Johnny Carson dead at age 79

[robviti]

I just heard this on the news. Cause of death reportedly was complications resulting from emphysema. RIP Johnny, and long live Carnac the Magnificent, Floyd R. Turbo, and Art Fern, if only in our memories.

Edited January 24, 2005 by jazzshrink

[7/4]

Johnny Carson Has Died, Associated Press Reports

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 23, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- Johnny Carson, the "Tonight Show" TV host who served America a smooth nightcap of celebrity banter, droll comedy and heartland charm for 30 years, has died. He was 79.

"Mr. Carson passed away peacefully early Sunday morning," his nephew, Jeff Sotzing, told The Associated Press. "He was surrounded by his family, whose loss will be immeasurable. There will be no memorial service."

Advertisement

Sotzing would not give further details, including the time of death or the location.

[7/4]

Wow...one day he's making news by feeding jokes to Letterman and suddenly he's passed on.

[White Lightning]

RIP

[GA Russell]

Sorry to see this. My favorite guest was Carol Wayne, speaking of Art Fern...

[catesta]

R.I.P., Johnny.

By Michael Ventre

MSNBC contributor

Updated: 2:00 p.m. ET Jan. 23, 2005

“The day the music died” was February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly’s plane crashed outside of Clear Lake, Iowa.

The day television died was May 22, 1992, when Johnny Carson hustled out of a Burbank studio, leaving tear-soaked cheeks, 30 years of memories and a void that could never be filled.

Like music, television carried on, but it was never quite the same again. Carson was princely. He was to television what Sinatra was to music, what Brando was to acting, what JFK was to the presidency. He was Carnac the Magnificent’s alter-ego, as trusted and reliable as the turbaned Carnac was inept. (Answer: “Ben Gay.” Question: “Why didn’t Ben Franklin have any children?”

But Carson’s strength was his accessibility. You could take him to bed. Every night. Millions did.

Entered viewers’ homes like a old friend

From 1962, when he relieved Jack Paar of hosting duties for NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” Johnny came through the curtain, stood center stage in a natty suit, leaned back on his heels, cast sly asides at the live audience and at Middle America through the cameras, and did a 10 minute monologue that killed, even when it bombed. He made you laugh at jokes that were funny, and others that weren’t. He had you in his pocket even before you laid eyes on him

Born in Iowa but raised in Norfolk, Neb., he discovered early on what the heartland found entertaining. He did magic tricks. He worked as a ventriloquist. He kept enlisted men in stitches as a Naval officer. He wrote comedy and announced commercials for radio stations. He hosted game shows. He penned jokes for Red Skelton.

He paid his dues.

When he took over for Paar, he was ripe and ready, and quickly became a late-night ritual. Millions of kids grew up over the years hearing the voices of Carson, Ed McMahon, Doc Severinsen and myriad celebrity guests emanating from the tube in their parents’ bedroom. Cackles of laughter ensued. Often, it sounded like mom and dad were having a party in there. They were.

The Jimmy Stewart of late night

Carson succeeded with a mixture of everyman charm and movie-star charisma. He took the tools of vaudeville, gave them a modern sheen, and displayed them before television cameras. Over the years, he developed regular bits like “Stump the Band,” “Floyd R. Turbo,” “The Mighty Carson Art Players,” “Art Fern’s Tea Time Movie” and, of course, “Carnac,” which was funniest when the folks in the audience groaned over a dud of a line. Carnac would glare at them and offer an ominous reproach: “May a love-starved fruit fly molest your sister’s nectarines.”

You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps, and Johnny assembled a dream team and kept it intact for most of his run. Often it seemed McMahon’s primary role was to guffaw, but he also served as a trusted friend as well as an able accomplice in Johnny’s shenanigans. McMahon did not create the sidekick, but when it came to late-night television, he had no peer.

Bandleader Severinsen, and stand-in Tommy Newsom, handled banter like Jim Fowler and Joan Embery handled critters. Producer Fred de Cordova ran a smooth ship, and helped to keep “The Tonight Show” atop the late-night ratings despite assaults by challengers like Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin, Joey Bishop, David Frost and Joan Rivers.

All the while, there were the guests. Regulars like Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield, Bob Newhart, David Brenner, Buddy Hackett, Albert Brooks and John Davidson provided familiarity, like relatives visiting. Others like Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman represented the young turks who longed for recognition, hoping after their routines that they would be invited over to the inner sanctum that was Johnny’s couch.

