Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media. I have quite the treat for you today. It was quite the treat for me. Mark Malkoff is my guest. Mark is the host of the Inside Late Night podcast.
It’s tied to the Late Night or website that I’m a big fan of. He also used to host the Carson Podcast all about Johnny Carson. I was a listener to that one, and when I saw Mark had this new podcast, I reached out to him. I was like, hey, man, will you give me some time? I asked him for half an hour.
We talked for an hour here, and then afterwards I think we talked for another ten minutes. I loved this conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Again. Inside Late Night is Mark’s podcast.
It is fantastic. The website is Late Night Or. Some of the guests he’s had so far, Robert Smigel, who is fantastic. Spike Ferenston, who you probably don’t know his name, but he’s been in the Seinfeld Camp. His name’s come up a little bit recently with the pop Tarts movie.
The official Description. Mark Malcoff, host of the Johnny Carson Dean Podcast, The Carson Podcast, explores late night television past and present. Again, to be clear, this is a new podcast. The Carson Podcast, as we talked about, went almost four hundred episodes. This is a new podcast that talks about SNL, Letterman, Conan, and Moore, presented by Latenighter dot Com.
Guests will include people who appeared on those shows, cast members, writers, staff, and crew. Yes, so far have been Rachel Dratch, Robert Smigel, who’s fantastic, and Spike Ferinston. And he talked about a bunch of big guests that they’ve got coming up. Here is my conversation with Mark Malkoff. You don’t seem old enough to be a Carson fan.
I won’t ask you how old you are, but I’ll go first. I’m fifty four and Carson was the thing I watched as a killed time until Letterman came on. As time went on, I got more into Johnny and we can talk about that. But why are you such a Carson fan? You know, I was a fan of the genre, but definitely Carson was this guy that just fascinated me in terms of his longevity, in terms of his likability, that he could, you know, talk to the A listers like Audrey Heppern and even though he got very nervous with her and Jimmy Stewart and Hope and then be talking to kids, and then he’s with animals and then civilians, which were people just you know that had never even a lot of them out of their hometown and never been on an airplane, and just he was able just to be likable and make people feel comfortable.
And I think that that’s why his success was. He just played to Middle America, he played to the cities, and I in terms of a host, in terms of his skill set as a listener, I don’t think anybody has come remotely close. There’s a lot of great hosts and things. But I was just always fascinated by him, and then I would hear that he was this other guy, and I just as growing up as a kid, I just was really fascinated by what he might have been off camera versus on camera.
And then I would watch it as a kid with I mean, I don’t know, six seven with ā¦
I just couldn’t believe. I thought this was all just you know them talking back and forth. Famous people are always witty, and I just was wondering, how do you get a job like that to be the pre said that somebody would pre interview it. Just all these things what went on behind the show. And I’ve always just been into him.
But I think his stuff a lot of it still holds up. You know, he’s been off the air, what now thirty two years. It’s crazy that it’s thirty two years. I have Upstairs. I stole the title from it was the TV Guide cover.
I have a VHS that I labeled Johnny’s Last Jam, which was what the TV Guide is, Show me too, I’ve got Johnny’s Last Show. In Jay’s first show with the Purple Show, Yeah, I don’t know I’m going to do it, but it’s upstairs. Yeah, the purple set with all the curtains opening in the mentage, and that was live. Jay did the first two weeks live, which was pretty unheard of for late night. It still is.
But yeah, that was an interesting transition to say the latest. That whole weird move of not acknowledging that somebody else hosted the show last week. Yeah, it stemmed from Helen Kushnik. It was Jay’s producer. Jay had it was a very unhealthy relationship, and you know, he basically deferred to her and she I don’t want to say she was a bully to him, but it just was not a healthy relationship.
And Jay’s a very nice man, and she was doing all these things behind the scenes that Jay supposedly didn’t know about it, and I probably I believe it’s that it’s true. And one of the things was is that, you know, Bob right at NBC, the President’s like I went Jaya to thank Johnny and Kushnik absolutely not, and she was just playing as Bob Wright I think said she was always held him overplaying her cards and it led to her demise. But it would have just been the most easy, simple thing for him to mention Johnny. Yeah, and especially Jay had been doing Mondays, so it’s not like, you know, somebody dropped in out of space and started hosting the Tonight Show. There was Clan’s constant.
Carson was baffled by the whole thing, just because you know, Leno would have never been able to do the permanent guest host if it wasn’t for Carson. They were always, you know, on good terms. I mean, definitely, Johnny privately wanted Dave to take over the Tonight’s show, but in terms of Carson Productions, Johnny on the show, Jay was guest hosting for Scale. He was getting paid is less as you possibly and Leno was so smart about it because Leno knew that his club dates, he could play Vegas in all these places and make so much more more money, and just thinking like, you know, I got all these these behind me, these guest hosts, which you think two hundred or more times that he would have a better running to get the Tonight Show. I mean, everything was very calculated with him, and uh, it just got to the point where there was just so much stuff with Helen and the way that some of the people at the Tonight Show and including Branford and Marcellus denies it, but he said some stuff about Doc and the band apparently on the Today Show about not being hip and they were going to bring this back.
So Doc quit and the band were very very upset with that, and it just kept it kept escalating. But yeah, Carter covered it, but Helen Plant did a false story and the New York Post about NBC one in Johnny out and Johnny knew right away it was Helen, and it was proven it was Helen, and there was just all this stuff that was completely unnecessary behind the scenes. It’s crazy that it’s thirty years already worth three or four hosts later, depending on how you want to count. You know, as I was thinking this morning getting ready to speak with you, I was doing some self analysis, and if you had asked me when I woke up over breakfast, I would have said, yeah, I’m a huge late night fan. I definitely talk about it all the time on the podcast.
