still believe you know, did you guess the ring or you draw on your own? It doesn’t matter if that’s a stupid question, John, it’s a good question. Jeff knows about it. I told Jeff he hasn’t read it yet to my knowledge, but I really hope he likes it. Like I had.
Somebody who was on my podcast been like, is it like, is it a pro Johnny or is it anti Johnny book? And I’m like, I wrote that. I just and I told them, I’m like, I wrote the truth. And he’s like, oh oh, And I’m like the truth is because I feel like I just I owed it to the listeners. Like some people were urging me.
You might not want to make him look bad. It might take away empathy from the audience in your book. And I’m just like, I just wanted to write the truth. But my conclusion, and I think people that read the book ultimately is overwhelmingly positive. I mean that is the people that I talked to.
I mean, I yeah, he there was definitely when he drank there he was not it was he called himself. It was like he said it was he be fine and that one more drink. He compared himself to Attiladahn and I go into the drink game stuff. But overwhelmingly, I mean, it was stories like that. I couldn’t include all of them.
I wish I could add to a director’s cut of the book. But how much amazing stuff he did for people behind the scenes, and he didn’t want any poop listed. I mean, everyone knows about the foundation which at the time was the largest foundation. It was like one hundred was it one hundred and eighty one hundred and ninety million that he left. That’s still the foundation gives away millions of dollars every year to all these different groups and charities and nonprofits.
But he was doing the same stuff, just a peepool, and it was just it was just not the Johnny Carson that I expected at all, and I was shocked, and I felt like there should be a book out there that answers like I feel like there’s a people that made certain claims, and I felt like I wanted to put the truth, like Wayne Newton, for example, about what I believe happened, doing a little bit more research than him waiting for Johnny to pass away until he could make a claim because he I mean, it’s easy to wait until somebody dies to make such a claim that he did on Larry King in two thousand and six, two thousand and seven or whatever it was. And I was like, I know what, I feel like, I just need to like set the record straight according to what the research I have done, and I did a little bit of that here and there. I really wish you would have participated, but what can you do? Uh before we even get to the Carson podcast, let’s back up before that to the eye test. You see him within vaguely my age range.
So for me, I watched Johnny Carson at first because it was the thing on that I killed time waiting for Dave to show up at twelve thirty and came to approchiate. So what is your Johnny Carson. You don’t seem like you were watching episodes in nineteen seventy one, so what So what’s your journey do you? Why do you? Why are you like the Carson guy?
I think when I was like really little, like four or five, I you know, my dad was showing me stuff like it’s a mad, mad mad mad world, Murdered by Death. So like I knew who like all these people were, Like, I mean, I knew who Jonathan Winners, Peter Funck, Eileen Brennan, so many, like Peter Seller’s movies. I was watching The Pink panother there, and he’s in Murder by Death, which is like the greatest movie. But it’s like, Okay, Truman Capodi, I know who he is now. And I was like such a sponge in terms of like early entertainment.
My dad would just tell me he got to go to Carson’s show in sixty eight and would tell me who was on this show, and he showed me. You know. Sometimes they would do these primetime specials, the anniversary shows, which were the those were the things that really I would fell in love with the show, I feel like, but sometimes Friday as I could stay up and watch clips or the watch a little bit of the show. But the thing with Carson is he you could show kids and the animals segments him talking to kids that this the sketches like are gonna go over a lot of the kids’ heads, but like there’s enough within the sketches where they can work on different levels, kind of like some comedy does. But he was just so likable, and it was a party, and I got to you know, sometimes like danger Field, I didn’t really I probably shouldn’t have been watching his sets when I was a kid, but like I didn’t get some of it, but he was just so funny and I did get some of it.
But it was just like this adult party with all these people and show business, and I just loved the comedians especially and when the animals were Jim Fowler or Joan Embery, but those anniversary shows were like the best. I mean, those were those the clip shows I think were the thing that really did it for me. But I was just obsessed with entertainment in general, and I was just trying to, you know, like a sponge with comedy, just anybody, just watch as much as I could. But he was so likable. I think that’s why he succeeded thirty years without any real serious competition.
Was the liability thing, and he was completely himself on air that I asked Larry King and I talked to other people, I’m like, why do you think he was so successful on this? Like it’s obvious, it was so clear. It’s he was himself. I mean he definitely like was a shy person, but he you know, he’s with he was in control and comfortable. He could be that person, but that was definitely part of him.
But he was definitely a like all of us, a complicated person. So is it more than just even in New York City there were seven channels and what else you’re going to watch at eleven thirty? Because you know, Dick Cavitt is likable, but maybe doing a more low to term he or smarter show. But then again, his guest is John Lennon. That seems pretty cool.
I might watch that, So is there more to Johnny just then? Yeah, he had eleven thirty back at a time when what else you’re watching? At one point there were him, David Frost, merv Griffin, and Cavot. Yeah, it was four of them going ahead to head. So I mean there definitely were last options.
But I guess I definitely think at the end of the day, I think these shows are always about likability. I think he knew his audience, and you know, he would read the letters that would come in. He would personally respond to people. Sometimes when they were upset with a joke, he would either call them or write them a letter. He definitely was would study tapes like like an athlete, like a coach, watching clips of his team play, and he was just he would say, and at least in the New York years, I find myself that’s all I think about is the show.
And I mean I think he would probably realize that’s not the most healthy thing. On the occasions him calling up on off weeks, calling Fred de Cordova up with ideas for the show. When he comes back. You know. He would always say he didn’t really watch the show that much.
Sometimes if he would, he watched it most of the nights. It seemed like he would stan up and watch his show, and he would You could tell he watched the guest house too, because he would comment on them sometimes and there would be a comedian that had never been on an his show that did the guest host in and he’d be like, you know what they did very well, let’s get them on with me. But yet he has I don’t know if you can last thirty years like that in terms of like the pressure cooker that is going on that show. I mean, Dick Havitt said something in the that I mentioned in the book in a Time magazine interviewers like go into two hundred cocktail parties in a row and having to be the life at the party and the amount of energy. I mean, the guy doing an hour and forty five minutes in New York the first couple of years, I mean, it was unbelievable.
Now they do an hour. They do maybe one hundred and eighty shows at the most were Carson of Television a year where Carson was doing this first couple of years, like over four hundred hours the first couple of years, and then it went then in nineteen minutes, but it was still in exhausting. I mean, Shan Lane was did an interview Shannon and I think twenty and twelve, and like, no one knows how exhausting it is. One of these competitors, Carson’s competitors, that it’s more grueling than shoveling snow for eight hours just going out there. People, I don’t think realize how for the most part, unless you’re a cyborg robot like Jay Leno, for the most part, how exhausting and not consuming those shows are.
