Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: It's me again, Hello, Johnny Mack with your daily comedy
Speaker 2: news bonus edition. Earlier today, the normal Tuesday episode went
Speaker 2: out later today, I will have a Jimmy Kimmel bonus
Speaker 2: episode for you, as Jimmy Kimmel is returning to Jimmy
Speaker 2: Kimmel Live tonight, so that should be exciting. Give us
Speaker 2: all something to talk about this episode. My guest is
Speaker 2: Mark Malcoff. You know Mark.
Speaker 3: He used to host The Carson Podcast. He currently hosts
Speaker 3: the Inside Late Night podcast. Boy, I hope they can
Speaker 3: find something to talk about. And as I discovered on
Speaker 3: the fly as we recorded this interview, that's back today
Speaker 3: for a new season. Totally accidental.
Speaker 2: I reached out to the guy because he was on
Speaker 2: my radar anyway because of the book, and then there
Speaker 2: was this whole Jimmy Kimmel thing, so that worked out
Speaker 2: for both of us. He also has that new book
Speaker 2: it is called Love Johnny Carson. In this conversation with
Speaker 2: Mark Malcoff, author of Love, Johnny Carson, host of the
Speaker 2: Carson Podcast, host of Inside Late Night, we'd talk about
Speaker 2: Johnny Carson, but also words like leno letterman, fallon Colbert
Speaker 2: and oh yes, Kimmel gets said. So here's my conversation
Speaker 2: with Mark Malkoff and Johnny. Mack started with a long
Speaker 2: winded question, I definitely want to talk to you about
Speaker 2: Carson a lot up front. I'm sure we'll get to
Speaker 2: the other news of the week. I'm struggling here. If
Speaker 2: we could do like some sort of Marvel movie time
Speaker 2: travel and somehow insert Johnny Carson into this current era
Speaker 2: of kumbaya, we all get along. I don't mind that
Speaker 2: you have another talk show at eleven thirty on the
Speaker 2: other network, and I'm not sure I can even get there.
Speaker 2: But if I can, I'm struggling to imagine Johnny doing, say,
Speaker 2: what Stephen Colbert has done, or what David Letterman has done.
Speaker 2: I was trying to channel my inner Johnny this morning,
Speaker 2: and with all apologies, the best I could come up
Speaker 2: with would be a joke, something like I on the
Speaker 2: way over here, I saw Jimmy Kimmel working at the
Speaker 2: Windy's and then looking left right, did that joke? Land?
Speaker 2: I can't picture him doing a ten minutes die tribe
Speaker 2: about the government to the FCC as a Carson expert.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Johnny Carson would somehow do in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Five, I think he would probably just be doing the
Speaker 1: same show that he did for thirty years. But I
Speaker 1: mean it did upset presidential administrations. Like Nancy Reagan called
Speaker 1: the show twice and was upset. Gerald Borg said it
Speaker 1: was a love hate relationship. Jimmy Carter's mom, Lillian called
Speaker 1: Carson and ass, I don't know if you can swear
Speaker 1: on this, but until she met him and went on
Speaker 1: the show, and then she thought she he was delightful.
Speaker 1: So you know him, like Jay Leno, like Conan, they
Speaker 1: were always doing hammering whoever was in office. It was
Speaker 1: just you know, they were you couldn't You've never knew
Speaker 1: where Johnny was voting. I mean, he would hammer. When
Speaker 1: he found out that the Reagans were upset with his jokes,
Speaker 1: he said, that's surprising. He thought we were tougher on
Speaker 1: Carter or Jimmy Carter. But I think it was since
Speaker 1: well Rogers just like you have people like this that
Speaker 1: just did this. But it was definitely very different for
Speaker 1: somebody to take like Colbert and Kimmel to take stanzas
Speaker 1: but it's different, you know, people forget I think that
Speaker 1: first year when Colbert was on, he wasn't taking his stance.
Speaker 1: He was getting cloppered in the Ravens. He was number three,
Speaker 1: He was doing the show he wanted to do, and
Speaker 1: Trump was on the show with him, and I thought
Speaker 1: he was easy on him, and Stevens acknowledged that. But
Speaker 1: I think Carson was just doing the same show. I mean,
Speaker 1: his rule up until he retired in Burbank was no
Speaker 1: politicians in all office. And he broke it twice, only
Speaker 1: once for Reagan on the anniversary show in seventy two
Speaker 1: because they were out of videotape because NBC he found
Speaker 1: out how it erased the first ten years and they
Speaker 1: needed big stars, and Reagan did five minutes, and then
Speaker 1: once with Clinton only because he did saxophone and he
Speaker 1: was not famous. They booked him as a civilian, which
Speaker 1: was for the non famous people in eighty eight. Were
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty eight when they got in trouble with
Speaker 1: the DNC speaking for thirty three minutes when he's supposed
Speaker 1: to do fifteen, and he was getting just trounced in
Speaker 1: Carson's monologue, and then those are the only two times,
Speaker 1: so he just yeah, it was it was a different show,
Speaker 1: and I just think times change, and yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think Johnny would definitely, I think, just get this huge
Speaker 1: kind of like just be baffled by the whole thing. Today.
Speaker 2: I did see over the weekend some Trump joke circulating,
Speaker 2: one with a joke about Jennifer Flowers being the backup mistress.
Speaker 2: So there were a couple of things like that, but
Speaker 2: they were later in Johnny's tenure. But yeah, I can't
Speaker 2: imagine him doing you know, ten minutes about the way
Speaker 2: cold Err is doing it his way outside. I think
Speaker 2: two with Johnny and Letterman got into this as well.
Speaker 2: There's a type of needling joke that's just fun among friends,
Speaker 2: like a Mark Malkoff joke. Punchline might be he's probably
Speaker 2: watching a Carson rerun, like it's a harmless joke, whether
Speaker 2: it's true or not, as opposed to you know, digging
Speaker 2: in about you know why so and so is a
Speaker 2: horrible person. I think you're right that it's just a
Speaker 2: different time.
Speaker 1: Dave took a different approach the later years. I think
Speaker 1: after he said John Stewart on cable was, you know,
Speaker 1: was going after politicians and taking kind of a stance
Speaker 1: that Letterman, Yeah, Letterman just you know, he emulated he
Speaker 1: wanted to know what did Johnny do at this point
Speaker 1: in his career and trying to emulate him. But the
Speaker 1: thing that he the one thing that he didn't was, yeah,
Speaker 1: he started to get a little bit with his political views,
Speaker 1: and I think that that probably gave room for the
Speaker 1: others to do it a little bit. I mean, I
Speaker 1: do find the Colberts first season very interesting when he
Speaker 1: didn't try to do that again, him and Kimmel a
Speaker 1: two hundred people, you know, staff and crew that depend
Speaker 1: on him. And I get why Colbert did what he
Speaker 1: did just because he was number one. When you're number
Speaker 1: one and it's working, you just keep doing what is working.