And then I realized I really haven’t watched it regularly since maybe year two of CBS Letterman. So I’m exposing myself here that you know, that’s a good twenty seven eight years ago, But yet I love the genre. I just maybe it’s just time has changed. I was a huge Letterman fan, and boy if Dave ever moved from twelve thirty to eleven thirty, and I didn’t have to stay up till one thirty in the morning to watch him. I would watch this thing every night.
And I did that for like a year or two, and then I don’t know if I hit my mid twenties or what happened. I just kind of fell out of the habit, but I do love it. I think Dave the definitelyands CBS disappointment television for a generation. The NBC show still holds up. It was just a brilliantly conceived show and to do something that had never really been done and influenced so many comedy I think for the first maybe two or three years, Dave was putting in maximum effort and then he just pulled back and it was just so obvious.
I know he was tired, he was exhausted. I get that, and the show just changed and it was not the same thing.
And then over time Dave developed more to be known as an interviewer and justā¦
But Dave was such an amazing broadcaster that people just followed him no matter what he did. But yeah, once the show shifted and he stopped going to rehearsal, and even before that he stopped doing pre tapes, it just became a different thing. And I knew he couldn’t do remotes anymore because he was too famous. But it just, you know, it was just a different show. And I mean, I still think he was probably the funniest person behind the desk.
I think Carson was the best overall host, but in terms of funny and stuff, I would say Dave’s NBC show, and yeah, maybe the first few years of CBS, Yeah, Dave had the twelve thirty vibe of no one’s watching. I can make something out of nothing. Now Conan once Conan found his fastball, sort of picked up that torch. But to me, eleven thirty Dave. I always thought of it as the guy at twelve thirty was wearing sneakers and the guy at eleven thirty had on on Amani suit, and just that alone was just different.
You had to play at eleven thirty. There’s definitely change that have been the need to be made. But I think any of the shows that the people started at twelve thirty and then went down at eleven thirty, I prefer the twelve thirty looseness. And I get the prestige of going to eleven thirty and playing to a mass audience, but the necessary changes, just at least to somebody to me, people that grew up or that watched the twelve thirty, it was it was not the same. And I really do think that in terms of the best work that they did when they were looser and they didn’t have to worry as much about making the changes, the twelve thirty shows were the best.
All right, So let’s talk about the new podcast. Where did it come from? How did you hook up with Bill in the site? The site is late Night or, which is fantastic. It’s already one of my key resources as I’m listening, especially specifically the Smigel interview.
When I listened to the Carson podcast, I thought, Oh, this guy’s just a big Carson fan.
And now I’m sensing, are you industry or you seem to know people a little bitā¦
I worked in TV at day jobs for a bunch of years, and I’ve just been around people that I’ve been able to have some private conversations with that trusted me, and I definitely when I’m talking to Robert, who I’ve known since I was seventeen, I mean during the whole Carson podcast, I mean, Robert was very nice to do my last episode and bring Dana Carvey in. I just wanted to talk about Carson because he wrote the Johnny Carson sketches on SNL that Johnny did not like, and talk about some other things about Carson with Smigel. But I’ve known him since I was seventeen, knew I know more about SNL than I did it of Carson, and I was very I knew a lot about Carson, so it was one of those things where I had a lot of information. I mean I had a day job at Letterman too, so I always wanted to talk to people about the other shows and maybe broad in because I knew I had this knowledge, and I definitely had questions that I just I really wanted to be answered. So I thought this was a good fit.
Jed, who runs Late Night Er, was a fan of the podcast Carson, and he said, you know, if you ever want to do something, let me know. We had a couple of conversations and it made sense. I mean, yeah, Bill Carter’s editor at large, and I there’s just there are a lot of people I wanted to talk to. The host Bert Sugarman for Midnight Special is the guest next week, so we’re going different time periods. I mean Sugarman Midnight Special seventy two to I think eighty one, and he was the creator and producer of Bert Sugarman’s Midnight Special, which every rock act you can imagine and not country, I mean everyone from Johnny Cash to led Zeppelin, to Kiss to David Bowie and just kind of going back every Friday Midnight Special and to just just talk about the evolution of late night and Johnny Carson was very influential and Midnight Special.
Sugarman and Carson were next door neighbors in bel Air, so there’s a lot of Carson that goes with it. So yeah, it was that was fun. So we’re just going to go around the genre and see who we can talk to. I love that you’re going that deep with it. That’s cool.
I remember that show. That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s his YouTube channel’s amazing. He’s an amazing businessman. He owns it, which I mean Carson didn’t get ownership till like nineteen eighty of his Tonight show, but Sugarman in seventy two or whatever.
NBC didn’t believe in it and basically had to bought airtime on NBC, and NBC said, fine, if you pay for everything, so he owned it. He has everything, and yeah, the channel is just phenomenal. I mean people like Linda Ronstat, she went on Carson and I think sixty eight or sixty nine and would not do Johnny’s Show because the audio. A lot of acts did not want to do Johnny’s Show because TV was perceived as a lot of times the audio people and stuff just were not able to adjust to rock in different sounds and stuff. So like Neil Diamond didn’t do Carson Show or any show including Midnight Special, and they try to get him until Johnny’s last year.
His Diamond had a bad experience with it. So Carl have to go across the hall to watch Linda Ronstadt on Midnight specially because he was such a fan. He’d go over to visit Richard Pryor when he was hosting, so he would definitely go over. But there were certain acts, Yeah, like Linda Ronstadt he wasn’t able to get into, like eighty four, eighty six and yeah, the Tonight Show, the Carson audio people stayed up till the middle of the night the night before just making sure the audio was good.
And then you know, Ronstadt was so ron stet was so happy and ended up doing Cā¦
Are you finding this podcast easier to book? Because I’m imaginally say we wanted a book. I know Branford More Salas, there’s a road to get to Branford More Sallas. But if you want to book somebody from the back offices from Carson circa nineteen seventy six, that seems to me like it would be a lot harder. I’d rather try and book Branford than a random civilian forty years long.