Unlucky in love — or too lucky?

Of course, Johnny had better luck picking guests than wives. He was married four times, and the first three came away with significant chunks of his salary. But it also provided material: “The difference between divorce and a legal separation is that a legal separation gives a husband time to hide his money.”

When he stepped down in 1992, it’s because he saw comic legends like Bob Hope and Jack Benny struggle in later years, and he feared becoming his industry’s version of Willie Mays, stumbling around in the outfield long after his gifts had evaporated. Around the time of the 10th anniversary of his retirement, he told Esquire magazine: “I think I left at the right time. You’ve got to know when to get the hell off the stage, and the timing was right for me. The reason I really don’t go back or do interviews is because I just let the work speak for itself.”

Aside from a few cameos, including a voiceover on “The Simpsons” and an appearance on Letterman’s show, a man who once enjoyed massive popularity went directly into seclusion and stayed there. He shunned large gatherings and requests for his time: “I will not even talk to myself without an appointment.”

The day that television died was May 22, 1992. The day it was buried was today.

At the risk of sounding indelicate, I think he should close with a joke. If Mel Blanc can have “That’s All, Folks!” on his tombstone, then Johnny can have “Heeeerreee’s Johnny!” on his.

I don’t think Johnny Carson would mind if I pointed out how wrong it is that the nation can no longer enjoy his talents, or even his presence, by using a joke. It was one of his:

“If life was fair, Elvis would still be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.”

Edited January 23, 2005 by catesta

[sjarrell]

I can't for the life of me Google up a pic of Floyd Turbo. Man, I wanted to post one

[sjarrell]

This'll have to do:

[JSngry]

He done good.

[Jim Alfredson]

(Answer: “Ben Gay.” Question: “Why didn’t Ben Franklin have any children?”

Actually, didn't Franklin have an illegitimate son named William?

I'm a little too young to really remember Carson. When he left TV in 1992, I was 15 years old and was not allowed to stay up late enough to watch late night TV.

[Guest youmustbe]

Talk about the end of an Era!! I first saw him on some TV show, not the quiz, but before, while in school in Chicago. On a local, not a network station. Might have been his first tv show. He was funny even then.

[AfricaBrass]

Wow!

It's so weird getting older and seeing people you grew up with pass on. It seems like it's happening all the time.

We have those Johnny Carson DVDs and they're fun trip down memory lane.

[catesta]

We have those Johnny Carson DVDs and they're fun trip down memory lane.

Some funny stuff, they are.

[maren]

By Michael Ventre

MSNBC contributor

Born in Iowa but raised in Norfolk, Neb., he discovered early on what the heartland found entertaining. He did magic tricks. He worked as a ventriloquist. He kept enlisted men in stitches as a Naval officer. He wrote comedy and announced commercials for radio stations. He hosted game shows. He penned jokes for Red Skelton.

AND (it must be said)

he was awfully cute

RIP, Johnny.

(I watched years and years of Johnny. Seems like since BEFORE I was 15 -- but maybe that's just because 15 was so long ago!!! He had EVERYBODY on, and talked to everybody -- Truman Capote and Diana Ross are coming to mind, and a clip from "The Thomas Crown Affair" of a lo-o-o-o-o-o-ng-ng-ng kiss between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway (quite a revelation to me at the age of 16).

[Randy Twizzle]

From 1955

[Chalupa]

R.I.P. Carnac the Magnificent

[GregK]

Terribly sad news. Johnny was the best. He was always funny. I started watching him in the mid-80s-I remember seeing Jerry Seinfeld for the first time back then on his show. I need to get those DVDs

[Guest Chaney]

As Johnny dropped almost completely from America's radar when he left the Tonight Show, maybe in reality the following could be considered his obituary.

So Long To Johnny, America's Sandman

By FRANK RICH

Published: May 10, 1992

Like nearly everyone else in America, I have tuned in Johnny Carson after the following events:

A phone does not ring. The person you were hoping to hear from doesn't call, so you turn to the reliable voice in Burbank instead.

A door is slammed. Someone in your house is angry, maybe you, and you need a parental stand-in to calm you down.

A party is over. But the buzz lingers, and you need another party, someone else's party, to help you wind down.

A child cries inconsolably. Until the unexpected sound of late-night laughter chases the demons away.