I teach on Monday nights and my wife is no knows this, you know, I lecture for two hours and change and just the act of standing and talking. Yeah it’s not construction workout in the sun, but just even that is exhausting. Never mind, if you’re hosting the Tonight Show or one of these shows you’ve got to be on on you really can’t have a bad night. Plus the prep. Uh, you know, you can’t just show up and be like, all right, who who am I talking to?
Burt Reynolds, Right, I’ll wing it. You know, that’s not the gig. It’s not just oh, you work an hour day, it must be nice. Yeah, there’s a misconception about because Letterman would be at his studio all day like most of the people, and Johnny didn’t get there until maybe two hours before if there were rehearsing a sketch, maybe a little earlier. But from the time he woke up he did take a tennis break.
It was about the show, and he was so hands on from the time. The reason he wasn’t there all day at the studio is because rightfully so, he protected his energy and he knew if he was there too much it would just like affect his energy. He wouldn’t have lunches with people, he wouldn’t interact with people that he just he believed that he just had to guard and that energy. And people said this was a thing that several people on the show told me that when it was a show day and he showed up to the studio and if you were around him, sparks flying these those were his worth, sparks flying off of him. They would tell me you could feel his energy.
And the two people that worked on the show told me when they were guests on the show, one of them wrote a book and one of them played did some music during the show. When they shook his hand once that it felt like a nuclear reactor, and the other said that you could feel the sparks, I mean the energy that he would exude when he was hosting the show. He did this famous thing where they took his heart rate I think some doctor or his pulse or something during when he was hosting the show versus before the show or just like regular and it was like his heart rate was just so much higher when he was doing the show. It’s just it was I mean, yeah, from somebody that performs and somebody that’s teaching, you know what that was like. But he just he was exhausted, and a lot of people gave him like he’d make fun of it, but people would give him a hard time for only doing the show three times a week the last couple of years.
But the truth of the matter is it wasn’t laziness. He just did not have the energy interesting anymore. And he would not let the energy he didn’t with the quality beat the show to slap. I mean he didn’t. He could have shown up those five nights a week, but he knew the energy just he just did not have that with him in it and he could feel it, and.
It’s a viewer. I don’t think the three nights a week thing with the live shows on Monday and the one reun rerun was Tuesday, right, and then a Wednesday, Thursday Friday live if I’m. Remember something like that. It was like like somebody like Leno the permanent guest host or then you know Joan Rivers is the permanent guest was like it gave him a break, It gave Leno and Rivers a chance to shine and get up there with Las Vegas touring money. I mean yeah, I mean it was just it was a win win for I think everyone in like, there was definitely expectations when Johnny did host.
It was such a big deal for any for people. And I mean, but people make fun of him about it and he acknowledged it. But I mean, yeah, I just I just he knew. I think he knew what his limitations were, and he is he was getting older. He just again, and I mean I think I’m not without naming names.
I think some shows sometimes stale around a little too long and the quality diminishes, and he just didn’t want to be Bob Hope. He didn’t want to be Benny. He didn’t want to be luci Oball who he all believed stayed around too long, came back when they shouldn’t know. And he just wanted the work to speak for itself, and he just didn’t want the quality to dip. And I really feel as the time it was right.
I mean, he was getting made fun of its Saturday Night Live and he hated that, and he just didn’t want to be perceived like he perceived some of the other entertainers that he loved Hope, he personally loved Benny and Lucille Ball. He just didn’t want to He didn’t want to be remembered like that. So that’s what he got out when he did. I think he was smart in terms of legacy. I’m a big Hope fan because I’m familiar with the entire body of his work, and so many people Bob just gets dragged for the work he did at eighty and ninety years old.
People will remember that. Bob Hope we’ve talked on the past, asked about why Corson didn’t really enjoy Bob as a guest, because Bob would just come in and do his thing and not have a conversation. But I think there’s something for off the stagehead. Only near the end. Like I think he was fine up until like the early eighties with Hope.
It’s when Hope had trouble hearing and Hope could couldn’t really unless Johnny was reading off the cards with the questions in order. Hope was having a tough time even even having a conversation. I think that that’s when it got in that. I mean, it was just tough because Carson would be like like, well, Bob, like why are you doing this on Christmas? Going to Hawaii?
And he’d be like, they really lay the money on you, and it’s like you you don’t need the money, like what Like he Carson would be like, Bob, Hope has no friends, like no friends or interests, no no real friends and no interest outside show business. And Carson had so many it was a curious guy and interest and just he just he just didn’t really understand where Hope was coming from. But in terms of him personally, he liked Bob as a person and he respected his early career huge Hope. Then there was never any personal dislike like there’s so many either like hack journalists or like YouTube AI videos like Carson hated. There was no hatred there.
It was just near the end. He just it was he didn’t really like having him on, but he had him on out of reverence because he was Bob Hope. But he there was never it wasn’t a personal thing and it was just near the end. But I Hope. Carson wrote a handwritten letter to Hope and it was really I think it was a ninety eight just with how much he meant to him.
And you know, Johnny retired from the Tonight Show and left the Tonight Show and was so careful about what he did. But when Hope said, will you do my ninety at that NBC? Johnny said, yeah, of course. I mean he made a rule that he wasn’t going to come back and do anything, but he’s like for Bob Hope, I’m gonna be there. I mean, so for people that asked me all the time, is it true that Johnny hated him, I’m like, not even close.
That’s not that’s not even yeah. Well said, appreciate you clearing that up. So did did Johnny live for the show or was it just something he was good? And uh, you know he didn’t need to do it. He lived for the show, and he told somebody privately near the end of his life it was the only time he felt alive and felt happy and you know, really really alive and happy, and it was just something he just would he talked a little bit publicly.
It just and went interviewed just about the adrenaline and just like to be in front of those that many people when it goes well. I think Dave Letterman’s probably in that category. Two. I mean that it was just even when sometimes it didn’t go great, it just Dave would always say it was the best hour of his day by far. And I feel like Johnny probably was like that too, but it became his identity just I mean, he there were there were definitely he had interest, but there were he didn’t try.
There were he was definitely very careful. Could like, for example, like he tried golf in a few times and he found he was terrible at it, and he’s like, He’s like, I don’t want to do this because I don’t want to do anything that I’m not good at because I’m so good at the Tonight show. I’ll only like do things if he can be good at them, and there there weren’t a lot of things like he con tennis. He was manageable and stuff like he could be okay, but like if he if he couldn’t be at least like decent or good, he wouldn’t want to keep doing it. He just was like his standards were really high, which is the Tonight Show.