I’m you know, I’m going wide. I mean, I just asked somebody who worked at the Tonight Show in New York because I wasn’t aware of them if they would do it. But yeah, going to a Branford, even though I’d be very surprised if he said yes, he publicly said bad stuff about Jay Leno, publicly said bad stuff about Carson. I would love to. I’m gonna ask him.
It’s you never know, people are gonna say yes or no. But yeah, I mean definitely to talk to some of those types is definitely easier to get to. I mean some of the people to track down took me forever, I mean months, sometimes the kind of the behind the scenes people. I was just so obsessed with the New York Tonight Show era from sixty two to seventy two. It was worth it.
And I was just I mean, people like Jason Bateman that were kids on the show now we’re in like their fifties, so I mean, it was just so many of the people that I wanted to get were just I mean, they were passing away, and it just got it got very hard to be guessed at the end, just because the pool of people that were still around was tiny. And this is definitely a lot easier so far in terms of the book, and but I think it really comes down to so many people. I got a lot of big guests on Carson, and people have been very nice on this is for Carson, and I did not know this. It never occurred to me, is that it was one of the best times in their lives generally for a lot of these people, and they’ve never gotten to talk about it at length, certainly, So I mean I always equate it to somebody that had the best college experience, but they never get to talk about it. No one really cares.
But they suddenly have this audience of somebody that knows all these things about them when they were on Carson and things, and people said yes to me that I just never would have expected in a million years. And hopefully this is kind of the same, you know, talking about your first time on Latterman and just you know, Dave meant a lot to a lot of the guests and so forth, and so we’ll see what happens. I just hope that people will trust me to come on, and my whole goal is is to present to my audience things that they probably do not know, things that the guests have never talked about, stories that maybe they’re rarely talked about. Buried but just with Carson and everything, I mean, I didn’t ask Rachel Dratch how she came up with Debbie Downer because she’s talked about that on Saturday Night Live so many times in interviews. It’s so easily googleble and I don’t want to be that guy.
There’s no reason for me to ask some of those questions that they’ve answered a million times. So we’re just trying to go in deeper. And yeah, so far, it’s been fun, and guests have been very generous with their time and with just sharing their stories. You gave me flashbacks when you mentioned New York era Carson Tonight Show and how so many of the archives are gone. It was kind of cool what Jerry did in the pop Tarts movie.
Yes, you know, in another life, I worked at WR Radio late nineties. We found an entire room, probably the size of my office, of just stacked real to real tapes. But I was tasked with throwing them out. And I’m going through these tapes, and you know, I’m twenty something years old. What am I going to do with all these tapes?
And it’s like, all right, Viking six launch, toss, random LBJA toss, JFK something, All right, let’s try and keep that. I dubbed everything down to mini disc back in the day. I had left the art When I left WA, I left the archives behind. When they did their one hundredth anniversary, I lent them a dub of my archives. So I was happy that that happened properly.
But my larger point here is here in the digital age, I wonder how much stuff disappears, Like somebody like Mark Marin has almost definitely every episode on a hard drive or some technology somewhere, but especially celebrity shows working with podcast companies that are really radio companies. I wonder how many of these shows are just going to vanish because nobody bothers to back it up, or somebody stops paying for hosting, and all these things are just going to go away. I really worry about it. Yeah, I hopefully now people are a little bit better about it, but certainly Johnny was furious when if NBC erased everything. Luckily there are i’d say from sixty two to seventy two, there’s probably I don’t know, maybe at least a couple dozen, if not more, shows that existed.
There’s absolutely kinescopes dating back to Johnny’s first month on the air. I’ve seen them. It is pretty wild to watch. I don’t think anybody’s ever seen these clips and things. But you have people like Bob Newhart guest hosting in sixty four, and there’s definitely some of the guest hosts and just random kiness scopes.
It was such a shame that they erased the most pivotal things. It seems like every year, and it could be off on this that somebody comes up with something and to find something, people did have them an addicts and stuff and whenever they’re able to find something. It’s like a treasure quest to find some of these clips. Like Carson, people were so desperate to get clips because they went to Burbank in seventy two. They moved and had an anniversary show where they caldn’t really do when think is all the clips where gone?
Johnny and his brilliance requested the at Ames thing, so he had that, and they had a few things. But they were actually taking ads in newspapers of the Tonight Show people around at least in LA probably around the country, asking people if they had clips from New York, if they happen to tape them themselves privately, if they could send them into the show for the anniversary shows. Was that very second that my microphone could out see here? Mark end up on an up inflection there and I don’t respond. I don’t want to think we got mad each other.
So a figure, let’s take the break right now, let’s walk up through the Tonight Show. You seem like a very positive guy, so I’m not looking for any sort of pylon, but let’s talk. I’d love to know what your thoughts are on Leno Conan Leno two fallon we can go quick. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s one of those things that NBC could could have handled it better the whole like four years Conan’s going to get the Tonight Show thing. I understand Jay being upset because he was still number one, and it just rarely do they just force somebody out when they’re number one, with all the demographics in the raid ins.
At the same time, NBC was afrad Conan was going to go somewhere else. I mean, Fox offered him a lot of money to go there, and I just think that they were just afraid of that situation.
And then once Conan was given the Tonight Show, Jay was given this ten o’clocā¦
And if NBC would have gotten rid of j they would have had to pay him over one hundred million dollars, so well didn’t realize that. Oh yeah, I mean it was ridiculous money. So NBC would have looked so foolish having to pay him over a hundred million. If they got rid of Conan, they would have paid him forty million, So forty million versus over one hundred million. Then it turned out Conan had ten months to figure out the Tonight Show, which he had problems, but everybody did.
I mean I touched a Jay on the phone. He was very nice to me, but diplomatically, I mean I was just like, Jay, you didn’t figure out your show in ten months. I mean, it took you at least a year and a half until you did this show in h and New York where your show found your voice. I said to him, there’s no way in ten months Conan did it. I mean anybody from Jay certainly to Colbert who’s number one now didn’t figure it out the first year.