Speaker 1: But you definitely, like Carson was very much like you're
Speaker 1: going to alienate fifty percent. Like I talk about it,
Speaker 1: like David Steinberg was doing a Nixon thing and Carson
Speaker 1: routine and Nixon it is getting some laughs, but at
Speaker 1: the braid, Carson just told Steinberg it's like you're losing
Speaker 1: half your audience. It doesn't bother me, but they're not
Speaker 1: with you yet. And yeah, that definitely like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: definitely not where Carson would would would would would go
Speaker 1: to taking a stance, but it definitely he hammered. I
Speaker 1: mean he especially in New York. He was he had
Speaker 1: a lot of politicians on he had that. He had
Speaker 1: people like atheists like Marraton, like Merck, Madeline Murray O'Hare,
Speaker 1: the head of the NRA, the head of the Church
Speaker 1: of Satan, believe it or not, Jim Garrison from the
Speaker 1: JFK movie, who is a prosecutor who with the first
Speaker 1: real JFK kind of conspiracy. So they definitely did the
Speaker 1: politics the first ten years over there. But again you
Speaker 1: just had no idea where his politics lie. He did
Speaker 1: do something for Lyndon Johnson in his inaugural, which he
Speaker 1: did definitely wish he didn't looking back, but it was
Speaker 1: like non political. It was like so many stars were
Speaker 1: there and basically the attitude was like it's for the
Speaker 1: new president. You want to support them. But he he
Speaker 1: really tried to stay out of politics. If Sinatra corralled
Speaker 1: him in one of the Reagan inaugurals, because he was
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra and he Johnny kind of owed him, which
Speaker 1: I talk about in the book. So he did. He
Speaker 1: entertained one of the Franks and Reagan inaugurals because Sinatra
Speaker 1: was producing, but he didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2: I have so many threads I could pull on, including
Speaker 2: the fifty percent stuff, but I want to save the
Speaker 2: Jay Leno conversation for later. Let's talk about your book. Sure,
Speaker 2: I'd like to hear you say the title, because I
Speaker 2: can't tell if it's like I got a love note
Speaker 2: from Johnny Love Johnny Carson. It's love Johnny Carson. So
Speaker 2: how do you pronounce the book?
Speaker 1: The book is called Love Johnny Carson. And the reason
Speaker 1: it's called Love Johnny Carson is because I talked to
Speaker 1: over four hundred people, and overwhelmingly they would tell me,
Speaker 1: either when we were recording or not recording, or an
Speaker 1: email form, that I love Johnny Carson. They would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love Johnny Carson. And I was like, the I
Speaker 1: didn't expect that to happen. Just I basically, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd read some of the books, and I had heard
Speaker 1: with people like Joan Rivers and just a few people,
Speaker 1: like two or three people that were the loudest megaphones
Speaker 1: over the years that would repeat stuff about him. And
Speaker 1: there's only a handful of people if that that really
Speaker 1: had bad stuff to say. But definitely seemed like that
Speaker 1: those were the loudest voices. So I was very I
Speaker 1: don't know, it was conflicted going into the podcast because
Speaker 1: I just didn't want to put negative stuff out there.
Speaker 1: I just didn't want I wanted to tell the truth,
Speaker 1: whatever the truth was, but I thought it would maybe
Speaker 1: be seven episops because it would go to negative. And
Speaker 1: I was shocked when I talked to his friends and
Speaker 1: I talked to people that worked there, and it was like,
Speaker 1: he's unrecognizable. I really believe in this book talking to
Speaker 1: the four hundred people, I mean, this is the conclusion
Speaker 1: I made. And I think if people listen to the
Speaker 1: Carson podcast that overwhelmingly the people loved him and the
Speaker 1: stuff that how he acted with his friends. Universally, they
Speaker 1: would say he was the same Johnny on the show
Speaker 1: as he was with them, but they had to feel Curson,
Speaker 1: I had to feel comfortable with the person, but they
Speaker 1: would say he was nearly the same Johnny. His second
Speaker 1: wife said the same thing. Yeah, he was a bad drinker.
Speaker 1: He would acknowledge it on the show, not only with
Speaker 1: Mike Wallace in sixteen Minutes in nineteen seventy nine, he
Speaker 1: would talk about the drinking he struggled with the drinking.
Speaker 1: He became a different person, which I go into. He
Speaker 1: would admit he had huge flaws from perfect extremely sensitive
Speaker 1: individual and that goes with my book with him banning
Speaker 1: some guests that I go into. He was just for
Speaker 1: somebody that was in the public eye and that famous
Speaker 1: it really are. He would get his feelings hurt all
Speaker 1: the time. He was one of those people that would
Speaker 1: say the critics. He never believed when guests would come
Speaker 1: on and be like, the critics don't hurt me, have
Speaker 1: a that thick skin, and it's like not always hurt.
Speaker 1: He would read all the press. He read all those books,
Speaker 1: negative books about him. He just he would read the
Speaker 1: press on him, but it would hurt, and he would
Speaker 1: talk about that. I mean, yes, sensitive guy.
Speaker 2: I listened to the Carson podcasts. Uh, you know, I
Speaker 2: guess you could have gone out of your way to
Speaker 2: books if we dig deep enough. Somebody hates me, hates you,
Speaker 2: hate Johnny Carson. You could have gotten on somebody. But
Speaker 2: it's what you said that everybody really liked him personally.
Speaker 1: I did try to get Joan Rivers. I tried to
Speaker 1: get Waye Newton, I tried to get only a handful
Speaker 1: of people that I knew. But if if I knew
Speaker 1: Elaine Boosler, a people that had problems, none of them
Speaker 1: would talk to me. Please continue to hearing.
Speaker 2: I was going to name drop Joan Rivers. I worked
Speaker 2: with Joan in you know, two thousand and two thousand
Speaker 2: and two, that range when she had a radio show
Speaker 2: with w OAR, and she you could tell the whole
Speaker 2: breakup bothered her, but she didn't have a bad word
Speaker 2: to say about Johnny Carson off the air, behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously things went sideways there and it bothered her,
Speaker 2: but she had nothing but reverence for Johnny Carson.
Speaker 1: I think when she got a mic in front of
Speaker 1: her and a camerash, the venom would spew. But like
Speaker 1: I think, like I think, when she was with talking
Speaker 1: to people, it was a lot of it was just
Speaker 1: like he was the best straight man. He knew how
Speaker 1: to set me up and made my career. I do
Speaker 1: go very in deep in depth with that story. I
Speaker 1: met Joan a few times and she's like twice and
Speaker 1: she's just very nice and like I'm her pressed to find.
Speaker 1: I mean, the people I know ultimately loved her so much.
Speaker 1: People that worked with her, the people that knew were
Speaker 1: and I write about this and I defend her that
Speaker 1: the people that worked on the Tonight Show. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of people I talked to that loved when she
Speaker 1: was over there guest hosting, and I wanted to make
Speaker 1: note of that. But we I do go in very
Speaker 1: specific about the versions of the people that were at
Speaker 1: the Tonight show and what happened on there and and
Speaker 1: what some of miss Rivers friends and people that knew
Speaker 1: her thought. And it's like it's such a night and
Speaker 1: day story with Joan Rivers was there and always like
Speaker 1: I just couldn't believe, like somebody really smart, Like I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna mention names, but there's like one comedian that
Speaker 1: recently was talking about the Joan Rivers thing and just
Speaker 1: like how they both believed to this day, it was
Speaker 1: so simplistic that Johnny just you know, Joan didn't tell him,
Speaker 1: so he never talked to her again. The end of story.
Speaker 1: Didn't have to air his dirty laundry and the specifics publicly.
Speaker 1: He didn't owe anybody that and he didn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: somebody asked him one time during because after this monologue,
Speaker 1: a lot of times he would take questions from the audience.
Speaker 1: Somebody like asked him, what are your thoughts in Joan
Speaker 1: go in to Fox and he's like, I wish her
Speaker 1: the best. I mean after he never mentioned her on
Speaker 1: air after the show got canceled, he never mentioned her
Speaker 1: publicly that I'm aware of. I mean, he was a
Speaker 1: couple two journalists. I would have handled it differently, or
Speaker 1: I don't think she handled it well. But like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to get into like a back and
Speaker 1: forth thing about it. But I go into a lot
Speaker 1: of depth, and there's a lot of revelations about what
Speaker 1: according to the Carson staffers and according to some of
Speaker 1: miss Rivers friends, what happened was.
Speaker 2: The book blessed at all? Did you talk to the estate?
Speaker 2: The nephew, Jeff Satzings is the controller of the estate.
Speaker 2: I still believe you know, did you guess the ring
Speaker 2: or you draw on your own? It doesn't matter if
Speaker 2: that's a stupid question, John, it's a good question.