So that’s I think why he turned down a lot of movies and acting roles like lucre Is, stuff like Steve McQueen and well movie wasn’t I read about it in the book, but he turned down like Lou Wasserman’s offer. I think no, no, no, no no, it was one of the other guys had it might have been Wasserman, or it was one of those those moguls, Irving Lazar, actually Swifty Lazar a million dollar check for like ten days or back then. Now there’s a lot of money’s and now it’s a lot. But I think a lot some of it was just like he just knew what he was good at and that and he didn’t think anybody would accept him for being an act or a movie star doing he called sitcom like the Kiss of Death, especially back then, if you were on a sitcom you do a lot of times, it was the end of your thing that you were known as that, and it was over. After that, it was hard to kind of build a career.
So Mark Malcoff’s book is Love Johnny Carson More to come.
Let’s talk about the Carson Podcast.
Yeah, let’s do it. Why, Like, like you started that when there weren’t a lot of podcasts before everybody you know, even I have a podcast now, but you were one of the podcasts I was listening to pretty early on. It was easier to discover such a thing. And I can’t remember if you monetize it at all. You weren’t like stuffing it with mid rolls or anything.
So why the Carson Podcast. Everything I’ve done, anything that’s certainly been successful, has been curiosity. Like it was bafling to me that the guy who held the curse curt and open for Johnny that no one had ever to my knowledge talked at him Like that’s the way my mind thinks, Like who is this guy Jeff sat saying? When I sat down with him, I was like, Oh, it’s this gentleman named Irving Davis, And I’m like, I want to talk to IRVINGI what was that like being backstage with the show and he would tell me he’d be with Johnny and like a lot of performers just need silence and they’re in their own and they’re like, no, Johnny would be smoking the cigarette, telling jokes and hanging out with me up until here’s Johnny. He would just be like, you know, just and it was just interesting to kind of get that point of view.
I just had so many questions what went on behind the scenes. My dad, even from the time I was still in elementary school, would be like, no, Mark. The reason that they’re so funny together with the guests, a lot of it is because they determine what they’re going to talk about before the show. And there’s like look at the credits, these talent coordinators, and I was like, how do you get a job like that? Like what?
I just wanted to know how all the magic tricks were done, Like it was this giant mystery, like how people got booked on this show. How they would get the like a farmer from from from someone like Frank Hall or someone from North Carolina who is the manure man they called him that made the quail dropping necklaces from and sell them, and it’s like where do they find these people? And like the writers, like how did they get jobs that are what was it like writing? So it was just like I had endless questions and basically I got all my questions answered from asking people. And you had no idea that there were people like other people like you.
Thank God, there were that wanted to follow me on this eight year journey doing almost four hundred episodes, and it was just pure curiosity. And I got to ask how all the magic tricks not magic tricks, but with what went on behind the scenes, And that’s all I really wanted to know is how everything went down and what Johnny was like off camera, and just it just like opened up this whole different world.
And then that’s what the book, which comes out on October twenty first, two d…
I’d say the book is thirty forty percent of the podcast, and it’s about sixty percent new stuff that I got to talk to a lot of people like Jay Leno that wouldn’t talk to me for my podcast as well, so I have a lot of new people. I was able to add, but it was just pure curiosity. That’s it. I love. First of all, it’s great because it’s a nice way, a nice piece of the legacy.
I imagine some of the guests are no longer with us, and so this way the stories aren’t lost a time, much like Gilbert Godfreed’s podcast, and we’ve even lost Gilbert, but you know, he got some stories out of people before they were lost. I also like that it’s sometimes you’ll watch a documentary and because of the nature of the business, you have to have famous people on it. So it’s here’s I don’t know why I’m picking this person. I don’t just I think I just read a story about him. But here’s Rain Wilson’s opinion on Johnny Carson.
And like you said, I’d much rather hear from the guy who was hanging out backstage on the curtain or just super fans than tangential celebrities in some of these things. So I think it’s a fantastic body of work that I’m glad exists. Oh thanks, Yeah. The emails that I would get and a messages from people overwhelmingly were the staff that people, the talent coordinators, people like Irving Davis, people like Peter Less Sally who is Johnny’s producer, the writers, I was overwhelmingly Carson’s assistants were the ones that I think people really They moved people emotionally, and they were the ones that just to hear those stories versus having the famous people, which is great. To the people that were guests on the show, those were great to hear.
And again I can’t believe the amount of people Top friend friends with Frank Santa Padre, who was Gilbert’s co host, and the amount of people on both of our shows that are no longer with this. I think it’s like forty or fifty people that I had on the show that are gone. And it’s really set like so many younger people too, like Saggot Bob Saggot, Louis Anderson. Gilbert was on my podcast. I had to bring him a sandwich.
There were conditions. When I went to his Chelsea apartment. He got on the phone with his wife’s like, I think he’ll do it if you get him a sandwich. And Gilbert got on the phone with me and I had to get him turkey sandwich with I think it was mayo and a drink.
And then a cookie and it was like six dollars a sandwich.
And then he’s like, where’s the mustard, Like, Gilbert, you didn’t say mustard.
And then there’s this big back and forth.
But he still did the podcast, and then I showed him. He could not believe I had a surprise for him. I said, Gilbert, did Johnny ever mention one air to your knowledge? He said no, and it was on the show he was never mentioned. I was like, Gilbert, this is your life.
And then I played him a monologue ic that Johnny did about and when the Emmys when he got into some controversy with a routine, and he couldn’t believe it. He’s like, can we watch it again? I was like yeah, So we played it a bunch of times and he just was like so baffled, like a little kid that Carson mentioned him on that Tonight show by name. It was really fun. It’s fascinating that Johnny Carson is still, at least for Late Night, the north star in the way that George Carlin is the north star for comedians, both gone now twenty years.
I stumbled across that fact that it’s been twenty years since Johnny’s gone. That kind of I knew it and forgot it, and it’s stunned me the other day. But he really is just a north Star. Yeah, this show has been off the air. I cannot believe this for over with it has been thirty two years.
I mean, it’s it doesn’t feel like I remember when on May twenty second, nineteen ninety two, where I was watching that final show, and it’s it’s amazing to see to think about that. I do think the one that the geniuses about Carson is like, I feel like so many of the clips still play. It’s interesting to me, Like I sometimes we’ll get emails from people that are in college or people in their twenties that are discovering him on YouTube and just they think the clips, some of the clips are so funny, and just the fact that they still play, it’s it’s unbelievable to me. But just the fact that, I mean constantly I’m trying to go online to see who’s talking about Carson, and I’m shocked about the mainstream press that he still gets like his son. Unfortunately, Chris passed away at seventy four, and then his third wife, Yeah, Joe Wane Uh passed away a couple of months ago, and just the amount of national news that he still makes, Like the Wall Street Journal just did a piece about his Malibu home.