I mean people forget they look at the success, but Colbert was number three and just everybody was piling on him with criticism and stuff. So the show is they take a while. John Stewart’s first year on the Daily Show, certainly people were like, we missed Craig Hillbourn, we missed Craig Hillboord and just the new somebody that’s doing something new, especially than making change. It just takes a while. I don’t think Conan was given enough time.
Certainly there’s host including Jay. If they were only giving ton months. I don’t think that they probably would have lasted. So, you know, Conan could have gone to twelve I guess they could have moved tonight show to like twelve oh five or something, and I get you know, Conan didn’t want to move backwards. NBC paid him I believe it was forty million dollars, and then he went to TBS, which it was tough.
I mean, just you know, people, really, I don’t think we’re really watching that as much as they would have Network shown it. They did great work, some of the stuff did, I mean, did very well online.
And then Conan now ironically being doing a podcast once a week, I feel like ā¦
But I feel like full circle that was the best thing that ever happened to him, and that he can do his HBO show right now, which is really funny, and uh yeah, I feel like this was this was his strength. And doing those shows five days a week for years is not healthy for the person. Some people it’s just affected them in negative ways. And I just think Conan’s probably in the best possible place, and everything worked out bet the best it could have. I actually think the Leno ten pm idea was the right idea, but too soon.
My premise. If I told you right now, you could have sixty four year old j leto at ten pm, four nights a week on NBC in today’s network environment, at that kind of budget for producing a show, I think NBC would kill to have that show. Maybe not seventy four year old J but right show, wrong time, it could have been. I watched the first show and there were certain things that I saw that I was like, I just couldn’t believe that that was the choice they were making. And I just in my head, I’m like, if they keep making certain decisions like this, I don’t see the show going.
It was so bizarre as a Jay the very first time that I know of in his career challenged one of his guests, kind of I’m sure he was pressured into it just to get publicity for the show, but asking Kanye West, who had just had I guess, you know, got in thrown out of the MTV Awards or whatever it was, I forget what it was for going in front Taylor Swift won an Award and Kanye grabbing a mic and I think he said, Jase, that’s what would your mom think? Because j I think his mom Kenye’s mom had passed away. It was this different Jay, and obviously I think that they were trying to do different things. I just I mean Fred Silverman, I think was one of the NBC chief is one of the I think he made even had the idea at first that they should do this. I don’t know if Silverman inspired or what, but like Silverman, I asked him about it because I said, this was your idea for Jada to to do this, and He’s just like, I just, I mean, it just wasn’t well executed, basically, is what he said.
I don’t know. Jay to me is still one of the best stand ups. I mean, if you look at the NBC show, the Letterman thing is stuff is incredible. It just wasn’t a fit.
And then NBC’s like, what do we do with j And then if he leaves, we have to pā¦
It would be a nightmare scenario in terms of the press. I mean, people would still be talking about that if they had to pay him over a hundred million. So it makes sense talking about it anyway, though, I still think if Jay was on at eleven thirty, I mean, in terms of the ratings, I think he would be really doing well. In terms of the online stuff, they would have had to figure that stuff out. That was not his thing.
But now I think anybody competing against Jay Leno would not be fun for anyone because that guy’s work ethic is just like, I mean, nobody puts the amount of work into anything other than him. His friends will all tell you, his famous friends will all say the same thing. You know, everyone dismissed him when he was getting his butt kicked by Letterman for the first like year or two, and he just yeah, I mean, he’s just his whole thing. All he wanted was to be number one, and he succeeded wildly in being number one. I think a lot of people have said the show is largely forgettable, and I don’t know how many moments people can go back, specific moments, be like, these are my moments that I remember from the show, other than the Hugh Grant thing, which wasn’t even a joke or anything witty.
It was just like, what the hell were you thinking? People remember that, But in terms of like people remember certain bits like jaywalkin, but specific things that happened on that show. I think that there was a lack in where as like Letterman, people can go back and just there’s very memorable incentences that happened. And yeah, it just the line Out show was different in terms of, like I think what they were going for, but they succeeded wildly and being number one. Yeah, I agree, it’s one of those weird things.
It was number one forever, very successful, lasted a long time and just has a vanilla ice cream legacy to it. I mean it’s great, but I think you nail that we’re not sitting here going on over the time, whereas I bet we could go down a very deep eighties Letterman rabbit hole and maybe some other day I’ll invite you on to do that. Oh yeah, please. It’s true. And I even think the CBS thing people can can come up with with moments and it just was different.
I you know, I think it’s if I had to guess, I think it’s probably hard for Jay now because at Letterman is like the guy that everyone just kind of at least comedically they worship. I mean, if Dave goes on any of those shows like Colbert, it’s like Royalty, it’s such a huge deal. Like when Dave went on John Mulaney’s Netflix talk show and it’s I mean, for him to do anything his show on Netflix, he gets people that just do not normally do these things that are very elusive to being guessed, but they seem to all say yes to Dave. So I think that that’s probably hard for Jay just to be in a different position where he doesn’t really get that accolade or the I don’t know, the the prestige that Dave has given. I’m sure that that I’m guessing that that has to be hard for him.
Yeah, I would agree with that. So what did you think of Mlaney? I thought it was great in terms of something that had not been really tested. I mean, normally those things take forever to get on its feet and to have a cohesive feel, and I thought that we’re definitely there were raw and moments and stuff. But I think overall, in terms of doing six shows that have never been these are his first six shows, I thought, or whatever it was, I thought he did great.
I thought the format was really fun. I think it was one of those things that they just kept doing the show, which I get. I mean that those things that are just pressure cookers and they take over your lives. I think if he just kept doing it and stuff it just obviously I think, you know, it would just get stronger and stronger. But I thought for what they did and what they set out too, that they did phenomenal.