Speaker 1: Jeff knows about it. I told Jeff he hasn't read
Speaker 1: it yet to my knowledge, but I really hope he
Speaker 1: likes it. Like I had. Somebody who was on my
Speaker 1: podcast been like, is it like, is it a pro
Speaker 1: Johnny or is it anti Johnny book? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I wrote that. I just and I told them, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I wrote the truth. And he's like, oh oh, And
Speaker 1: I'm like the truth is because I feel like I
Speaker 1: just I owed it to the listeners. Like some people
Speaker 1: were urging me. You might not want to make him
Speaker 1: look bad. It might take away empathy from the audience
Speaker 1: in your book. And I'm just like, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to write the truth. But my conclusion, and I think
Speaker 1: people that read the book ultimately is overwhelmingly positive. I
Speaker 1: mean that is the people that I talked to. I mean,
Speaker 1: I yeah, he there was definitely when he drank there
Speaker 1: he was not it was he called himself. It was
Speaker 1: like he said it was he be fine and that
Speaker 1: one more drink. He compared himself to Attiladahn and I
Speaker 1: go into the drink game stuff. But overwhelmingly, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was stories like that. I couldn't include all of them.
Speaker 1: I wish I could add to a director's cut of
Speaker 1: the book. But how much amazing stuff he did for
Speaker 1: people behind the scenes, and he didn't want any poop listed.
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone knows about the foundation which at the
Speaker 1: time was the largest foundation. It was like one hundred
Speaker 1: was it one hundred and eighty one hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: million that he left. That's still the foundation gives away
Speaker 1: millions of dollars every year to all these different groups
Speaker 1: and charities and nonprofits. But he was doing the same stuff,
Speaker 1: just a peepool, and it was just it was just
Speaker 1: not the Johnny Carson that I expected at all, and
Speaker 1: I was shocked, and I felt like there should be
Speaker 1: a book out there that answers like I feel like
Speaker 1: there's a people that made certain claims, and I felt
Speaker 1: like I wanted to put the truth, like Wayne Newton,
Speaker 1: for example, about what I believe happened, doing a little
Speaker 1: bit more research than him waiting for Johnny to pass
Speaker 1: away until he could make a claim because he I mean,
Speaker 1: it's easy to wait until somebody dies to make such
Speaker 1: a claim that he did on Larry King in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, two thousand and seven or whatever it was.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I know what, I feel like,
Speaker 1: I just need to like set the record straight according
Speaker 1: to what the research I have done, and I did
Speaker 1: a little bit of that here and there. I really
Speaker 1: wish you would have participated, but what can you do?
Speaker 2: Uh before we even get to the Carson podcast, let's
Speaker 2: back up before that to the eye test. You see
Speaker 2: him within vaguely my age range. So for me, I
Speaker 2: watched Johnny Carson at first because it was the thing
Speaker 2: on that I killed time waiting for Dave to show
Speaker 2: up at twelve thirty and came to approchiate. So what
Speaker 2: is your Johnny Carson. You don't seem like you were
Speaker 2: watching episodes in nineteen seventy one, so what So what's
Speaker 2: your journey do you? Why do you? Why are you
Speaker 2: like the Carson guy?
Speaker 1: I think when I was like really little, like four
Speaker 1: or five, I you know, my dad was showing me
Speaker 1: stuff like it's a mad, mad mad mad world, Murdered
Speaker 1: by Death. So like I knew who like all these
Speaker 1: people were, Like, I mean, I knew who Jonathan Winners,
Speaker 1: Peter Funck, Eileen Brennan, so many, like Peter Seller's movies.
Speaker 1: I was watching The Pink panother there, and he's in
Speaker 1: Murder by Death, which is like the greatest movie. But
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, Truman Capodi, I know who he is now.
Speaker 1: And I was like such a sponge in terms of
Speaker 1: like early entertainment. My dad would just tell me he
Speaker 1: got to go to Carson's show in sixty eight and
Speaker 1: would tell me who was on this show, and he
Speaker 1: showed me. You know. Sometimes they would do these primetime specials,
Speaker 1: the anniversary shows, which were the those were the things
Speaker 1: that really I would fell in love with the show,
Speaker 1: I feel like, but sometimes Friday as I could stay
Speaker 1: up and watch clips or the watch a little bit
Speaker 1: of the show. But the thing with Carson is he
Speaker 1: you could show kids and the animals segments him talking
Speaker 1: to kids that this the sketches like are gonna go
Speaker 1: over a lot of the kids' heads, but like there's
Speaker 1: enough within the sketches where they can work on different levels,
Speaker 1: kind of like some comedy does. But he was just
Speaker 1: so likable, and it was a party, and I got
Speaker 1: to you know, sometimes like danger Field, I didn't really
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't have been watching his sets when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, but like I didn't get some of it,
Speaker 1: but he was just so funny and I did get
Speaker 1: some of it. But it was just like this adult
Speaker 1: party with all these people and show business, and I
Speaker 1: just loved the comedians especially and when the animals were
Speaker 1: Jim Fowler or Joan Embery, but those anniversary shows were
Speaker 1: like the best. I mean, those were those the clip
Speaker 1: shows I think were the thing that really did it
Speaker 1: for me. But I was just obsessed with entertainment in general,
Speaker 1: and I was just trying to, you know, like a
Speaker 1: sponge with comedy, just anybody, just watch as much as
Speaker 1: I could. But he was so likable. I think that's
Speaker 1: why he succeeded thirty years without any real serious competition.
Speaker 1: Was the liability thing, and he was completely himself on
Speaker 1: air that I asked Larry King and I talked to
Speaker 1: other people, I'm like, why do you think he was
Speaker 1: so successful on this? Like it's obvious, it was so clear.
Speaker 1: It's he was himself. I mean he definitely like was
Speaker 1: a shy person, but he you know, he's with he
Speaker 1: was in control and comfortable. He could be that person,
Speaker 1: but that was definitely part of him. But he was
Speaker 1: definitely a like all of us, a complicated person.
Speaker 2: So is it more than just even in New York
Speaker 2: City there were seven channels and what else you're going
Speaker 2: to watch at eleven thirty? Because you know, Dick Cavitt
Speaker 2: is likable, but maybe doing a more low to term
Speaker 2: he or smarter show. But then again, his guest is
Speaker 2: John Lennon. That seems pretty cool. I might watch that,
Speaker 2: So is there more to Johnny just then? Yeah, he
Speaker 2: had eleven thirty back at a time when what else
Speaker 2: you're watching?
Speaker 1: At one point there were him, David Frost, merv Griffin,
Speaker 1: and Cavot. Yeah, it was four of them going ahead
Speaker 1: to head. So I mean there definitely were last options.
Speaker 1: But I guess I definitely think at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I think these shows are always about likability.
Speaker 1: I think he knew his audience, and you know, he
Speaker 1: would read the letters that would come in. He would
Speaker 1: personally respond to people. Sometimes when they were upset with
Speaker 1: a joke, he would either call them or write them
Speaker 1: a letter. He definitely was would study tapes like like
Speaker 1: an athlete, like a coach, watching clips of his team play,
Speaker 1: and he was just he would say, and at least
Speaker 1: in the New York years, I find myself that's all
Speaker 1: I think about is the show. And I mean I
Speaker 1: think he would probably realize that's not the most healthy thing.
Speaker 1: On the occasions him calling up on off weeks, calling
Speaker 1: Fred de Cordova up with ideas for the show. When
Speaker 1: he comes back. You know. He would always say he
Speaker 1: didn't really watch the show that much. Sometimes if he would,
Speaker 1: he watched it most of the nights. It seemed like
Speaker 1: he would stan up and watch his show, and he
Speaker 1: would You could tell he watched the guest house too,
Speaker 1: because he would comment on them sometimes and there would
Speaker 1: be a comedian that had never been on an his
Speaker 1: show that did the guest host in and he'd be like,
Speaker 1: you know what they did very well, let's get them
Speaker 1: on with me. But yet he has I don't know
Speaker 1: if you can last thirty years like that in terms
Speaker 1: of like the pressure cooker that is going on that show.