His last home is up for there’s like one hundred and ten million or something somebody’s trying to get for. But the fact that Carson, all these years later in the late night shows fallin Colbert and Kimmel, up until recently for Kimmel, we’re still talking about Johnny and asking guests about Johnny. I mean, it speaks volumes. I think. I think if you watch the old monologues and the same is true of the young Bob Hope, there’s the rhythm of the joke, so you could swap out the particular surname of the governor at that time or the president of the time, but the rhythm of comedy is there on those old monologues, and I think that’s what’s resonating with younger people.
Yeah, I mean, the monologue was Johnny’s favorite thing. It was definitely this process where the thing that I miss about the monologue in the last twenty years or so is that Johnny’s monologue he either got laughs or silence, And in the last twenty years on the little late night shows, the clat no matter what I mean, if they had to suck on their hands and they couldn’t do the clap an thing, I think that there would be some silences and it would be interesting. The jokes never bomb. Everybody either claps or here laughter, but they clap, and just that Johnny that there’s I wonder today. I’m sure that some of those those hosts could add up and be funny with I just kind of missed like Johnny was like a high wire at doing that because he could cover with the with the bombing, and I think that was like part of the charm with him is that he was so he would make fun of himself and just put himself in a situation like that where the other hosts now don’t have to worry about that.
But there was just that something amazing, Like I talk about this in the book a little bit, like there were sketches where the writers learned very quickly, you don’t want to put a phone in his sketch because Johnny, if it’s not going, I can pick up the phone and be like, let’s fire. The writers, you don’t want to put a lighter in the sketch because he could set fire to the script that’s in front of him at the desk, because if it’s not funny and stuff. So because sometimes it would like Doc would play taps if a sketch bombed, or if like the monologue joke. But there was definitely like humanity and people loved him more for it. That’s why he kept in all the mistakes for the most part.
When Robert Gulay is up there in eighty six, nineteen eighty six and forgets the words to Memories from the show Cats and he just turns to Johnny, He’s like, no, you’re gonna keep going. We’re gonna get this and keeps everything in, saying with John Davidson when he forgot the words to a song, he’s like, no, you’re gonna get it right. The audience just loves the performer even more. It’s that makes them human and just it was a genius. Now they would just stop tape, but Johnny just was all about, let’s keep all these imperfections in, and it was wonderful.
I think that was really a charm, and I kind of missed the whole of that whole thing, just keeping all the mistakes in. And refresh my memory. I think you just addressed this. When Joe Coy hosted the Golden Globes, he caught a lot of guff for throwing his writers under the bus. But I seem to remember Johnny joking about the writers when a joke didn’t land, and it was charming.
And I don’t want to debate Joe Coy, but was that something Johnny would do? Would reference the writers very rarely. I mean I would talk to writers and said, I asked numerous ones. Did you get in trouble with Joe? He said absolutely not.
He never blamed any of us. He said I picked the jokes. He took full responsibility. The thing like Carson said that I think Joy had a really tough time with hosting the Golden Globes is Carson w always say it’s eighty percent acceptance. If the audience accepts you, you get in out there, it is so much easier they know who you are.
And it took it took Johnny a little bit because he was this game show host and for the audience to accept somebody is something different. And I don’t think the Golden Globe audience really it is certainly not in America where he was not a household name by any means. So I think it’s just much harder time to do that. Whereas Ricky Gervais, they steps on stage and people get his sensibility right away and they know where what to expect. Same with Carson.
It is extremely hard for somebody that is not accepted, as Carson would say, to go up there as you’re just it’s just the battle is it’s it’s just harder. I think may berghets he just suffered from that on the Emmy. He’s a very likable guy, very popular comedian, but he’s not La Hollywood, and I think he struggled for the same reason. I just think like certain people are built for certain shows, Like I think he was really great on Saturday Night Live, and I think it was probably a smart thing to play to the strengths to do that type piece that I know that did well on S and L the same premise. But yeah, I mean, there’s just certain some people that were born to do that show.
Like I mean, a lot of people I’ve talked to us will tell me they think Johnny and these are people that didn’t work on the show told me that they thought he was the best Oscars host by far. I mean he hosted, I think it was four or five times, in the fact that he was able to do it that many times, and he clashed with the director Mars Marty Pissetta, and he it wasn’t always easy, but he did very, very well. Mart You know, he wanted Johnny, like if you notice on the monolog he always, unless he made fun of Doc’s outfit or whatever, he wanted this that always to remain on him the camera and never did audience cutaways, whereas Marty Passett when he directed Oscars, wanted to do cutaways and Johnny wanted to keep the lights down like he did in Burbank. And he always this thought of a joke bomb he could he could say that but with his reaction on his face, rather than if they did cutaways. But he felt like that was the way that he could he could make if jokes didn’t do well, that if the camera just would stay on him.
So they hit all these different philosophies and it was definitely a hard collaboration. But Johnny I think his work is the Oscars. I think his film historians when they look back and TV historians, I think he’s definitely one of the best, if not the best. I think that’s done the Oscars in the top the race. Certainly.
As somebody who’s been had a media career of thirty five almost years now, I always appreciate a professional host. There are some talk show hosts. I would put Johnny Carson in this category. The current generation of late night hosts. There are people you could wake up at three in the morning and be like, Hey, we’ve got an emergency.
I need you to host the Oscars right now. I read the cue cards and then throw it to break and then I’ll tell you what to do next. And there are people like that that can do that. I’m a big Ryan Seacrest fan. I know people like to give Ryan the business, but there’s something about being a professional traffic cop host that is underappreciated.
I mean broadcaster, and people that are good broadcasters make it look so easy. Like Dave Letterman recently mentioned the late Regis vill Ben, and he always has to preface this. I’ve heard him say this before that people think it’s a joke about what a good broadcaster he was, but he was unbelievable that he could do that the host chat without any script and like just be interesting and just be likable and go on Dave’s show and they would do a pre interview, but never get to it that he was able to do that. There are certain people that just have that skill set that could just get up like you’re saying, without much to little prep and be able to do well. I will say this though, and I talk about this in the book which comes out October twenty First Love Jenny Carson is that Carson was the only, to my knowledge was still the only person that would host those shows without any teleprompter or Q coch wow really would he had he would do the mnemonic device.
He did something I’ve heard two different versions. One was Harry I know Harry Loreno went on the show who was a magician like he went on a bunch of times that he had a technique. And there was another person that had a technique as well that went on the show and memorize. And I know Johnny took a class speed reading, a class. He was very he liked taking courses in classes.
He took a class on mnemonic so he would memorize. And his whole thing with memorizing, he is that he could he if he could read the audience and felt like if you wanted to insert joke. The fourth joke he memorized, maybe he would put that seven and he could he could edit in his head. Doc Seffnston told me he had never seen a performer that could edit as he was speaking. He could edit in his head and think about what he was going to be either if he was in with guests, like what are you going to ask next?