And yeah, I hope they come back and they do it. But Mullany’s smart enough to know that having one of those gigs is just man. I mean, how many people, funny people like Chris Rock, Tina Fey, Amy Schumer just said no to those gigs. I mean, they’re it to do that on a rate where you’re going on every night. I mean, Johnny Carson would have tried, and people over there say it and it’s true, would have told Joan Rivers if she would have gone to him that going to Fox was a mistake.
He would have supported her in terms of how much money if you want to do this, but out of him just being love and Joan. It was great on the Tonight Show. Ever, as Carson said, every like five weeks, she could do one week, but doing it every single night, it just wasn’t gonna work. And Johnny would have told her that but given her her blessing. And I mean, and then Joan does this show and guests don’t want to be doing and I mean she was counting on Barry Dillar to maybe try to get some of the bigger guests and stuff.
But like when you insult your guests like that or not guests, I mean public figures, people aren’t gonna want to go on the show. And it’s exactly what happened. She was very good Joe to her own guests, making them look good, but just in terms of her what she was known for and stuff, it just it just didn’t work. And I mean, Joan is is such a pioneer and very funny with a lot of her stuff, but it just to do that every single day is Yeah, most people, I mean our Sineo ended his show, but after four years, I mean they get burned up. Part I think Jack part at four years.
Steve Allen might have done five. But there’s a reason that these people got out, Craig Ferguson, they just, I mean, it just got to be just too much. And it’s that’s why it’s kind of a miracle the Carson was able to do it. For so long. Yeah, he had a lot of guest hosts and things.
But still, I mean, I don’t think people know this, or maybe you do. Probably in the beginning, Carson was doing an hour and forty five minutes every single night in New York. That is just baffling his first bunches of years. For today’s host doing an hour, they would have to host their show every single day of the year, plus like forty other shows to make up of during that. To add to that, I mean, it was bafflin what Carson was able to do all that in the ninety minutes.
I have friends at all the shows, and for them to do an hour is it’s hard enough, But to do ninety minutes, which Carson was doing up until like eighty eighty one something like that is just yeah at the wear and teara it takes on the host. Yeah, today, I don’t know how that would work.
Also, to the back end of those Carson shows were pretty deep guests.
It’s one thing to go, hey, my first guest tonight is Jerry Seinfeld has got a new movie. Please welcome Jerry, and then shut up and let your guests be funny. As I teach radio, you know this. The famous example is shut up and let your guests be funny, and then the next day everybody goes, did you see Johnny? He was hilarious and what they really meant was Burt Reynolds told a great story.
But those ninety minute shows, those longer shows, guess he had to carry that. You can’t assume that a less famous Carl Sagan is gonna come out and be super compelling. Yeah, he would. Johnny was very good at reading the books, like John Stewart is about if somebody was coming on, but he would have a lot of authors that would give them. He would put on certain people he agreed with politically that Johnny publicly couldn’t say he agreed with, like Paul Erlick, doctor Paul Erlick with population control, and he would go to dinner with Paul Rlick after the show, would go with Jim Fowler, zoologist.
He’d go to dinner with certain people. He was fast and never famous movie stars, but there was like maybe three people in Erlick was one of them, in Carl Sagan that he was just Carson was just I think those were some of his favorite guests, and he would go and just ask them more questions, very curious man such as such as Letterman. But yeah, having to put having those people on at twelve thirty, and then you know, once the show went to a ninety sixty minutes, it was like bye bye Buck, Henry, bye by. You know, Phyllis Newman wasn’t really doing that. It was these amazing talkers that were just phenomenal.
A lot of them went away. Gord Vadal was one person Johnny kept. There were certain ones, but for the most part, the more just the people that I thought really shined on this show. It just it just turned into something else. But that last half hour.
Carson always said, especially in New York, after an hour and forty five, that he would just like, you know, just barely hold on to the conversation. Sometimes. I found myself when they first put The Johnny Carson Show into syndication, the non branded Tonight show reruns on me TV. Maybe it was the eleven o’clock when it was on at eleven. I found myself really attracted to the seventies shows more than the eighties shows.
Part of it the lighting of the style of guests. What you just alluded to was more a celebrity b celebrity and let’s get out of here. And those seventies shows just feel more free flowing. Even the combination of people on the couch. There’s just like everything else, it’s a different time.
But like I love those seventies, I feel like, in terms of it being loose and spontaneous, there’s stuff that was supposed to be spontaneous that viewers think are spontaneous. I feel like there could be danger with certain guests and with certain things that would happen on the show in the eighties up to ninety two. Yeah, I think the seventies, in terms of Carson as having the voice as a host, the best clips I would say were the seventies. I mean, I love Johnny until the end, but if I had to pick my favorite moments ninety percent, I would pick seventies. And I mean the sixties definitely is like this time capsule, and they did some really funny stuff in the sixties as well, But I definitely think the peak of the show was seventies.
And I’ve heard people at the top that worked for him say the same thing. The other thing Johnny did that was smart was he went away and stayed away. There’s that one Letterman appearance, but we they don’t have memories of past his prime Johnny. I was talking to a friend the other day. I heard a legendary jock from a New York City radio station still on the air somewhere, and I was like, ooh, it’s it might be time to hang it up.
I get it, and just you don’t remember. My last memory of Johnny is showing up on Letterman. It was tough for him to watch certain people that he really admired, like Jack Benny, he felt stayed way too long. Bob Hope was the biggest example. But you know that was his fear.
You want to leave while you’re on top, and you don’t want to. I mean there were people like Don Rickles who I loved, and people like Rageous Film in up until they passed. They needed that audience, they needed to be in front of an audience. They loved when people would come up to them in public. I know that a lot of people that maybe that aren’t in entertainment or haven’t been around it.
I think you don’t want to bother these people. It’s some of them and I’ve been out to dinner and lunches with them. I’ve said they needed. They like when people come over. Some people not as much, but there’s certain people that needed that, and Johnny was not one of them.
People would come up and pay him compliments and stuff. This meant so much. This got made through a tough time, and they would send him letters and stuff. He always loved that. But he almost came back once to do an NBC special.