On these nights, and on so many others for almost three decades, Johnny Carson has been the last man America sees before it goes to sleep. So why is he never in our dreams?

One other question, now that the end is near.

Is the "Tonight" show the last thing Johnny Carson sees before he goes to sleep?

I ask as, I think, a somewhat representative member of the Johnny Carson generation. You know you are a member of the Johnny Carson generation if you are a) young enough to remember having to beg your parents to stay up to watch Johnny Carson in the days after he first took over from Jack Paar and b) old enough to find yourself nodding off right after the monologue while watching the "Tonight" show now.

Along with much of this audience, I'm going to miss Johnny Carson after he leaves on May 22. But why, exactly? Though Mr. Carson entered office shortly after John F. Kennedy did, ascending from the daytime game show "Who Do You Trust?" to his late-night throne in 1962, he remains, like the President he outlasted, something of a mystery, a distant icon.

Even so he arouses strong feelings. People go through periods of being delighted by him, of finding him passe and boring, of being irritated by him, of rediscovering him and declaring him chic (during the "he's so out he's in" period of the 1970's, and again now), of willfully ignoring him, of jilting him (for Dick Cavett, Martin Mull, Ted Koppel, Arsenio Hall but never Merv Griffin, Joan Rivers, Joey Bishop or Ron Reagan).

But if our feelings about Mr. Carson change, he never seems to change at all. Surely his most surrealistic period was the late 1960's -- at least from my vantage point at the time, as a college student -- when he must have been the only Hollywood star remotely considered cool who never pandered to The Young by affecting long hair, bell bottoms, an open shirt or tinted granny glasses. Yet never, even in that polarized time, did Johnny Carson arouse hatred, in part because, unlike most fixtures in the show-business firmament, he has never patronized the audience or sold out.

While the "Tonight" show is often an orgy of self-promotion, its host, the cool eye in the hurricane of hype, is not himself a self-promoter. Mr. Carson has never shilled for the political and corporate establishment like Bob Hope, and he has never done commercials away from his own show, whether for a product or for himself, like that practiced pitchman Bill Cosby. Except for the odd cameo, Mr. Carson has never lent his talents to a bad movie or trashy sitcom or his name to a best-selling ghost-written book. Immensely wealthy as he is, he has never seemed greedy -- a rare feat for American tycoons.

And Mr. Carson still can be funny. A "Tonight" show delinquent can dip back into the monologue after a month of crisis-spawned "Nightlines" or a summer of late-night baseball games and find at least one joke, probably topical, to laugh at. (Why were people like John Sununu, Gennifer Flowers and Geraldo Rivera born, if not to be nightly Carson butts?)

At all times, Johnny Carson has remained a permanent, reassuring point on the cultural compass, ready to pop up again at the turn of a dial or the click of a remote control. You have a relationship with this man, even at those times when the relationship takes the form of denial.

But then it's time to sleep, and Johnny evaporates, just as he always has, to let our subconscious play without him. He has disappeared without a trace long before the "Today" show dawns, and while his better jokes sometimes linger over morning coffee, the man never does. Drum Roll, Please: The Long Goodbye

Though Johnny Carson's departure is still almost two weeks away, his long goodbye has been going on since he announced his retirement nearly a year ago. For months the press has been waxing nostalgic about long-lived Carson characters like Carnac the Magnificent, the psychic question man, and has been canonizing long-lived, not to mention well-preserved, Carson regulars like Don Rickles and Buddy Hackett. Handicapping the ratings prowess of his successors has become a national pastime, as show-biz pundits and ordinary folk alike wonder whether the designated "Tonight" show heir, Jay Leno, or Arsenio Hall or some neo-Johnny-come-lately like Dennis Miller will inherit Johnny's whole Nielsen ball of wax. (The answer may be none of the above, as I will explain.)

Aside from the nightly, prepackaged monologue wisecracks on the subject of retirement, don't expect Johnny Carson to express much deep feeling about the transition. He is sure to be as elusive to the media posse when departing "Tonight" as he was when he was building the franchise. Though the legend is voluminous, his persona often seems only an inch deep. For all the tabloid and, for that matter, serious journalism that Mr. Carson has inspired over the years, no one seems to have any sense of who he is away from the television camera, the desk, the couch. The interviewer Mr. Carson came closest to letting into his life, Kenneth Tynan, who wrote a profile of him for The New Yorker in 1978, came away with thousands of words of copy, gushing admiration for his subject's telegenic talents and no knowledge of him as a person. The writer's conclusion that talking with Mr. Carson offstage was like "addressing an elaborately wired security system" has been the most frequently repeated characterization of the man ever since. A Soothing Video Lullaby

The official line is that we will miss Johnny Carson because he was a superb comedian whose timing, bemused takes and ad libs could rescue even the bummest jokes supplied by his writers (who could also supply the best), because he gave young talents (including Mr. Leno) their breaks on network television, because his nightly rituals were reassuring in times of private and public stress.