Or listen to the person, but then also be able to do both things in multitask as a host, and that skill set. I don’t know how many people can do that, but Johnny was just brilliant at it. Mark Malcoff’s book is Love Johnny Carson. We’re coming up these days. You’re hosting the Inside Late Night Podcast.
We’re between seasons as I speak to you now, I’m going to deliberally date this on Monday, because I’m going to start asking you some topical question and it’s quite possible as we’re sitting here in the studio that nine news stories have broken. So, in case we are dated, this is Monday, September twenty second, around a lunchtime. So you’re hosting the Inside Late Night Podcast, which is between seasons. Right now, where did that come from when the Carson Podcast ended. I do want to mention it comes back tomorrow with the new season.
Unless something happens. We’re all set to do a new season on Yah September twenty third, Tuesdays on Late night Er. Well that’s hopefully today as the audience, here’s this. I’m planning on dropping this on Tuesday unless my life goes sideway. So oh good, good timing.
The twenty third guest So today, wasn’t that a great podcast episode? Everyone? So yeah, it was one of those things where I loved talking to people about Carson. But at the time, I was running out of people because you had all these people that were even when they were kids, like Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Bateman, Drew Barrymore that they’re all now like in either their late forties or early fifties, and it was just like the people that I wanted to talk to had either passed away or it was just it was just getting I was running out of guest so it was a little harder. So, you know, I have I think I have a skill set, pretty good skill set with late night stuff.
The things I know about or the things I’m curious about. On some of the other shows. So I just wanted to kind of go broad and talk to people from Saturday Night Live and people that did Latterman and other variety shows and talk shows and just kind of picked their brains and ask the questions I’ve always wanted to ask, Like I really loved talking to Bert Sugarman, who is the creator of Midnight Special. But Bert Sugarman’s Night Special and Johnny Carson and him were neighbors and tennis buddies, and yeah, Burt was the one that told Johnny about his idea he wanted to do after his show on Fridays, and Johnny’s like, absolutely, let’s do this, and really supported Burke Sugarman’s Midnight Special, which I think debuted in seventy three, and it was like revolutionary that there was another late night show. And that’s how Tom Snyder because they’re like, oh, wow, you mean we can do other stuff after Johnny’s show and original program, and so yeah, just talking to a lot of people in late night has been really, really fun.
Well, let’s go down the punch list of the big news story a few months ago the Late Show coming to an end was the Late Show losing forty million dollars? Was this about something else? Where? Are you on the conspiracies? I have no idea.
I’m friends with people over there. I’ve worked on the Comedy Central version of the Colt Beat Report for three years and eight months. And I don’t know. I don’t know the I don’t know the economics. I know things have changed in the last whatever for years, just with viewership, if network television going down, I don’t understand the metrics.
There are way more people watching late night online and it’s amazing to look at the millions and millions of people on YouTube and other platforms. But I don’t know. I have no idea. I just it never occurred to me that you could be number one and that this would be a possibility. But I do not know.
Uh. But I’m glad they just won the Emmy, and I’m glad that they’re gonna at least get till May. But yeah, it’s it’s just it stanks for people’s jobs. It’s a shame any it’s like for any show like that to go under. I mean, there’s a lot of great people over there.
I’m surprised they didn’t look at things like do you need two hundred staffers? Can we do with one eighty? Do we need five shows a week? Can we do four? Can we do three?
Do we do we need the Ed Sullivan Theater? Like that? God was me? That was I was very because to my knowledge talking into people over there, there weren’t. I was thinking that they would the writers in half or try out different things.
Into my knowledge, none of that stuff happened to my knowledge, and I thought that there’d be some foreshadow in and there, to my knowledge, there wasn’t there. Maybe I’m wrong, but yeah, that was that. That definitely to me was surprising that that if that was the case, that there wouldn’t have been some concessions made. I’m also surprised that for any of these shows that we’re going to talk about, no one has tried doing them live or close to live on a streamer like I know it’s called The Late Show, where the Tonight Show, but I’d probably put more eyes on them if either of those shows were available to me. At eight Eastern, I go to bed.
I’m old, and if something interesting happens the next day, I’m not going to go back and watch it on a DVR anymore, because I’ll see the clips on social But if it were live ish at eight Eastern, I might stare at it. Yeah, like John Mulaney, I think he did that for net Fletzi. I don’t know how many episodes he did two seasons. It certainly wasn’t every night. I mean he did it, yeah, I mean, I forget how many shows it were.
The second season was twelve, the first season was several nights in a row. Because he was the first were just okay. I think like somebody that I read an article that said it was just okay, and they haven’t committed to doing more. And I know that, and I admire mulaney. He wanted to put on people he wanted to, like.
I love the fact he had Joan Bias on the show, and it was certainly at least in one interview he mentioned that some of the people like they wanted maybe some bigger people on here and there, and he wanted to do his own show. And I think it’s great he did the show he wanted to. And I love the fact that he mentioned the set was modeled off of photos he saw Johnny Carson’s Malibu home. He had trees in the studio, which I thought was a really cool thing to Carson, But yeah, I don’t know if. Yeah, but if they did the show live, you did get somebody that was doing that every every night, how that would work?
It would certainly be an interesting experiment. There’s certainly enough really funny hosts I think, and comedians or personalities where you could try to make something like that happen. Oh, I mean even just the Tonight show with Jimmy fallon streaming on all you guys. Well, they did talk about I did read an article, and I guess I could be off on this too, but I’ve read an article saying that they were thinking about showing some of those shows on Peacock at like eight o’clock or earlier. The affiliates balked, and the affiliates pro were like, no, absolutely not, because they thought it would kill their audience and some of the networks.
And I can see where they might be coming from. But I don’t know. But so it definitely was a discussion. But yeah, if they did do those live on streaming, that would be interesting. I would Yeah, I don’t know where it’s gonna go.
I think we’ve reached the point where you can’t worry about the affiliates. What springs us to this week’s big News, Jimmy Kimmel, you think he walks, you think he comes back and again recording on Monday, the story could have changed seven times by the the time you answer this and people hear it. I’m just glad that he’s that his staff is getting paid, Steph and crew were getting paid. I have friends over there. I’ve been over there to visit numerous times.
I didn’t see that coming either. I mean, he’s the first one that said, you know, I don’t know if these shows are gonna be around in ten years. But yeah, it’s just I don’t know. I I it’s gonna be I think it’s gonna be a challenge for the thing to come back, unfortunately, but I don’t know. I feel like the best thing that happened sometimes to certain of these house like Honan is like the TBS show ended, and then he is so much more, not only like powerful, but like like just so much more, like just even beloved, just doing his his his podcast and doing his doing the podcast and then doing his HBO show.