But I you know, he had stopped smoking ninety two. He had tried earlier many times, but his physical appearance started to change and he started gaining weight, and I think that probably contributed to some of it. That he just didn’t want to look different than he did. And yeah, I just like a lot of those factors. He just wanted the work to speak for itself and to not I mean, he just saw it on the Tonight Show all the time.
He felt Grouch Show near the end too, It’s like, why are you going on TV like this? I’m smiling. I’m thinking of Gilbert Godfried’s grouchow imres, which he only did Old Grouch Show. Yeah, yeah, Gilbert oh Man, And I was just talking about him yesterday. He was great.
It was I know him a little bit and I was a guest on his podcast for some bonus episodes at least one or I don’t know, and I got to spend time with him. I had him on the Carson podcast and he insisted that for me to interview might to buy him a sandwich, which I did. He was like, Kaiser role, go to this deli by my house in Chelsea, Kaiser role with this and this, and I had to get him a drink and all these things. It was like six point fifty to interview Gil and I went to his home and we yeah, he did it, but he was quirky like that. He was fun, kind of known for that type of thing, getting free things and stuff.
But what a talent. I was really felt fortunate to know him just a little bit. I enjoyed the economy between on air Gilbert and Gilbert in the hallway high nice to meet you, yeah, right, and then like Goan and Gilbert, godfre you. It’s really true. I first met him.
They had this comedy writer party that I got invited too. I think maybe Frank Santa Padre invited me, and uh, I don’t know. It’s probably eighty people and stuff, and gil was just on like by himself on a on a chair you know, some comedians are a little bit shy, a little shy here and there. So I just wanted to go up to him just to let him know I’m doing this Johnny Carson podcast and we have met before, and I just expected, like, I don’t know, like a minute or two.
And then I was like, I want to leave him alone, but I don’t know.
We talked for like it seemed like at least forty minutes. Maybe it was an hour, I’m not sure, but he just we had this bond right away when I mentioned Carson, and it was just throughout the whole thing. I’m like, I just don’t want to be bothering him, but it wasn’t a bother And I think if people knew comedy well and they could connect with him, and I think to this day it’s probably true of a lot of comedians. When you know that much about something, and there aren’t a lot of people that do, it’s just this bond.
And then a lot of times like time how long I’ll do this in interviews and stuā¦
But gil was just such a lover of comedy, and yeah, I was lucky to be able to do that and just to have these conversations and just to hear a lot of his stories, which I mean, just a phenomenal storyteller. I loved his podcast because it really dove into the monoculture that had gotten into your brain by osmosis. So those of us of a certain age that grew up on five channels kind of knew who people were because Bugs Bunny did a Humphrey Bogart impression that kind of stuff, and Gilbert would talk about the lawn Cheney’s of the world, and you kind of sort of knew who these people were. Whereas if my son is twenty one now, if I showed him anything from the twentieth century, I could be like, this is John Travolta. He’s really famous.
He would have no idea. It’s just a different tay, it really is. I’m always fascinated when I get emails from people in college or just people that are in their twenties that listen to the Carson Podcast and found Johnny on YouTube, and yeah, that people just get into cavit or anything from from the retro years and yeah, the typically that no one under forty knows who Carson is. I would probably say people under thirty, I don’t even know if Leno, I mean Leno said it was like only a couple of years after he left that you know, he was in my home where I grew up a lot on Hershey, Pennsylvania, and he was at a theater and somebody younger person was like, have you done anything else other than this, like stand up and no clue he was hosted the Tonight’s Show or anything. Yeah, people forget pretty quickly, but now they did great.
I mean Frank Santa Padre, who was wonderful, did pretty much all the research of the guest, and gil would just show up and just you know, sometimes even fall asleep during the taping. But yeah, Fry, it was a good pair because Gilbert was charming and had some good questions. But if it was bored, man, you can tell sometimes like thirty minutes goes by, it’s just Frank and you like, where’s gil and it’s like, yeah, he’s Especially in the early years it was like The Frank Show with Yabbert and then but it’s the same thing we keep talking about, right the first year, you’re kind of finding your way. Yeah, they did a great job. I mean, talk to Frank about this.
Sometimes it’s just like it’s so heartbreaking and obviously it’s inevitable. At how many people have passed away on both of our shows. I mean, I think with Carson podcasts, we’ve had forty people that I interviewed. I mean a lot of people in their nineties, late eighties and stuff.
And then you have people like they did this amazing photo like a year before ā¦
It’s like Gilbert Godfrey, Bob Saggan and Louis Anderson, and these are people I’m like, oh, I put off interview and then they’re gonna be around forever. And luckily I got all of them to do the podcast, and then within a year they’re all gone. It’s just I feel very I never thought like a Bob Einstein, who I had on twice so I got to know a bit and talk on the phone. It’s just like you don’t think about them being gone, and I’m just so glad that I was able to get them, and you just never know when they did the same thing. They just got so many people who just think are going to be around for a while longer, like Peter Fonda, and they were just able to get these stories that some of them I’m sure have never been told or quite told like that.
Looking to the future, how do you think late night factors in the streaming era? Is there a play? Does it have to be eleven thirty? Could we stream Malaney at eight o’clock? Do we not need this anymore?
Even the network shows. If Jimmy Kimmel does retire, which I don’t believe he will, do you even bother in terms of the streaming, I think for one of those shows to survive on streaming that they’re going to probably take a more mullany approach, which is like, maybe they do a show like Lanny, does it like maybe four times a year or whoever it is, maybe does like six here at a time. But I can’t and I could be wrong that there would be anybody doing a show five nights a week on streaming where they felt they had to check in. I mean, so many of the mat treks are people watching the next day on YouTube and online. They’re just there has to be a reason for people to make it.