Speaker 1: I mean, Dick Havitt said something in the that I
Speaker 1: mentioned in the book in a Time magazine interviewers like
Speaker 1: go into two hundred cocktail parties in a row and
Speaker 1: having to be the life at the party and the
Speaker 1: amount of energy. I mean, the guy doing an hour
Speaker 1: and forty five minutes in New York the first couple
Speaker 1: of years, I mean, it was unbelievable. Now they do
Speaker 1: an hour. They do maybe one hundred and eighty shows
Speaker 1: at the most were Carson of Television a year where
Speaker 1: Carson was doing this first couple of years, like over
Speaker 1: four hundred hours the first couple of years, and then
Speaker 1: it went then in nineteen minutes, but it was still
Speaker 1: in exhausting. I mean, Shan Lane was did an interview
Speaker 1: Shannon and I think twenty and twelve, and like, no
Speaker 1: one knows how exhausting it is. One of these competitors,
Speaker 1: Carson's competitors, that it's more grueling than shoveling snow for
Speaker 1: eight hours just going out there. People, I don't think
Speaker 1: realize how for the most part, unless you're a cyborg
Speaker 1: robot like Jay Leno, for the most part, how exhausting
Speaker 1: and not consuming those shows are.
Speaker 2: I teach on Monday nights and my wife is no
Speaker 2: knows this, you know, I lecture for two hours and
Speaker 2: change and just the act of standing and talking. Yeah
Speaker 2: it's not construction workout in the sun, but just even
Speaker 2: that is exhausting. Never mind, if you're hosting the Tonight
Speaker 2: Show or one of these shows you've got to be
Speaker 2: on on you really can't have a bad night. Plus
Speaker 2: the prep. Uh, you know, you can't just show up
Speaker 2: and be like, all right, who who am I talking to?
Speaker 2: Burt Reynolds, Right, I'll wing it. You know, that's not
Speaker 2: the gig. It's not just oh, you work an hour day,
Speaker 2: it must be nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a misconception about because Letterman would be at
Speaker 1: his studio all day like most of the people, and
Speaker 1: Johnny didn't get there until maybe two hours before if
Speaker 1: there were rehearsing a sketch, maybe a little earlier. But
Speaker 1: from the time he woke up he did take a
Speaker 1: tennis break. It was about the show, and he was
Speaker 1: so hands on from the time. The reason he wasn't
Speaker 1: there all day at the studio is because rightfully so,
Speaker 1: he protected his energy and he knew if he was
Speaker 1: there too much it would just like affect his energy.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't have lunches with people, he wouldn't interact with
Speaker 1: people that he just he believed that he just had
Speaker 1: to guard and that energy. And people said this was
Speaker 1: a thing that several people on the show told me
Speaker 1: that when it was a show day and he showed
Speaker 1: up to the studio and if you were around him,
Speaker 1: sparks flying these those were his worth, sparks flying off
Speaker 1: of him. They would tell me you could feel his energy.
Speaker 1: And the two people that worked on the show told
Speaker 1: me when they were guests on the show, one of
Speaker 1: them wrote a book and one of them played did
Speaker 1: some music during the show. When they shook his hand
Speaker 1: once that it felt like a nuclear reactor, and the
Speaker 1: other said that you could feel the sparks, I mean
Speaker 1: the energy that he would exude when he was hosting
Speaker 1: the show. He did this famous thing where they took
Speaker 1: his heart rate I think some doctor or his pulse
Speaker 1: or something during when he was hosting the show versus
Speaker 1: before the show or just like regular and it was
Speaker 1: like his heart rate was just so much higher when
Speaker 1: he was doing the show. It's just it was I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: from somebody that performs and somebody that's teaching, you know
Speaker 1: what that was like. But he just he was exhausted,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people gave him like he'd make
Speaker 1: fun of it, but people would give him a hard
Speaker 1: time for only doing the show three times a week
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. But the truth of the
Speaker 1: matter is it wasn't laziness. He just did not have
Speaker 1: the energy interesting anymore. And he would not let the
Speaker 1: energy he didn't with the quality beat the show to slap.
Speaker 1: I mean he didn't. He could have shown up those
Speaker 1: five nights a week, but he knew the energy just
Speaker 1: he just did not have that with him in it
Speaker 1: and he could feel it, and.
Speaker 2: It's a viewer. I don't think the three nights a
Speaker 2: week thing with the live shows on Monday and the
Speaker 2: one reun rerun was Tuesday, right, and then a Wednesday,
Speaker 2: Thursday Friday live if I'm.
Speaker 1: Remember something like that. It was like like somebody like
Speaker 1: Leno the permanent guest host or then you know Joan
Speaker 1: Rivers is the permanent guest was like it gave him
Speaker 1: a break, It gave Leno and Rivers a chance to
Speaker 1: shine and get up there with Las Vegas touring money.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean it was just it was
Speaker 1: a win win for I think everyone in like, there
Speaker 1: was definitely expectations when Johnny did host. It was such
Speaker 1: a big deal for any for people. And I mean,
Speaker 1: but people make fun of him about it and he
Speaker 1: acknowledged it. But I mean, yeah, I just I just
Speaker 1: he knew. I think he knew what his limitations were,
Speaker 1: and he is he was getting older. He just again,
Speaker 1: and I mean I think I'm not without naming names.
Speaker 1: I think some shows sometimes stale around a little too
Speaker 1: long and the quality diminishes, and he just didn't want
Speaker 1: to be Bob Hope. He didn't want to be Benny.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to be luci Oball who he all
Speaker 1: believed stayed around too long, came back when they shouldn't know.
Speaker 1: And he just wanted the work to speak for itself,
Speaker 1: and he just didn't want the quality to dip. And
Speaker 1: I really feel as the time it was right. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was getting made fun of its Saturday Night Live
Speaker 1: and he hated that, and he just didn't want to
Speaker 1: be perceived like he perceived some of the other entertainers
Speaker 1: that he loved Hope, he personally loved Benny and Lucille Ball.
Speaker 1: He just didn't want to He didn't want to be
Speaker 1: remembered like that. So that's what he got out when
Speaker 1: he did.
Speaker 2: I think he was smart in terms of legacy. I'm
Speaker 2: a big Hope fan because I'm familiar with the entire
Speaker 2: body of his work, and so many people Bob just
Speaker 2: gets dragged for the work he did at eighty and
Speaker 2: ninety years old. People will remember that. Bob Hope we've
Speaker 2: talked on the past, asked about why Corson didn't really
Speaker 2: enjoy Bob as a guest, because Bob would just come
Speaker 2: in and do his thing and not have a conversation.
Speaker 2: But I think there's something for off the stagehead.
Speaker 1: Only near the end. Like I think he was fine
Speaker 1: up until like the early eighties with Hope. It's when
Speaker 1: Hope had trouble hearing and Hope could couldn't really unless
Speaker 1: Johnny was reading off the cards with the questions in order.
Speaker 1: Hope was having a tough time even even having a conversation.
Speaker 1: I think that that's when it got in that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just tough because Carson would be like like, well, Bob,
Speaker 1: like why are you doing this on Christmas? Going to Hawaii?
Speaker 1: And he'd be like, they really lay the money on you,
Speaker 1: and it's like you you don't need the money, like
Speaker 1: what Like he Carson would be like, Bob, Hope has
Speaker 1: no friends, like no friends or interests, no no real
Speaker 1: friends and no interest outside show business. And Carson had
Speaker 1: so many it was a curious guy and interest and
Speaker 1: just he just he just didn't really understand where Hope
Speaker 1: was coming from. But in terms of him personally, he
Speaker 1: liked Bob as a person and he respected his early
Speaker 1: career huge Hope. Then there was never any personal dislike
Speaker 1: like there's so many either like hack journalists or like
Speaker 1: YouTube AI videos like Carson hated. There was no hatred there.
Speaker 1: It was just near the end. He just it was
Speaker 1: he didn't really like having him on, but he had
Speaker 1: him on out of reverence because he was Bob Hope.