I mean, I feel like they’re for a lot of those hos, some of these guys can maybe find a different outlet that might be hopefully employ their staff as many people as possible. But yeah, I don’t know. I just didn’t see this come in with him, and I just hope that people can still get paid for as long as they possibly can. New cycles and the obvious aside. I’ve always felt that if one franchise survived, it would be The Tonight Show.
I do feel like I can with Late Night. I don’t feel like Seth Myers is doing Letterman Show. I felt like Conan was doing Letterman Show sort of, but in his own style. I can draw a through line all the way from Steve Allen to Jimmy Fallon. It feels like The Tonight Show.
And I feel like at some point, if you’re a NBC, this is who we are, with the Today Show and some shows and then the Tonight Show, and that’s who we are. I struggle to see the Tonight Show going away. Especially Fallon is sales friendly, willing to play ball, not particularly edgy. I think that one will stick around. He’s on other NBC shows that he’s hosting as well, which I mean, if you’ve noticed Kimmel up until you know recently he got yanked, but he was hosting Millionaire for ABC who wants to be a millionaire.
So I don’t know if that’s part of like the double duty stuff that is like now with with some ratings and monetizing, if this is part of the deal that they have them hosting other shows or how anything works. But I think that that fallin in terms of the people that watch the audience. He does a good job. I think he did a good job recently addressing the whole Kimmel where he mentioned I thought it was a funny joke saying that, like his dad texted him like, I’m sorry he got fired because people constantly are calling Kimmel fallen and fallen Kimmel or thound. You did a good job with that, And I hope he’s he’s around.
I think he’s done a good job. I really do. I really though, like revision is history. I know that he got a lot of bad press for this, but if I was the decision maker, I think that at the time I would have given it to Brian Williams. I think he would have succeeded wildly.
There’s so many news people that went into entertainment and vice versa that have done different things, but just you know, he was number one, I think at NBC News, and so they to have somebody like make that switch. I just they I just the way it played out, especially publicly, it did him. It was not good for him. But I think if he would have been given that chance, I think he was. He’s so witty and so good at that at doing that broadcast, and and so just the likability thing.
I think. I think his show, I think he would still be on the air, if that’s me. But I know that that that that he never even came up, and but I know he is his skill set that that he would have done I think very well. And Jimmy Fallon just turned fifty one, Colbert sixty one, Kimmel’s fifty seven, Johnny Carson retired at age sixty six. Now that was a four cigarette packs a day sixty as opposed to a salad sixty six.
So we might have been headed for a generational change in the near future. Anyway, we’ll see what happens. I mean, it’s like Johnny was doing two packs of Pall Mall’s. I know that his friend Michael Landon who passed away from pancreatic cancer, and that they’re saying that maybe the alcohol and cigarettes was something he was doing. Some people say up to four packs.
It was just people were smoking and drinking back then. It was just such a different time. Yeah, like the younger, younger people to be interested. I really hope with the late night shows never go away, like I could see it being sicklical where you know, like nobody ever thought that primetime game shows would come back, and now, like I mean in the eighties or nineties, if you ever thought there would be primetime game shows like this, and they’re all over the place now. So I mean it’s it’s hard to say.
I mean that anybody can do things on YouTube when like with a phone, and I think that these things hopefully will alway they just exist in some format. But I definitely I don’t know if you’re going to see the big bands and anything or any more to the extent, which is I think a big shame. I do think they’ll survive. Like you said, you may pull back the budget. Really you just need a host and a desk and a chair and you know basically what Mark Maron does but film it.
I do think there’s something for eleven thirty. Some people have asked about, you know what, what else can Jimmy Kimmell do. And one thing that is true, I’ve been showbusiness so showbiz adjacent for a couple of decades. Now. In Hollywood, they do keep score.
You know, your Oscar is better than Miami, and we both know it, and we keep score that way. There is a big difference between I’ve got a late night show at eleven thirty five and I’ve got a podcast and make a lot of money. I mean, the podcasters are all doing so well, and a lot of them the people that are those comedians that are doing selling out arena. I mean, it’s unbelievable. It’s just it’s different metrics definitely, like younger people listen to like stuff like Theovaughn versus maybe watching the traditional late night shows.
It’s just things have changed. Oh sure, and money and money wise, Theovon is probably doing really well, but at the fancy Hollywood party, if we care about such things, Theovon is not Jimmy Fallon. Yeah, and things definitely in terms of like traditional media, which is just yeah, I mean things definitely, and broadcast television and those type of It’s like people that are under thirty, I can’t believe. And I do get it just because it’s so different, like the like the YouTube people or the people that like we grew up with that, Like you know, the mainstream people are like all on YouTube people we probably don’t even know, you know that they that’s who they’ve gravitated to. And it’s yeah, it’s just completely a different boat ball game.
Well, you talked earlier about how you knew who some of these celebrities were. We grew up in the monoculture where I kind of knew who Humphrey Bogart was because Bugs Bunny did an impression. I kind of knew who Carry Grant was because you know, Rich Little did an impression, or these people are on the Hollywood squares. I’ll let you go a second. I do want to talk to you about Jay Leno, who had become obsessed with So jay Leno recently said, you don’t want to tick off half your audience, which, according to Mark Malkoff, author of the book Love Johnny Carson, is something Johnny Carson said, But jay Leno was completely lionized.
How dare he even weigh in on this? So what does jay Leno know about Late Night? He’s the worst person ever. No, my take and I’ve been doing a bit on Jay Leno’s the worst person ever? Is he seems like a nice guy who’s taking care of his wife who’s suffering from dementia.
We can get into the conon of it all or not well well debated, well discussed, but he seems like an okay person. But anyway, why did we lionize Jay Leno for saying, don’t lose half your audience? You don’t know, I mean that there were definitely I think people that some of those hosts that he was talking about. I think some of the hosts probably didn’t appreciate and some of their audience. But I mean, Lena has asked his opinion.
I mean, I don’t know. I definitely think it’s easy. He’s an easy target to bash, I think people. I mean, he was still an amazing stand up comic and his letterman appearances when he was with Dave on the NBC Show were amazing, amazing. He was number one for his entire run on The Tonight Show when he was host.
You know, he’s a really really nice guy. I’ve met him a couple of times. I mean, I would not want to compete with him. There was definitely like when he was trying to get Dave’s job. I go into when him and Dave were competing for old Dave really was and he was like, I think the best person should get the gig.