Appointment television that they’re going to stay up and there I don’t know if there was a danger when Dave was at twelve thirty where you just never knew what was going to happen, and part of that just to stay up, and I felt like I always had the expectation there’s just gonna be something a bit dangerous what he was going to say, what was going to happen, and that I don’t know if that exists now. I think for the networks it’s still a cash cow. Not as much money as it was. I mean, the viewers every year or go down on broadcast TV, but they’re still I mean, you have Harrison ford On and you’re paying him scale. I mean that started with I believe Steve Allen that there was somebody over there producer on Steve Allen’s Tonight Show that’s like, no, let Sullivan pay them exuberant money.
We’re just going to pay scale. And it stuck. So you can still get these amazing guests. You’re paying them not a lot of money. And yeah, I mean there’s this whole myth that Cordon’s show was losing money and that’s why James Corden left, which could not be further from the truth.
It was so not true. They were still making money. It’s just they were not what they were. I mean say that with broadcast television. I remember when I was an intern on a Spen City Michael J Fox ABC, when they were still throwing around crazy network money and the parties and just everything was this and then they just the network started.
I mean that was back when people were leaving Saturday Night Live. I think it was near the end. I remember Cherry O Terry and Chris Catan after I said out. They got big network deals, her at CBS and him at ABC, and it was still like the peak at the network paying writers that couldn’t even write creates that comes like crazy money for development deals and that’s I remember when it started stopping, and it’s just, oh man, it’s just network. It happened with network.
It’s yeah, it’s in terms of the primetime stuff, with how it’s dealt with now it’s night and day and I have Yeah, it seems like with late night it’s just different. I mean, I hope you know I’ll share this with you. I haven’t really talked about it this much. There were two late night shows where the network made the head producers and the hosts take significant pay cuts to stay on the air. It was never talked about publicly that I’m aware of, but these are people that I think would be very surprised their shows were made to take ahead just because they weren’t what they were, and it’s what it is.
Shows kept going, and as possible, one of the I was paying out of his own pocket to his staff the producers just to make up for the money. I’m not sure, but everything changes and stuff. I think those franchises will still be right. I mean, NBC very smart, like just put Fallon’s tenth anniversary in primetime and it did well. But as I told somebody over there, they should be doing that every year.
A couple of years ago is talking into somebody high up on the Totem pole and I’m like, you have to remind your viewers that Jimmy Fallon has done all this memorable stuff on the shows with guests and gotten all these people that normally don’t do talk shows and stuff, and just remind your viewers. I mean, Falen’s whole template was trying to be Johnny Carbson. He’s still to this day doesn’t come out before the show to do a warm up like most of the other shows, because Johnny did not. Kimmel when he first started, for most of his years would come out before the show because Dave did. But then Rickles was told him, I’m like, why are you coming out beforehand?
It ruins the energy you want to come out like being shot out of a cannon. And Kimmel said He’s tried it, and Wrickles was right immediately completely. Jimmy noticed it was better for him not to do the warm up, but Fallon, you know, Carson didn’t do the warm up. Fallon doesn’t do the warm up. Falons and Carson’s old studio in six B.
There’s a lot of similarities towards both of them, but one of them that he should be doing every year is an anniversary show. I mean, you have to remind your audience of the especially in prime time, why you exist and the work that because he did. I mean, it’s a different show than the other Tonight shows. But as a clip show, they have some amazing, amazing stuff and I hope that they continue to do that with the clip shows. Yeah, again, back to Letterman, where those first five years that he did anniversary shows, and I think you make a great point that Fallon for a clip show.
Fallon’s the one I mentioned as somebody high at NBC that when they do the clips show, they should be eight h because six B is you know. I mean, they expanded it, but it’s still a tiny studio. But he did it at eight h like Leno when he was in New York. It’s just the energy of having more people, especially people close up. You can have people really close up, like if you watch Saturday Night Live, they have those seats that are just right there.
And when Leno the first time he went to New York, I mean I was there. I was in those seats right close the thrust Age too. It was so successful and worked so well. He went back to Burbank and that’s when they built the thrust stage that was right there. And I felt that that Fallon would just it would have just been so much more exciting for him in the audience of just a different energy if he did it in eight age for the anniversary shows.
And maybe they will at some point, but it makes a difference. The reason I’m laughing now is last night I was at my daughter had a school performance, and a bunch of the students got up and sang songs, and I was doing this thing that I tend to do where I’m the last personal clap. If you clap, I give it one more clap. And my older daughter looks over at me and she’s like, flexing your ego, and I told her I started doing this. It was my fifteenth birthday and I got to see Late Night with David Letterman.
You had to be fifteen to get in, and I got in, and my buddy and I wanted to hear ourselves on the playback, so we just did one extra clap every time, and I’ve kind of never stopped doing it.
And then as my career went along and I became a producer, I learned the art oā¦
So just the memory of the studio there brought that back. I mean, I have so much empathy because I worked in the medium, and I know how hard it is for those hosts or for performers to be up on stage when they’re not getting that energy from the audience. I’m the clapper, I’m the laugher. If I’m invited from somebody to go to one of those shows, I will tell the people next to me, I’m going to be laughing really, really loud. It’s one of those things where I’ve talked to the host and the audiences have no idea.
But usually late night audience, I don’t know, twenty percent of the people are so excited to be there and so was starstruck that they forget to laugh, especially during the monologue opening remarks, and then you just have people some people that just are not They laugh, but they’re just not audible. And it was just I mean, when I were do on The Colbert Report, we got mostly good audiences, but it was one hundred and seven seats every night. There would just be people that were so excited to be there and I watched them and they just weren’t. So they would have these giant grins and expressions, but they would not laugh. I would have to before the show always talk to them and to remind them to laugh, and it helped.
But still there’s people, and all the laughs count, they really really do. Letterman was the most obsessed host with the audience, and not the best way that I thought was probably positive for him. But yeah, to get the clapping, which the host. Actually the clapping is important, but they all want laugh more than clapping, like I would bother Letterman when there would be too much clap in for sure on his show. They just want the pure laughs, but clapping, definitely, the energy that you’re talking about is what they need.