In truth, the actual content of a Carson show did not matter. At a time of anxiety, who cares about the color and material of a security blanket? Alone and exhausted in an antiseptic hotel room in a strange city, you could turn off the volume of the "Tonight" show and still be tranquilized by a succession of images as formulaic and reassuring as Kabuki: by the unchanging reaction shots of Ed McMahon and Doc Severinsen during the monologue, by Mr. Carson's strange backward tilt on his heels while setting up a joke, by the mimed golf swing leading into the first commercial, by the way he fiddles with whatever phallic prop comes to hand at his desk (for years a cigarette, but in these health-conscious times a pencil), by his raised eyebrows in response to a starlet's inevitable and inane breech of taste. Or you could bury your head in a pillow, ignore the imagery and be lulled by the sounds: the bouncy theme music (a classic composition credited to Paul Anka and Mr. Carson himself), Ed's obsequious "Yessirs," the boyish Midwestern tenor of Johnny's questions, his hearty laugh of appreciation when an interviewee scores with a joke of his own. It's the lack of surprises that makes Johnny Carson endure. As Tynan wrote, he practices "the art of the expected."

There are some unofficial reasons to miss Mr. Carson, too. Even when he seemed not quite human, he was always humane. By his choices of guests, and his treatment of them on the air, he helped establish a kindly hierarchy of stardom that spread to other media and set a show-business pecking order. He not only promoted significant and offbeat new talent, whether a Barbra Streisand in the early 1960's or an Eddie Murphy in the early 1980's, but also kept the spotlight on retired talent. Mr. Carson has made a point of keeping a William Demarest or James Stewart in view after their performing days were over, even as he instinctively knew when the moment came to give up on passing sideshows, like Tiny Tim, the troubadour who in 1969 married Miss Vicki on the highest-rated "Tonight" show ever. For Politicians, Nightmares

In a more modest way, Mr. Carson also played a role in determining the country's political priorities. He has credibility, which is why it was commonly (and correctly) believed that when his jokes turned on Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, the country would follow suit. Perhaps Lyndon B. Johnson's departure from office was assured as well once Mr. Carson declared the Vietnam War "stupid and pointless" in a widely publicized interview conducted by Alex Haley for Playboy magazine in 1967; certainly George Bush should be grateful that the steady barrage of ridicule directed his way from Mr. Carson's corner will end five months before Election Day.

Mr. Carson's durable clout with the public as a political prognosticator may be a product of his remoteness: since he does not have an intimate relationship with his viewers, the viewers can speculate that he keeps his distance from the powers that be as well. And perhaps he does. Unlike nearly every other contemporaneous show-biz titan of his stature, from Sinatra to Schwarzenegger, Mr. Carson has never conspicuously been a crony or sycophant of the Kennedys or the Reagans or any royalty in between. A secure power in his own right, he never had to curry favor with others, his sponsors and his network included. Since announcing his retirement, he has not only stepped up the anti-Bush jokes but he has been merciless in ridiculing both NBC and its parent company, General Electric, for corporate ineptitude.

When he so chose, Mr. Carson also exercised his power in more subtle ways that, arguably, realigned American pop culture. When "Tonight" moved, at his insistence, from NBC's studios at Rockefeller Center to those in Burbank in 1972, it was a migration that, along with the demise of "The Ed Sullivan Show" on CBS the year before, essentially marked the end of Manhattan's parity with Hollywood as a glitz capital for a national audience. Originally known as "Broadway Open House" during television's infancy, the "Tonight" show had for 20 years been a platform for Broadway in the broadest sense -- whether for actors dropping by after a show, cabaret entertainers, rising rock and jazz acts, novelists or indigenous folk heroes. That ended in 1972. As someone who arrived in New York in 1973, I felt cheated: it was in part the fantastical "Tonight" show idea of Manhattan, as romantic to me in childhood as the Times Square of Woody Allen's "Radio Days" was to a pre-television generation, that had lured me to the city in the first place. And I just missed it! New York night life, from its theaters to clubs, has eroded in size, substance and national importance ever since Mr. Carson went west.