Speaker 1: But he there was never it wasn't a personal thing
Speaker 1: and it was just near the end. But I Hope.
Speaker 1: Carson wrote a handwritten letter to Hope and it was
Speaker 1: really I think it was a ninety eight just with
Speaker 1: how much he meant to him. And you know, Johnny
Speaker 1: retired from the Tonight Show and left the Tonight Show
Speaker 1: and was so careful about what he did. But when
Speaker 1: Hope said, will you do my ninety at that NBC?
Speaker 1: Johnny said, yeah, of course. I mean he made a
Speaker 1: rule that he wasn't going to come back and do anything,
Speaker 1: but he's like for Bob Hope, I'm gonna be there.
Speaker 1: I mean, so for people that asked me all the time,
Speaker 1: is it true that Johnny hated him, I'm like, not
Speaker 1: even close. That's not that's not even yeah.
Speaker 2: Well said, appreciate you clearing that up. So did did
Speaker 2: Johnny live for the show or was it just something
Speaker 2: he was good? And uh, you know he didn't need
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 1: He lived for the show, and he told somebody privately
Speaker 1: near the end of his life it was the only
Speaker 1: time he felt alive and felt happy and you know,
Speaker 1: really really alive and happy, and it was just something
Speaker 1: he just would he talked a little bit publicly. It
Speaker 1: just and went interviewed just about the adrenaline and just
Speaker 1: like to be in front of those that many people
Speaker 1: when it goes well. I think Dave Letterman's probably in
Speaker 1: that category. Two. I mean that it was just even
Speaker 1: when sometimes it didn't go great, it just Dave would
Speaker 1: always say it was the best hour of his day
Speaker 1: by far. And I feel like Johnny probably was like
Speaker 1: that too, but it became his identity just I mean,
Speaker 1: he there were there were definitely he had interest, but
Speaker 1: there were he didn't try. There were he was definitely
Speaker 1: very careful. Could like, for example, like he tried golf
Speaker 1: in a few times and he found he was terrible
Speaker 1: at it, and he's like, He's like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this because I don't want to do anything
Speaker 1: that I'm not good at because I'm so good at
Speaker 1: the Tonight show. I'll only like do things if he
Speaker 1: can be good at them, and there there weren't a
Speaker 1: lot of things like he con tennis. He was manageable
Speaker 1: and stuff like he could be okay, but like if
Speaker 1: he if he couldn't be at least like decent or good,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't want to keep doing it. He just was
Speaker 1: like his standards were really high, which is the Tonight Show.
Speaker 1: So that's I think why he turned down a lot
Speaker 1: of movies and acting roles like lucre Is, stuff like
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen and well movie wasn't I read about it
Speaker 1: in the book, but he turned down like Lou Wasserman's offer.
Speaker 1: I think no, no, no, no no, it was one of
Speaker 1: the other guys had it might have been Wasserman, or
Speaker 1: it was one of those those moguls, Irving Lazar, actually
Speaker 1: Swifty Lazar a million dollar check for like ten days
Speaker 1: or back then. Now there's a lot of money's and
Speaker 1: now it's a lot. But I think a lot some
Speaker 1: of it was just like he just knew what he
Speaker 1: was good at and that and he didn't think anybody
Speaker 1: would accept him for being an act or a movie
Speaker 1: star doing he called sitcom like the Kiss of Death,
Speaker 1: especially back then, if you were on a sitcom you
Speaker 1: do a lot of times, it was the end of
Speaker 1: your thing that you were known as that, and it
Speaker 1: was over. After that, it was hard to kind of
Speaker 1: build a career.
Speaker 2: So Mark Malcoff's book is Love Johnny Carson More to come.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the Carson Podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Why, Like, like you started that when there weren't a
Speaker 2: lot of podcasts before everybody you know, even I have
Speaker 2: a podcast now, but you were one of the podcasts
Speaker 2: I was listening to pretty early on. It was easier
Speaker 2: to discover such a thing. And I can't remember if
Speaker 2: you monetize it at all. You weren't like stuffing it
Speaker 2: with mid rolls or anything. So why the Carson Podcast.
Speaker 1: Everything I've done, anything that's certainly been successful, has been curiosity.
Speaker 1: Like it was bafling to me that the guy who
Speaker 1: held the curse curt and open for Johnny that no
Speaker 1: one had ever to my knowledge talked at him Like
Speaker 1: that's the way my mind thinks, Like who is this
Speaker 1: guy Jeff sat saying? When I sat down with him,
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, it's this gentleman named Irving Davis,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I want to talk to IRVINGI what
Speaker 1: was that like being backstage with the show and he
Speaker 1: would tell me he'd be with Johnny and like a
Speaker 1: lot of performers just need silence and they're in their
Speaker 1: own and they're like, no, Johnny would be smoking the cigarette,
Speaker 1: telling jokes and hanging out with me up until here's Johnny.
Speaker 1: He would just be like, you know, just and it
Speaker 1: was just interesting to kind of get that point of view.
Speaker 1: I just had so many questions what went on behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. My dad, even from the time I was
Speaker 1: still in elementary school, would be like, no, Mark. The
Speaker 1: reason that they're so funny together with the guests, a
Speaker 1: lot of it is because they determine what they're going
Speaker 1: to talk about before the show. And there's like look
Speaker 1: at the credits, these talent coordinators, and I was like,
Speaker 1: how do you get a job like that? Like what?
Speaker 1: I just wanted to know how all the magic tricks
Speaker 1: were done, Like it was this giant mystery, like how
Speaker 1: people got booked on this show. How they would get
Speaker 1: the like a farmer from from from someone like Frank
Speaker 1: Hall or someone from North Carolina who is the manure
Speaker 1: man they called him that made the quail dropping necklaces
Speaker 1: from and sell them, and it's like where do they
Speaker 1: find these people? And like the writers, like how did
Speaker 1: they get jobs that are what was it like writing?
Speaker 1: So it was just like I had endless questions and
Speaker 1: basically I got all my questions answered from asking people.
Speaker 1: And you had no idea that there were people like
Speaker 1: other people like you. Thank God, there were that wanted
Speaker 1: to follow me on this eight year journey doing almost
Speaker 1: four hundred episodes, and it was just pure curiosity. And
Speaker 1: I got to ask how all the magic tricks not
Speaker 1: magic tricks, but with what went on behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: And that's all I really wanted to know is how
Speaker 1: everything went down and what Johnny was like off camera,
Speaker 1: and just it just like opened up this whole different world.
Speaker 1: And then that's what the book, which comes out on
Speaker 1: October twenty first, two days before Johnny's one hundredth birthday,
Speaker 1: if you can believe it, was it this same thing.
Speaker 1: I'd say the book is thirty forty percent of the podcast,
Speaker 1: and it's about sixty percent new stuff that I got
Speaker 1: to talk to a lot of people like Jay Leno
Speaker 1: that wouldn't talk to me for my podcast as well,
Speaker 1: so I have a lot of new people. I was
Speaker 1: able to add, but it was just pure curiosity. That's it.
Speaker 2: I love. First of all, it's great because it's a
Speaker 2: nice way, a nice piece of the legacy. I imagine
Speaker 2: some of the guests are no longer with us, and
Speaker 2: so this way the stories aren't lost a time, much
Speaker 2: like Gilbert Godfreed's podcast, and we've even lost Gilbert, but
Speaker 2: you know, he got some stories out of people before
Speaker 2: they were lost. I also like that it's sometimes you'll
Speaker 2: watch a documentary and because of the nature of the business,
Speaker 2: you have to have famous people on it. So it's
Speaker 2: here's I don't know why I'm picking this person. I
Speaker 2: don't just I think I just read a story about him.
Speaker 2: But here's Rain Wilson's opinion on Johnny Carson. And like
Speaker 2: you said, I'd much rather hear from the guy who
Speaker 2: was hanging out backstage on the curtain or just super
Speaker 2: fans than tangential celebrities in some of these things. So
Speaker 2: I think it's a fantastic body of work that I'm
Speaker 2: glad exists.