What steps Lena was doing to get the Tonight Show, and I talk about some of that stuff and some of the stuff that went on with Conan. I think those are the probably the things that maybe people have brought up with, things that they might have issues with him. But you know, I mean, I think at the end of the day, I think Jay is just an amazing stand up and yeah, I mean his Tonight Show. I mean, yeah, you can’t argue with being number one. I mean, I definitely think it is hard for him from what I hear, just the fact that, like every comedian, it seems like in all that the TV historians is just like they praise Dave and his Tonight Show and his innovation and just everything he has done for comedy, and Jay kind of gets a little bit forgotten on the Tonight Show.
But it was just a different choice. Jay’s goal was just to be number one, and he did that. But I definitely think it did come with a price, which is I think people with kind of like looking back at the two of them and the shows and stuff, Dave’s stuff just kind of stands out and just remember more. I think, like Jimmy Fallon, Jay Leno understood what the Tonight Show is and how you do it, as you said his Letterman appearances, we saw a different, edgier ish Jay Leno back in the eighties. He understood what the Tonight Show was.
He executed the mission. He was obsessed like a lot of people with I don’t know if Letterman was like this, but Jay was obsessed with the writings. Every morning, look at the writings. Would called Rick Ladwin, vice president of the NBC Late Night how did you think this show was? He just needed, like Rick told me, at least the late Rick Ludwin that he needed.
Jay needed, like I guess a superstitious athlete or whatever, just approval from him every single day until near the end when Rix supported the whole NBC decided that Conan was going to take the Tonight Show in four years, and Rick supported that, and Jay kind of yeah, stopped talking to him for a bunch of time, and near the end of Rick’s life they did reunite, which was good that they did get back on speaking terms and friendly, but there were a bunch of years where they weren’t. And you know, I mean he I think he knew his audience as well as Johnny in terms of in terms of getting the ratings and staying number one. I do think it’s insane he didn’t mention the previous host of The Tonight Show in his first episode. That was his Managres’s call. As the story goes, but just unbelievable.
It seemed like it was a very from the people I’ve talked in a very unhealthy relationship and that she was just controlling in that the dynamic was very complicated and unhealthy. And I talked to Jay a little bit. I talk about that in the in the book about Helen Kushnik. Jay has gone on record so many times saying that was a mistake, and yeah, Helen wanted Johnny to acknowledge that Jay or do something on Johnny’s last show, and Johnny’s like, no, not doing that. I mean, he Johnny said to them, and I talk about this in the book, he said, I just didn’t I never understood the whole Helen kush thing.
She basically Johnny said, He’s like she Jane never would have gotten the permitted guest host if it wasn’t for Johnny’s and if it wasn’t for me, they would not have gotten it. And it’s just like I never understood like like like our show, like the thirty Years, like how they treated us in how thirty years like we didn’t exist or anything, and just yeah, it wasn’t yet that just that Pallenge just didn’t do Jay a certain Yeah, did him a disservice. And that’s Johnny’s opinion. I talk about that. When NBC hit the panic button on Conan, if j says no, do they give Conan more rope?
Do they call? I don’t know, Gary Shandling, what was the planed c. I don’t know. I have no idea. I talked to Jay and I asked him because I said that one of the reasons I think that they kept you is good that if you would have left, they would have had to pay they would have one of the reasons that got rid of Conan is because they would have had to pay you, like it was like one hundred and fifty million.
And Jay said that was absolutely not true, that that day they didn’t have to pay him all that money, and that’s the work. The reports that came out, I don’t know what they would have done with Conan Leban. Yeah, the skill set is really tough. Maybe would have moved falling up. I’m not sure, but it’s yeah for the Tonight Show for eleven thirty, it’s a tough time slot of somebody doesn’t have their skills up to part me.
People forget like like Letterman was like the hottest thing in TV in August of the ninety three when nineteen eighty three and he premiered. He had done the show for eleven and a half years. Prior to that, he had guest hosted, he had a morning show, and he had guest hosted for the for Carson all those times. So by the time he got his show in February of eighty two at twelve thirty, he had already had so much practice. So the critics liked him and he knew what he was doing.
The interview is still it still took him a little bit more time to figure those things out, even with that practice. But by the time you get to eleven thirty, if you don’t know what you’re doing, they’re going to collabor you. And that’s what happened to Colbert that first year when he was at CBS sent me people forget But I just remember on the message boards and comments on articles like Deadline Hollywood, but I can’t believe this is the worst mistake ever. And like sure enough. I was like, just give him a year and see if he figures it out.
And he did, and then he gets back he’s a number one. I mean, it’s just that you need time to figure out though shows. The line out too. I said to Jay on the phone when we spoke, because he was basically like, you know, if Conan show is better, I’m like you, no one gets and they’re like, Jay, your show was not the great the first year. You got all that time.
You got to go to New York to figure out like, oh this works with this type of setup, go back to Burbank and switch studios and have kind of like an eight ah Saturday night left studio with the thrust stage of the audience up there. You had wean more time. So I think I don’t think Conan had enough time. I mean, Jay certainly was given more time to figure those things out. That they’re extremely hard.
They look easy. There’s people that watch them the public that watch it and think that I could do that, and I promise that that is probably It’s like, it’s the hardest thing to do. People say, that’s what people say. I think history proved that if you were going to pull the plug on Cone and fair or not, that Jay was the right move. I struggled to imagine thirty six year old Jimmy Fallon and whatever it was twenty nine and twenty ten.
Same age as Johnny when he took the Tonight Show. But a different era, and and Fallon would have been following a failed Tonight Show and now we’re going to throw another young buck in the chair. Uh yeah, I. Don’t know how that would have worked. It would have been interesting.
They have different processes. The one thing I didn’t with that Johnny did, which I don’t really understand. To my knowledge, I don’t think any of the three Kimmel’s not unfore got yanked. But to my knowledge is that this in New York. The writers would do his monologue, but they would also look at the pre interview questions the talent coordinators, and the talent coordinators and writers would write Johnny’s ad libs.
There were so many famous ad libs, and they would do that in Burbank only with the civilians. With like the farmer potato chip Lady, they would write even though that was Johnny’s idea for the potato chip lady to bite down on the chip when she wasn’t looking. But they would always give him ad libs. And I don’t know why some of the they don’t do that now with some of the with with some of the hosts, But I don’t think that that that’s a thing. But I think it really like New York, there’s so many things with Johnny and Nixon where they’re both like so witty and so likable in terms of some of their lines, and I’m like, it’s always all script, it down to the syllable, and I just think like Johnny didn’t always go with those prepared ad libs, but sometimes he would.
He really the people told me he didn’t need them, but sometimes he would slip them in. I think it’s just a good thing to have. I would really do think the host would benefit having those. I mean, he was a genius at making them look like he was making them off the top of the head. When he would do a segment in la If the writing was bad.
