I happen to belong to one of the smallest, most-exclusive clubs in television history: those who have hosted their own late-night (11:30pm ET) shows on one of the original Big Three networks (NBC, CBS and ABC). The club includes Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Jay Leno on NBC; Joey Bishop, Dick Cavett, Jack Paar again, and, in case you??¢â???¬â???¢ve forgotten, Les Crane, on ABC; and Merv Griffin, me and David Letterman on CBS. I think that??¢â???¬â???¢s about it. Ten guys, more or less. Arsenio Hall, Chevy Chase, David Brenner, Dennis Miller and a few others were syndicated. Joan Rivers was on not-yet-fully-developed Fox.
Steve has passed on, as has my boyhood hero, Jack. And, now, Johnny has departed. The death of Johnny Carson has left me thinking a lot about that club and my dim star??¢â???¬â???¢s small part in that bright constellation. It also brought back memories of my limited relationship with him. Limited, but memorable, at least to me.
In 1986, I had already been hosting ??¢â???¬?????Wheel of Fortune??¢â???¬ for five years. I worked at the NBC studios in Burbank, just down the hall from Johnny??¢â???¬â???¢s ??¢â???¬?????Tonight Show??¢â???¬ studio. In fact, for five years prior to hosting ??¢â???¬?????Wheel??¢â???¬ , I was the local weatherman on KNBC in Los Angeles, which was in the same building. Yet, in those ten years of working within a few hundred yards of Carson, I had never met him, nor even laid eyes on him. He came, he worked and he left. There was no schmoozing in the hallways with local weathermen or game show hosts. So I was quite surprised and delighted to be invited to be a guest on his show one night that year.
It was one of those nights when Johnny was really ??¢â???¬?????on??¢â???¬ and, happily, so was I. He worked very hard to make me look good, was generous with his laughter and his compliments, and surprised me with an on-air invitation. He asked me to come sit behind the desk and host the show some night. I agreed.
True to his word, I was called just a few weeks later and asked to guest-host the show for two nights while Johnny was vacationing. There were two problems, however. The first was that a writers??¢â???¬â???¢ strike was in progress. That meant that there could be no material written by others. It was not a big problem for a mostly ad-libbed show; it just meant that I would have to create a few amusing anecdotes to fill the monologue portion of the program. The second problem was more serious. The Directors??¢â???¬â???¢ Guild was also threatening to strike, and there would be no shows if there were no directors. The week before I was scheduled to host I was told that, if a contract agreement were not reached with the directors by Friday morning, the following week??¢â???¬â???¢s shows would have to be replaced by reruns. Well, Friday came, but an agreement didn??¢â???¬â???¢t, and the shows were cancelled. Ironically, the strike was averted over the weekend, but it was too late to reinstate the tapings. I still have the TV Guide showing me as the guest host (my first guest was to have been Carl Reiner).
Several events then occurred which precluded my ever hosting ??¢â???¬?????The Tonight Show??¢â???¬ . Johnny returned from vacation, I began to be courted by CBS to do a talk show, and Jay Leno was named to be Johnny's permanent guest-host. I??¢â???¬â???¢m not one to do a lot of second-guessing and ??¢â???¬?????what ifs???¢â???¬ , but I have always regretted not getting that opportunity. Though it might not have changed television history, I would much rather have been introduced to late night audiences with the low expectations of a guest-hosting game show emcee (and I like to think I would have exceeded those expectations), than as a much-ballyhooed competitor to the Carson throne on CBS.
When my CBS show finally premiered in January of 1989, word had spread that Johnny was about to leave. We made a conscious decision to emulate his show??¢â???¬â???¢s look, feel and format with that in mind. Johnny would leave, and Pat - though no Johnny - would already be in place, and it would be a natural alternative to the Carson void. Well, Mr. Carson didn??¢â???¬â???¢t leave; he re-signed with NBC for several more years. There we were asking people to choose Johnny Carson Lite (me) over The Real Thing (him). Oops. There may have been other problems with the CBS show, as there surely were, but competing with Johnny Carson was one of the biggest.
Several years later, long after my show had ended its 15-month run and Carson had retired, my wife and I had dinner at a Malibu restaurant with Johnny and his wife, as well as Mr. And Mrs. Dick Carson. (Dick was the long-time director of ??¢â???¬?????Wheel??¢â???¬ and, not incidentally, Johnny??¢â???¬â???¢s brother.) Johnny seemed to be thriving in his non-working state. He was as funny and charming off-camera as on. I ??¢â???¬?????thanked??¢â???¬ him for sticking around long enough to help drive me off the air, and he responded in just as witty and generous a manner as you might expect. It was a night full of laughs and great stories; a night I??¢â???¬â???¢ll never forget.
I never saw Johnny after that dinner. Not many people did. He meant it when he said he was leaving, and I??¢â???¬â???¢ve always respected his ability to walk away and make a clean break with the show business spotlight. That complete and permanent departure helped freeze him in our minds as the impish host of a program so many of us grew up with. Unlike others who were unable or unwilling to give up their celebrity, we never saw Johnny get any older than he was when Bette Midler sang her goodbyes to him on ??¢â???¬?????The Tonight Show??¢â???¬ . That??¢â???¬â???¢s one of the reasons it seems so strange and empty now that he??¢â???¬â???¢s gone. We never really had the chance to prepare for it.
People much more articulate that I have commented on his enormous talent and incredible staying power. But, as a member of one of TV??¢â???¬â???¢s most exclusive clubs, I think I can appreciate more than most what this amazing man accomplished.