The other pop-culture sea change affected by Mr. Carson's reign was a redefinition of what constitutes "live" television. Once the "Tonight" show ceased to be broadcast live from 11:30 P.M. to 1 A.M. and instead was taped in the early evening, West Coast time, it inevitably lost some of its spontaneity (and eventually a half-hour of its nightly running time). Naughty words could be bleeped out before air time -- in a day when the networks bleeped out far more words than they do now -- and hadn't half the fun of watching the "Tonight" show come from the hope that someone might sneak a no-no past the censors? (Jack Paar had set the precedent, in more innocent times, with his notorious "w.c." joke.) Worse, if Mr. Carson ceased to maintain the illusion of staying up late with the rest of us insomniacs, could we still take solace in his companionship?

Once Mr. Carson could get away with taping his "live" program, everyone could, with the result that live entertainment programming on national television is largely extinct at night -- even though programs like "Tonight" are still considered "live" by the television industry and much of an audience that increasingly accepts virtual reality as a substitute for the real thing. Mr. Carson, an opaque personality to begin with, became even more remote once airbrushed by video. All of network television seems more canned in the wake of his relinquishment of the live standard.

One exception is "Saturday Night Live," itself a Carson progeny of sorts, since the show got its big break 17 years ago when NBC decided to try it in a time slot that had previously been occupied by little-watched "Tonight" show reruns. As it happens, "Saturday Night Live," with its incomparable Carson and McMahon impersonators, Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman, has been offering its own continuous and hilarious commentary on the "Tonight" show transition. Last May, just before Mr. Carson announced his retirement, "Saturday Night Live" featured an eerie sketch in which Mr. Carvey's Carson, sporting a modest white Afro, homeboy jargon and appropriate arm gestures, was reborn as "Carsenio" in an effort to update his show with "a few adjustments for the young people." In a subsequent sketch, Johnny and Ed dismissed a fawning Jay Leno as "king of the brown-nosers," a "lantern-jaw freak" and a "one-trick pony." Thrilled to be telling his successor what he really thinks of him, Johnny decided to rescind his retirement. The Right Man At the Right Time

That fantasy will not become reality, of course, though NBC may soon wish that it had. It is hard to believe that Jay Leno will maintain Johnny Carson's ratings for long, especially as the competition, which will expand to include Chevy Chase by 1993, goes after him in earnest. The problem is not really Mr. Leno, a skillful, smart comedian whose only serious flaw is a tendency to softness (both in his treatment of guests and in his generic, nonpartisan political one-liners). Nor will the Carson mandate disintegrate simply because Arsenio Hall is seen by younger audiences as hipper than Mr. Leno or because David Letterman, sure to end up a direct competitor to "Tonight" on one network or another sometime soon, is much, much funnier than any of the contenders. The real problem is that the national consensus represented by the old "Tonight" show cannot exist anymore, on late-night television any more than anywhere else in American life.

Johnny Carson -- born in Iowa, raised in Nebraska -- was the perfect jester for a nation that still believed in the old American majority and could still be unified by it, at least at bedtime. He was white, male, Protestant and moneyed in a country that looked for those characteristics in politicians and movie stars. When that establishment fell into disrepute in the late 1960's, shattered by the conflicts of race and the Vietnam War, Mr. Carson proved better at building a new consensus than most politicians of his day. Without trying to remake his own reassuring establishment personality -- without trying to become a "Carsenio" -- he routinely welcomed performers slightly outside the mainstream to his show, not just blacks, but also female comedians in the days before they were widely accepted and even the occasional recognizable homosexual, like Truman Capote.

That balancing act is no longer necessary. The viewing audience, like the country it represents, is permanently fragmented, and television, with its dozens of choices at every hour, reflects that demographic splintering. Just as the Democratic and Republican labels have become meaningless to most voters, so network affiliation means nothing for a late-night talk-show star at a time when there is a cable channel for every taste. All things considered, it is a miracle that Mr. Carson upheld NBC's late-night majority as long as he did. With the impeccable timing that has marked his entire career, he is abdicating his throne at the exact moment when the revolutionary forces poised to topple the monarchy are just breaking through the front gates. Jay Leno must get his version of the "Tonight" show together at a time when networks are on the run and NBC is constantly rumored to be up for sale. No longer bolstered by his predecessor's reassuring theme music, set, props and supporting cast, Mr. Leno will be one of many usurpers scrambling to compete for smaller slices of the late-night video pie. One Glimpse, And He's Gone

As May 22 approaches, I've come to believe that it is not a bad thing that Johnny Carson stays out of our dreams.