Speaker 1: Oh thanks, Yeah. The emails that I would get and
Speaker 1: a messages from people overwhelmingly were the staff that people,
Speaker 1: the talent coordinators, people like Irving Davis, people like Peter
Speaker 1: Less Sally who is Johnny's producer, the writers, I was
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly Carson's assistants were the ones that I think people
Speaker 1: really They moved people emotionally, and they were the ones
Speaker 1: that just to hear those stories versus having the famous people,
Speaker 1: which is great. To the people that were guests on
Speaker 1: the show, those were great to hear. And again I
Speaker 1: can't believe the amount of people Top friend friends with
Speaker 1: Frank Santa Padre, who was Gilbert's co host, and the
Speaker 1: amount of people on both of our shows that are
Speaker 1: no longer with this. I think it's like forty or
Speaker 1: fifty people that I had on the show that are gone.
Speaker 1: And it's really set like so many younger people too,
Speaker 1: like Saggot Bob Saggot, Louis Anderson. Gilbert was on my podcast.
Speaker 1: I had to bring him a sandwich. There were conditions.
Speaker 1: When I went to his Chelsea apartment. He got on
Speaker 1: the phone with his wife's like, I think he'll do
Speaker 1: it if you get him a sandwich. And Gilbert got
Speaker 1: on the phone with me and I had to get
Speaker 1: him turkey sandwich with I think it was mayo and
Speaker 1: a drink. And then a cookie and it was like
Speaker 1: six dollars a sandwich. And then he's like, where's the mustard, Like, Gilbert,
Speaker 1: you didn't say mustard. And then there's this big back
Speaker 1: and forth. But he still did the podcast, and then
Speaker 1: I showed him. He could not believe I had a
Speaker 1: surprise for him. I said, Gilbert, did Johnny ever mention
Speaker 1: one air to your knowledge? He said no, and it
Speaker 1: was on the show he was never mentioned. I was like, Gilbert,
Speaker 1: this is your life. And then I played him a
Speaker 1: monologue ic that Johnny did about and when the Emmys
Speaker 1: when he got into some controversy with a routine, and
Speaker 1: he couldn't believe it. He's like, can we watch it again?
Speaker 1: I was like yeah, So we played it a bunch
Speaker 1: of times and he just was like so baffled, like
Speaker 1: a little kid that Carson mentioned him on that Tonight
Speaker 1: show by name. It was really fun.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating that Johnny Carson is still, at least for
Speaker 2: Late Night, the north star in the way that George
Speaker 2: Carlin is the north star for comedians, both gone now
Speaker 2: twenty years. I stumbled across that fact that it's been
Speaker 2: twenty years since Johnny's gone. That kind of I knew
Speaker 2: it and forgot it, and it's stunned me the other day.
Speaker 2: But he really is just a north Star.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this show has been off the air. I cannot
Speaker 1: believe this for over with it has been thirty two years.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it doesn't feel like I remember when
Speaker 1: on May twenty second, nineteen ninety two, where I was
Speaker 1: watching that final show, and it's it's amazing to see
Speaker 1: to think about that. I do think the one that
Speaker 1: the geniuses about Carson is like, I feel like so
Speaker 1: many of the clips still play. It's interesting to me,
Speaker 1: Like I sometimes we'll get emails from people that are
Speaker 1: in college or people in their twenties that are discovering
Speaker 1: him on YouTube and just they think the clips, some
Speaker 1: of the clips are so funny, and just the fact
Speaker 1: that they still play, it's it's unbelievable to me. But
Speaker 1: just the fact that, I mean constantly I'm trying to
Speaker 1: go online to see who's talking about Carson, and I'm
Speaker 1: shocked about the mainstream press that he still gets like
Speaker 1: his son. Unfortunately, Chris passed away at seventy four, and
Speaker 1: then his third wife, Yeah, Joe Wane Uh passed away
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, and just the amount of
Speaker 1: national news that he still makes, Like the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal just did a piece about his Malibu home. His
Speaker 1: last home is up for there's like one hundred and
Speaker 1: ten million or something somebody's trying to get for. But
Speaker 1: the fact that Carson, all these years later in the
Speaker 1: late night shows fallin Colbert and Kimmel, up until recently
Speaker 1: for Kimmel, we're still talking about Johnny and asking guests
Speaker 1: about Johnny. I mean, it speaks volumes. I think.
Speaker 2: I think if you watch the old monologues and the
Speaker 2: same is true of the young Bob Hope, there's the
Speaker 2: rhythm of the joke, so you could swap out the
Speaker 2: particular surname of the governor at that time or the
Speaker 2: president of the time, but the rhythm of comedy is
Speaker 2: there on those old monologues, and I think that's what's
Speaker 2: resonating with younger people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the monologue was Johnny's favorite thing. It
Speaker 1: was definitely this process where the thing that I miss
Speaker 1: about the monologue in the last twenty years or so
Speaker 1: is that Johnny's monologue he either got laughs or silence,
Speaker 1: And in the last twenty years on the little late
Speaker 1: night shows, the clat no matter what I mean, if
Speaker 1: they had to suck on their hands and they couldn't
Speaker 1: do the clap an thing, I think that there would
Speaker 1: be some silences and it would be interesting. The jokes
Speaker 1: never bomb. Everybody either claps or here laughter, but they clap,
Speaker 1: and just that Johnny that there's I wonder today. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that some of those those hosts could add up
Speaker 1: and be funny with I just kind of missed like
Speaker 1: Johnny was like a high wire at doing that because
Speaker 1: he could cover with the with the bombing, and I
Speaker 1: think that was like part of the charm with him
Speaker 1: is that he was so he would make fun of
Speaker 1: himself and just put himself in a situation like that
Speaker 1: where the other hosts now don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1: But there was just that something amazing, Like I talk
Speaker 1: about this in the book a little bit, like there
Speaker 1: were sketches where the writers learned very quickly, you don't
Speaker 1: want to put a phone in his sketch because Johnny,
Speaker 1: if it's not going, I can pick up the phone
Speaker 1: and be like, let's fire. The writers, you don't want
Speaker 1: to put a lighter in the sketch because he could
Speaker 1: set fire to the script that's in front of him
Speaker 1: at the desk, because if it's not funny and stuff.
Speaker 1: So because sometimes it would like Doc would play taps
Speaker 1: if a sketch bombed, or if like the monologue joke.
Speaker 1: But there was definitely like humanity and people loved him
Speaker 1: more for it. That's why he kept in all the
Speaker 1: mistakes for the most part. When Robert Gulay is up
Speaker 1: there in eighty six, nineteen eighty six and forgets the
Speaker 1: words to Memories from the show Cats and he just
Speaker 1: turns to Johnny, He's like, no, you're gonna keep going.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get this and keeps everything in, saying with
Speaker 1: John Davidson when he forgot the words to a song,
Speaker 1: he's like, no, you're gonna get it right. The audience
Speaker 1: just loves the performer even more. It's that makes them
Speaker 1: human and just it was a genius. Now they would
Speaker 1: just stop tape, but Johnny just was all about, let's
Speaker 1: keep all these imperfections in, and it was wonderful. I
Speaker 1: think that was really a charm, and I kind of
Speaker 1: missed the whole of that whole thing, just keeping all
Speaker 1: the mistakes in.
Speaker 2: And refresh my memory. I think you just addressed this.
Speaker 2: When Joe Coy hosted the Golden Globes, he caught a
Speaker 2: lot of guff for throwing his writers under the bus.
Speaker 2: But I seem to remember Johnny joking about the writers
Speaker 2: when a joke didn't land, and it was charming. And
Speaker 2: I don't want to debate Joe Coy, but was that
Speaker 2: something Johnny would do? Would reference the writers very rarely.
Speaker 1: I mean I would talk to writers and said, I
Speaker 1: asked numerous ones. Did you get in trouble with Joe?