And when I go to one of those shows, I’m exhausted afterwards, just because I feel that responsibility as an audience member and just knowing how tough that is for them, just that I’m going to be that person. We’ve talked on this podcast a lot about clapter. Yes, watching us special in the comedian does four minutes and gets applause, I’m not sure that’s the best thing. Now, this medium is different. The audience is hearing the audio version.
You and I are looking at each other in video as we record, and I’m smiling and sometimes pointing at you and giving you some feedback. But I’m deliberately not stepping on your stories. And that’s back to the you know, everyone’s going to tell me this was a really good episode. What they’re going to mean is Mark was great, but I’m going to get credit for it because I’m shutting up and letting you tell these wonderful stories. It’s just different.
I could sit here and laugh, you know, at every thing you’re saying. But I’m just choosing phenomenal broadcaster. I mean, there’s certain people that and it took me and I’m not even putting myself in your league, but it took me a while to be able to not step on people. Once in a while, it’ll still happen, like I’ll if I feel like I need to interject something, I try really not to let the person speak. But I think you’re right what you just said.
But yeah, it’s definitely you should get the credit. I mean, you’re setting me up for all these things. You know what you’re talking about, your professional and you make it easy versus some of the people that have taught to me, and it’s just like pulling teeth sometimes, and those are the worst. I had a comic on who was a fan of and I was just getting nothing back and I cut it short. I just I couldn’t.
Yes, like, there’s certain people that, Yeah, I think there’s only one or two maybe I couldn’t air. And I know Gilbert and Frank had the same thing that happened with at least one or two people and it’s just I guess they’re trying as hard as they can, but it doesn’t really can’t doesn’t show that they are. I would hope that they’re trying their best and it’s just what it is. But yeah, you can tell pretty quickly if it’s going well and if you know, it’s those times when it’s like pulling teeth. Yeah, not fun.
So Mark, I’ve kept you twice what I asked for. You’ve been very generous. Oh yeah, it’s great. Proper podcast plugs, Oh you’re nice. Sell your show Inside Late Night with Mark Malcoff on Apple podcast, on Spotify, wherever you get the podcast.
Every week we are going to be telling late night stories, the stories that people do not know for the most part, and just going a deep dive. I love Dana Carvey and David Spades podcast Fly on the Wall at SNL. They talk about SNL, but I learned pretty much, very little to nothing. They don’t go deep. It’s very fun and I like it and people should check it out.
But this is the one where people will walk away. Were talking to Robert Smigel about stuff or Spike Ferrist and where people are going to walk Spike was great. See I just stepped on. It’s great. He was was great.
I was excited. I wanted to talk to him because I just knew that there were stories that I did not think the audience probably knew about his time at Dave in SNL that we would have those type of stories. And I knew from his podcast he’s a great storyteller. And yeah, he worked in the medium. He had his own show on Fox for three years, Talk Show with Spike Ferrist And so we’re talking to people like that.
We had Rachel Dratch from Saturday Night Live, David cross Is coming up, Rob Cordery from The Daily Show, Michael ian Black who was on the State, and did Letterman’s show Mean Worldwide Pants produced Ed which he was on, So we is Letterman stories. He was the number two finalist when Craig Ferguson got the gig, So we talk about all that drama. So yeah, just really just talking to these people. Every I learned things I can use my knowledge from over the years, which I have nowhere else. The old podcasts, I couldn’t really tell these stories that I know as well, so there’s nowhere else I know that people are going to find these stories.
It’s great when these people go on other shows and stuff, and occasionally stuff will come up, but the research that I put into it hopefully will show. And the guests have been very nice to comment on that. They appreciate that, and we’ll see where it goes. But I definitely think a big emphasis will be on Saturday Night Live, stuff that has never been talked about and good year for it. Yeah, I hope, so, I really do.
And then you know, I would love to have Cavet back. I would love to talk to even I want to do devote a show or two to certain shows like Magic Johnson or at Thick of the Night and talk to the people that were there about what went wrong. So I will hit everything we can talk to. I’d love to talk to Bob Costas later. With Bob Costas is that show is incredible the people he talked to, and it was almost like an early podcast.
It had that feel of like that’s what I say, yeah, right, the first show. I would love to talk to Costas. I’ve met him once or twice. But I’m just hoping to talk to these people and just yeap the pull the curtain aside like we did with Johnny Carson for almost four hundred episodes, So yeah, was it that. Yeah, we I kind of kept going.
I just was really really tired and it just didn’t make sense for me. But we did almost four hundred episodes of that show. It was three hundred and ninety some certainly. So. Yeah.
Late Nighter dot Com Forward Slash podcasts. You can listen to the podcast as well and see it pretty good. Normally. I think they’ve been doing transcripts as well, which is really nice on Late Night or and you can go to Late Night or just for if you want to know ratings, the guests that are coming up, and they’ve Bill Carter talked exclusively to Jimmy Fallon. I know they’ve had some of the Daily Show people exclusive interviews.
So definitely with Late Night Or they’re doing stuff that you’re not gonna find anywhere else. And I’m glad that you like this site. Yeah, I think it just it makes sense for me to be to be there with them, and I’m glad that they’re having me and they’ve just been very supportive of me. Fab Well, I hope you come back, you know, with someone something comes up the Late Night Maybe I’ll use that in schume. Oh please, this is great.
I mean, back, I don’t get to talk to a lot of people like this that know what they’re talking about with Late Night in terms of the history, in terms of the power players. It doesn’t happen a lot that I get to talk to somebody like that. So, yeah, this was fun, and yeah, I’d love to come back at some point, And yeah, I appreciate you asking me. Man, wasn’t he great? I hope you really enjoyed that.
Inside the Late Night is the name of that podcast. Definitely check that one out. I hope to have morek on again. I really enjoy that. Could have done another hour easily back tomorrow with a normal episode.
Hope you enjoy that one. See ya.