Shortly after Mr. Carson announced his retirement last year, a pair of personal tragedies prompted him to take an extended leave of absence from the "Tonight" show: the death of his friend, the actor Michael Landon, by cancer, and the death of his son Rick, a photographer, in a car crash. On the night he returned to the show, July 17, I tuned in to watch, wondering if he might break precedent and acknowledge his personal sorrows. I was hoping at last to find some personal connection with him, not in the least because I was engaged in my own hospital vigil, for my mother, who had been fighting a losing battle for her life following a car crash two weeks earlier.

To my amazement, however, Mr. Carson came out and did his usual, upbeat monologue and then went on to entertain some typical guests. I was about to give up on him when, in the hour's final minutes, he abruptly addressed the audience to thank it for the letters of condolence it had sent. "These have not been the most happy several weeks," Mr. Carson said, his mouth going slightly gummy. Then he showed a picture of his son -- "I'm not doing this to be mawkish, believe me" -- so that his audience could see that the young man looked nothing like the driver's license photo that had widely accompanied news articles about his death.

"Luckily," Mr. Carson continued, "he left some marvelous memories for the whole family, and that's what you hang on to." He leaned back in his chair, his tongue smacking in an uncharacteristic gesture, and, still in control and very much the WASP patriarch, he asked the audience to "forgive a father's pride" as he ended the hour with a slide show of his son's nature photographs, the last of which was of a sunset.

It wasn't a revealing episode, exactly, yet it was a stellar performance in keeping with the great, 30-year Carson tradition. Once again his reassuring presence, unshakable no matter what, had the effect of relieving an audience's anguish without leaving any psychic aftertaste.

That night Johnny Carson failed, as always, to invade my dreams. But isn't that the real secret of his longevity? When he tucks us into bed, his role is to soothe, never to provoke. It was not the first troubled night that I joined a grateful nation in thanking Johnny Carson for a gift far more precious than dreams: deep and untroubled sleep.

[bertrand]

If I was in charge of the CBS web site, I would immediately compile a list of the jokes that Johnny sent Dave in the last few years. They are his last statements as a comedian. They may even be among the few funny jokes that Dave has been telling of late (and I suspect they are not the Osama ones).

I think this was before Johnny retired, but my favorite Letterman joke ever was from a top ten list of top ten TV shows of the year 2000 (this was back in the late 80s). One was a health special entitled: 'oat bran: the silent killer'.

Crack me up every time I think of it.

Bertrand.

[Guest ariceffron]

what do u mean johnny was feeding letterman jokes? how often was he doing that

[DTMX]

Best host ever. I used to beg my mother to let me stay up late to watch the Carson show on the nights Jim Fowler or Joan Embery were scheduled to appear.

Wish I could find the picture of the monkey peeing on Carson's head.

Edited January 23, 2005 by DTMX

[sidewinder]

Yes, yet another indicator that a whole era has now passed. A true US institution - RIP.

[7/4]

what do u mean johnny was feeding letterman jokes?  how often was he doing that

Johnny Carson Still Writing Some Late Night Jokes

By From 7online.com and the Eyewitness News Team

(Los Angeles- WABC, January 21, 2005 ) — Do you miss Johnny Carson's comic monologues on "The Tonight Show"? So does he, apparently.

"When he reads the paper in the morning, he can think of five jokes right off the bat that he wishes he had an outlet for," said Peter Lassally, one of his former producers.

Sometimes the 79-year-old Carson, who keeps up with the late-night shows from his California home, can't stand to keep them to himself. He'll send a joke every now and then to "Late Show" host David Letterman, who has used some of Carson's jokes in his monologue, Lassally said. "Johnny gets a big kick out of that," he said.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[BruceH]

Wow, I didn't know he was sending jokes to Letterman.

The end of an era, indeed. RIP, Johnny.

[7/4]

Wow, I didn't know he was sending jokes to Letterman.

The end of an era, indeed. RIP, Johnny.

Look at the date on the clip!