Speaker 1: He said absolutely not. He never blamed any of us.
Speaker 1: He said I picked the jokes. He took full responsibility.
Speaker 1: The thing like Carson said that I think Joy had
Speaker 1: a really tough time with hosting the Golden Globes is
Speaker 1: Carson w always say it's eighty percent acceptance. If the
Speaker 1: audience accepts you, you get in out there, it is
Speaker 1: so much easier they know who you are. And it
Speaker 1: took it took Johnny a little bit because he was
Speaker 1: this game show host and for the audience to accept
Speaker 1: somebody is something different. And I don't think the Golden
Speaker 1: Globe audience really it is certainly not in America where
Speaker 1: he was not a household name by any means. So
Speaker 1: I think it's just much harder time to do that.
Speaker 1: Whereas Ricky Gervais, they steps on stage and people get
Speaker 1: his sensibility right away and they know where what to expect.
Speaker 1: Same with Carson. It is extremely hard for somebody that
Speaker 1: is not accepted, as Carson would say, to go up
Speaker 1: there as you're just it's just the battle is it's
Speaker 1: it's just harder.
Speaker 2: I think may berghets he just suffered from that on
Speaker 2: the Emmy. He's a very likable guy, very popular comedian,
Speaker 2: but he's not La Hollywood, and I think he struggled
Speaker 2: for the same reason.
Speaker 1: I just think like certain people are built for certain shows,
Speaker 1: Like I think he was really great on Saturday Night Live,
Speaker 1: and I think it was probably a smart thing to
Speaker 1: play to the strengths to do that type piece that
Speaker 1: I know that did well on S and L the
Speaker 1: same premise. But yeah, I mean, there's just certain some
Speaker 1: people that were born to do that show. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: a lot of people I've talked to us will tell
Speaker 1: me they think Johnny and these are people that didn't
Speaker 1: work on the show told me that they thought he
Speaker 1: was the best Oscars host by far. I mean he hosted,
Speaker 1: I think it was four or five times, in the
Speaker 1: fact that he was able to do it that many times,
Speaker 1: and he clashed with the director Mars Marty Pissetta, and
Speaker 1: he it wasn't always easy, but he did very, very well.
Speaker 1: Mart You know, he wanted Johnny, like if you notice
Speaker 1: on the monolog he always, unless he made fun of
Speaker 1: Doc's outfit or whatever, he wanted this that always to
Speaker 1: remain on him the camera and never did audience cutaways,
Speaker 1: whereas Marty Passett when he directed Oscars, wanted to do
Speaker 1: cutaways and Johnny wanted to keep the lights down like
Speaker 1: he did in Burbank. And he always this thought of
Speaker 1: a joke bomb he could he could say that but
Speaker 1: with his reaction on his face, rather than if they
Speaker 1: did cutaways. But he felt like that was the way
Speaker 1: that he could he could make if jokes didn't do well,
Speaker 1: that if the camera just would stay on him. So
Speaker 1: they hit all these different philosophies and it was definitely
Speaker 1: a hard collaboration. But Johnny I think his work is
Speaker 1: the Oscars. I think his film historians when they look
Speaker 1: back and TV historians, I think he's definitely one of
Speaker 1: the best, if not the best. I think that's done
Speaker 1: the Oscars in the top the race. Certainly.
Speaker 2: As somebody who's been had a media career of thirty
Speaker 2: five almost years now, I always appreciate a professional host.
Speaker 2: There are some talk show hosts. I would put Johnny
Speaker 2: Carson in this category. The current generation of late night hosts.
Speaker 2: There are people you could wake up at three in
Speaker 2: the morning and be like, Hey, we've got an emergency.
Speaker 2: I need you to host the Oscars right now. I
Speaker 2: read the cue cards and then throw it to break
Speaker 2: and then I'll tell you what to do next. And
Speaker 2: there are people like that that can do that. I'm
Speaker 2: a big Ryan Seacrest fan. I know people like to
Speaker 2: give Ryan the business, but there's something about being a
Speaker 2: professional traffic cop host that is underappreciated.
Speaker 1: I mean broadcaster, and people that are good broadcasters make
Speaker 1: it look so easy. Like Dave Letterman recently mentioned the
Speaker 1: late Regis vill Ben, and he always has to preface this.
Speaker 1: I've heard him say this before that people think it's
Speaker 1: a joke about what a good broadcaster he was, but
Speaker 1: he was unbelievable that he could do that the host
Speaker 1: chat without any script and like just be interesting and
Speaker 1: just be likable and go on Dave's show and they
Speaker 1: would do a pre interview, but never get to it
Speaker 1: that he was able to do that. There are certain
Speaker 1: people that just have that skill set that could just
Speaker 1: get up like you're saying, without much to little prep
Speaker 1: and be able to do well. I will say this though,
Speaker 1: and I talk about this in the book which comes
Speaker 1: out October twenty First Love Jenny Carson is that Carson
Speaker 1: was the only, to my knowledge was still the only
Speaker 1: person that would host those shows without any teleprompter or
Speaker 1: Q coch wow really would he had he would do
Speaker 1: the mnemonic device. He did something I've heard two different versions.
Speaker 1: One was Harry I know Harry Loreno went on the
Speaker 1: show who was a magician like he went on a
Speaker 1: bunch of times that he had a technique. And there
Speaker 1: was another person that had a technique as well that
Speaker 1: went on the show and memorize. And I know Johnny
Speaker 1: took a class speed reading, a class. He was very
Speaker 1: he liked taking courses in classes. He took a class
Speaker 1: on mnemonic so he would memorize. And his whole thing
Speaker 1: with memorizing, he is that he could he if he
Speaker 1: could read the audience and felt like if you wanted
Speaker 1: to insert joke. The fourth joke he memorized, maybe he
Speaker 1: would put that seven and he could he could edit
Speaker 1: in his head. Doc Seffnston told me he had never
Speaker 1: seen a performer that could edit as he was speaking.
Speaker 1: He could edit in his head and think about what
Speaker 1: he was going to be either if he was in
Speaker 1: with guests, like what are you going to ask next?
Speaker 1: Or listen to the person, but then also be able
Speaker 1: to do both things in multitask as a host, and
Speaker 1: that skill set. I don't know how many people can
Speaker 1: do that, but Johnny was just brilliant at it.
Speaker 2: Mark Malcoff's book is Love Johnny Carson. We're coming up
Speaker 2: these days. You're hosting the Inside Late Night Podcast. We're
Speaker 2: between seasons as I speak to you now, I'm going
Speaker 2: to deliberally date this on Monday, because I'm going to
Speaker 2: start asking you some topical question and it's quite possible
Speaker 2: as we're sitting here in the studio that nine news
Speaker 2: stories have broken. So, in case we are dated, this
Speaker 2: is Monday, September twenty second, around a lunchtime. So you're
Speaker 2: hosting the Inside Late Night Podcast, which is between seasons.
Speaker 2: Right now, where did that come from when the Carson
Speaker 2: Podcast ended.
Speaker 1: I do want to mention it comes back tomorrow with
Speaker 1: the new season. Unless something happens. We're all set to
Speaker 1: do a new season on Yah September twenty third, Tuesdays
Speaker 1: on Late night Er.
Speaker 2: Well that's hopefully today as the audience, here's this. I'm
Speaker 2: planning on dropping this on Tuesday unless my life goes sideway.
Speaker 2: So oh good, good timing.
