Johnny

I was surprised and saddened to hear that Johnny Carson had passed away. The first late-night talk show I remember watching was Steve Allen's syndicated show in the early-to-mid-Sixties (which I liked a lot). I started watching The Tonight Show while I was in high school, probably around '68 or so. From then on, until Johnny retired, it was a fairly regular part of my TV viewing. I watched it all through college, I watched it at Livia's parents' house while we were dating, and we watched it after we were married in the various places where we lived. When one of us would ask, "You want to watch Johnny?", we never had to ask, "Johnny who?"

Of course, we saw all the classic bits -- Tiny Tim's wedding, Ed Ames and the tomahawk, Jack Webb and the Copper Clapper Caper. My favorite moments on The Tonight Show, though, were when things got out of hand -- Johnny and his guests cutting up their ties with scissors or squirting whipped topping all over each other, or the night that Johnny discovered Don Rickles had broken his cigarette box during a guest-hosting stint and marched over to the set of C.P.O. SHARKEY to harass Rickles about it. (One favorite non-Carson Tonight Show memory is of the night when Kermit the Frog guest-hosted, back in the days before that godawful Jay Leno took over as permanent guest host. We sat there watching Kermit interview guests and wondered how many drunks were tuning in and thinking they were hallucinating.)

Although Johnny's low-key final show was good, I've always thought the real farewell was Bette Midler's gorgeous rendition of "One For My Baby", sung right to Johnny, on the next-to-last show. One of the most beautiful moments I've seen on television.

Rest well, Johnny. You were a good friend to millions of people and touched their lives without ever knowing them.