He didn’t like the writing that day. He would do something like Blue Cards, where the audience would be in line and they would write down questions for Johnny and the writers would have ninety minutes to come up with ad libs for Johnny to type a secretary type on a car, and Johnny would read these real questions and then you could not tell that they were prepared ad libs. I mean, it was just like even Mike Greese, who was a writer for Carson Simpson’s producer, was telling me Hughes with his mom and they were watching the show, and Mike like, I just wrote that, and he’s like, no, Johnny just came up with that. She didn’t. It couldn’t make no sense that that an ad lib like that would be prepared, because it’s so natural the way he was able to throw those things out.
But yeah, amazing. Joan Rivers had the same skill set on her radio show. She had two writers with her. They’d rip up pieces of paper, pass her note to deliver the line, nail it and throw the thing behind her and would clean it up after the show. But she had it.
It’s unbelievable how they made it look easy. I mean, Joan when she had her laid show on Fox, that was harder. Like the interviews, she definitely was not listening as much as she should have. A lot of people said in terms of like to her guest and it was just it was just a hard skill set. I mean, I think even though she had all that time when she was guest hosting for Johnny, it just to do it night after night versus every you know, like a week, every like five weeks.
It was just she just couldn’t do it. I mean, it’s a shame. I mean, I definitely think maybe she would have succeeded, I mean a little bit more, because if Barry Diller after ten months I think it was ten months, was like we’re firing, we’re getting rid of your husband’s producer, and Joan thought he was buff bluffing as if no, and then Barry Diller promptly fired her from the position. But I definitely think if she would have stayed, maybe she would have figured it out a little bit more and they would have been able to take the writings up. I mean, the writings were not good when she left when she was at the show near the end, But I don’t know, I think Joan had good intentions, and I just think she in terms of not telling Johnny, I go into that in the book, but I definitely think it was some of some of it had to do a lot of it had to do unfortunately with her husband, Edgar Rosenberg kind of hurt like listening to him and his opinions and just kind of differing him, and I think it ultimately was not a good thing.
I think it’s.
Also a brand mismatch.
You know, Fox, especially in those days, was edgy sitcoms and Simpson’s and then you’re you’re throwing on you know, Joan Rivers from Las Vegas, a little older than your demo. It visually looks kind of eighty cheesy. The set I think has not aged well. So I think there’s a lot of that there, Whereas in the scenario where had Conan gone to Fox, that made more sense. Now Conan may have been older than Joan Rivers was in these scenarios, but Conan just feels more Foxy than Joan Rivers did.
Yeah, I definitely think it would be more of a fit. I mean, it was tough with Joan because it’s like she’s doing these stunts like given a Victoria Principal’s home number on air and like Victoria Principles, like I suit her or did vile the loss, and I don’t know what happened with it. So it’s like, why would an A list person go on her show? Like I mean, she would trouble getting guessed? Is my point is that she would do these things, and it’s like she she really felt like people like Barry Diller would use their personal connections to help get guests.
But like I mean, there were just so many complicated things that things that were mismatched with running that show. But definitely the way that she was perceived with guests. I always defend her. When she was guest hosting for Johnny, she always, in my opinion, with maybe one or two exceptions, made the guests look good. She did not do the jokes at people’s expenses like people.
I think people sometimes they get this idea that she would make her guests uncomfortable like Dave Letterman would sometimes. And she was very good at making her guests look good with with a few exceptions over there, but I thought she she overall she took Johnny’s note about making her guests look good. I thought she did a good job when she was a guest host. Well, and that and that aspect. Well, anybody still listening to us clearly enjoys your company as I do.
The podcast Inside Late Night is back today. And do you have a book coming out? Can I pre order it? How do I get this book? What’s it called?
I heard it’s called Love Johnny Carson. And you can go to either Amazon, Barnes and Noble Books, a million Target, there’s Walmart. There’s so many places, and people have been asking me, and this is really nice that they want if they want an autograph copy. There’s a place called a Story of Bookshop that’s an astoria in Queens, New York City. So a Story of Bookshop is pre ordering for signed copies.
So yeah, please make me happy and pre order. And there’s definitely stuff in this book that it’s primarily new stuff that people do not know. This is not on my podcast, and I did my best. It’s one hundred and thirty thousand words roughly with then I think it’s like fifty pages of citation something like that could be off a little bit, but I thought it was important to cite everything. And yeah, we have like stuff that when I was able to like use like Jim McCauley, who was the head book comedy booker on the Tonight Shopers stand ups from seventy seven until Johnny retired.
He wrote an unpublished book like a manuscript, and I was able to use some of it, which with permission. So yeah, there’s a lot of stuff from like that. I just blew my mind that I had no idea just doing research reading McCauley’s unpublished manuscript and some other things. So all that stuff is there. Weird bit.
Were you able to get to Letterman? Dave Letterman talked to me even though I worked on his show for eleven months and fifteen days. No, not all. Dave will not talk to me. I’ve tried so many times.
He you know, I think he just he does it when he feels like he’ll talk to somebody about race, car driving or something. I don’t think he likes talking about his own comedy unless he has to, or about maybe it’s Johnny was such a special thing to him that I think he did it for the PBS documentary talked about Johnny. But I don’t know if it would just be too hard for him just to talk about his guy that meant so much to him. But no, I mean I tried so many times back on the podcasting with this. I think he knows about it, but and it’s what it is.
I mean, I had a bunch of things in the book I did want. I tried to get him to verify, but I feel like my sources are good enough that I just they’re in the book and I just would have loved to talk to him. Maybe he’ll look at the book. But at the end of the day, Dave, from the people I talked to that knew him, some of them, he’s just a shy guy and he just doesn’t feel comfortable around people he doesn’t know. I’m sure it’s gotten a lot better since he’s left the show, but it’s just what it is.
I would not want somebody to feel uncomfortable interview in them. I mean I get it. Like I’ve had like certain famous people that are just like I am, uncomfortable doing interviews and I was like, Okay, then we have nothing else to talk about it. I appreciate you getting back to me. I don’t want you’re feeling comfortable.
So that’s that’s all I can do, is respect to know. Definitely, there were people that took me five or six years, like Diane Cammon or Angie Dickinson, where I just once in a while would be like, you know, I’m still doing this. I would love for you to consider it. This is somebody I talked to you recently. Here’s the episode which you can listen to.
And sometimes I am in the game of, like you know, holding out and checking in and you never know, and sometimes it takes a little longer. So Love Dave to do Inside Late Night, so who knows, but so far it has not happened with him. I’m going to stop asking you questions that we’re going to be here for four hours. Mark now, this is fine. His book is Love Johnny Carson.
His podcast is Inside Late Night. We should also plug latenighter dot com. I’m on there daily, a great resource. Appreciate you, thank you for your time today. Yeah, it’s nice to talk to you again.