Speaker 1: The twenty third guest So today, wasn't that a great
Speaker 1: podcast episode? Everyone? So yeah, it was one of those
Speaker 1: things where I loved talking to people about Carson. But
Speaker 1: at the time, I was running out of people because
Speaker 1: you had all these people that were even when they
Speaker 1: were kids, like Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Bateman, Drew Barrymore
Speaker 1: that they're all now like in either their late forties
Speaker 1: or early fifties, and it was just like the people
Speaker 1: that I wanted to talk to had either passed away
Speaker 1: or it was just it was just getting I was
Speaker 1: running out of guest so it was a little harder. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I have I think I have a skill set,
Speaker 1: pretty good skill set with late night stuff. The things
Speaker 1: I know about or the things I'm curious about. On
Speaker 1: some of the other shows. So I just wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of go broad and talk to people from Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live and people that did Latterman and other variety
Speaker 1: shows and talk shows and just kind of picked their
Speaker 1: brains and ask the questions I've always wanted to ask,
Speaker 1: Like I really loved talking to Bert Sugarman, who is
Speaker 1: the creator of Midnight Special. But Bert Sugarman's Night Special
Speaker 1: and Johnny Carson and him were neighbors and tennis buddies,
Speaker 1: and yeah, Burt was the one that told Johnny about
Speaker 1: his idea he wanted to do after his show on Fridays,
Speaker 1: and Johnny's like, absolutely, let's do this, and really supported
Speaker 1: Burke Sugarman's Midnight Special, which I think debuted in seventy three,
Speaker 1: and it was like revolutionary that there was another late
Speaker 1: night show. And that's how Tom Snyder because they're like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: you mean we can do other stuff after Johnny's show
Speaker 1: and original program, and so yeah, just talking to a
Speaker 1: lot of people in late night has been really, really fun.
Speaker 2: Well, let's go down the punch list of the big
Speaker 2: news story a few months ago the Late Show coming
Speaker 2: to an end was the Late Show losing forty million dollars?
Speaker 2: Was this about something else?
Speaker 1: Where?
Speaker 2: Are you on the conspiracies?
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I'm friends with people over there.
Speaker 1: I've worked on the Comedy Central version of the Colt
Speaker 1: Beat Report for three years and eight months. And I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know the I don't know the economics.
Speaker 1: I know things have changed in the last whatever for years,
Speaker 1: just with viewership, if network television going down, I don't
Speaker 1: understand the metrics. There are way more people watching late
Speaker 1: night online and it's amazing to look at the millions
Speaker 1: and millions of people on YouTube and other platforms. But
Speaker 1: I don't know. I have no idea. I just it
Speaker 1: never occurred to me that you could be number one
Speaker 1: and that this would be a possibility. But I do
Speaker 1: not know. Uh. But I'm glad they just won the Emmy,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that they're gonna at least get till May.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's just it stanks for people's jobs.
Speaker 1: It's a shame any it's like for any show like
Speaker 1: that to go under. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: great people over there.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised they didn't look at things like do you
Speaker 2: need two hundred staffers? Can we do with one eighty?
Speaker 2: Do we need five shows a week? Can we do four?
Speaker 2: Can we do three? Do we do we need the
Speaker 2: Ed Sullivan Theater? Like that? God was me?
Speaker 1: That was I was very because to my knowledge talking
Speaker 1: into people over there, there weren't. I was thinking that
Speaker 1: they would the writers in half or try out different things.
Speaker 1: Into my knowledge, none of that stuff happened to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: and I thought that there'd be some foreshadow in and there,
Speaker 1: to my knowledge, there wasn't there. Maybe I'm wrong, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that. That definitely to me was surprising that
Speaker 1: that if that was the case, that there wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been some concessions made.
Speaker 2: I'm also surprised that for any of these shows that
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about, no one has tried doing
Speaker 2: them live or close to live on a streamer like
Speaker 2: I know it's called The Late Show, where the Tonight Show,
Speaker 2: but I'd probably put more eyes on them if either
Speaker 2: of those shows were available to me. At eight Eastern,
Speaker 2: I go to bed. I'm old, and if something interesting
Speaker 2: happens the next day, I'm not going to go back
Speaker 2: and watch it on a DVR anymore, because I'll see
Speaker 2: the clips on social But if it were live ish
Speaker 2: at eight Eastern, I might stare at it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like John Mulaney, I think he did that for
Speaker 1: net Fletzi. I don't know how many episodes he did
Speaker 1: two seasons. It certainly wasn't every night. I mean he
Speaker 1: did it, yeah, I mean, I forget how many shows
Speaker 1: it were.
Speaker 2: The second season was twelve, the first season was several
Speaker 2: nights in a row.
Speaker 1: Because he was the first were just okay. I think
Speaker 1: like somebody that I read an article that said it
Speaker 1: was just okay, and they haven't committed to doing more.
Speaker 1: And I know that, and I admire mulaney. He wanted
Speaker 1: to put on people he wanted to, like. I love
Speaker 1: the fact he had Joan Bias on the show, and
Speaker 1: it was certainly at least in one interview he mentioned
Speaker 1: that some of the people like they wanted maybe some
Speaker 1: bigger people on here and there, and he wanted to
Speaker 1: do his own show. And I think it's great he
Speaker 1: did the show he wanted to. And I love the
Speaker 1: fact that he mentioned the set was modeled off of
Speaker 1: photos he saw Johnny Carson's Malibu home. He had trees
Speaker 1: in the studio, which I thought was a really cool
Speaker 1: thing to Carson, But yeah, I don't know if. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if they did the show live, you did get
Speaker 1: somebody that was doing that every every night, how that
Speaker 1: would work? It would certainly be an interesting experiment. There's
Speaker 1: certainly enough really funny hosts I think, and comedians or
Speaker 1: personalities where you could try to make something like that happen.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean even just the Tonight show with Jimmy
Speaker 2: fallon streaming on all you guys.
Speaker 1: Well, they did talk about I did read an article,
Speaker 1: and I guess I could be off on this too,
Speaker 1: but I've read an article saying that they were thinking
Speaker 1: about showing some of those shows on Peacock at like
Speaker 1: eight o'clock or earlier. The affiliates balked, and the affiliates
Speaker 1: pro were like, no, absolutely not, because they thought it
Speaker 1: would kill their audience and some of the networks. And
Speaker 1: I can see where they might be coming from. But
Speaker 1: I don't know. But so it definitely was a discussion.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if they did do those live on streaming,
Speaker 1: that would be interesting. I would Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: where it's gonna go.
Speaker 2: I think we've reached the point where you can't worry
Speaker 2: about the affiliates. What springs us to this week's big News,
Speaker 2: Jimmy Kimmel, you think he walks, you think he comes
Speaker 2: back and again recording on Monday, the story could have
Speaker 2: changed seven times by the the time you answer this
Speaker 2: and people hear it.
Speaker 1: I'm just glad that he's that his staff is getting paid,
Speaker 1: Steph and crew were getting paid. I have friends over there.
Speaker 1: I've been over there to visit numerous times. I didn't
Speaker 1: see that coming either. I mean, he's the first one
Speaker 1: that said, you know, I don't know if these shows
Speaker 1: are gonna be around in ten years. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I I it's gonna be I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be a challenge for the thing to
Speaker 1: come back, unfortunately, but I don't know. I feel like
Speaker 1: the best thing that happened sometimes to certain of these
Speaker 1: house like Honan is like the TBS show ended, and
Speaker 1: then he is so much more, not only like powerful,
Speaker 1: but like like just so much more, like just even beloved,
Speaker 1: just doing his his his podcast and doing his doing
Speaker 1: the podcast and then doing his HBO show. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like they're for a lot of those hos,
Speaker 1: some of these guys can maybe find a different outlet
Speaker 1: that might be hopefully employ their staff as many people
Speaker 1: as possible. But yeah, I don't know. I just didn't
Speaker 1: see this come in with him, and I just hope
Speaker 1: that people can still get paid for as long as
Speaker 1: they possibly can.
Speaker 2: New cycles and the obvious aside. I've always felt that
Speaker 2: if one franchise survived, it would be The Tonight Show.
Speaker 2: I do feel like I can with Late Night. I
Speaker 2: don't feel like Seth Myers is doing Letterman Show. I
Speaker 2: felt like Conan was doing Letterman Show sort of, but
Speaker 2: in his own style. I can draw a through line
Speaker 2: all the way from Steve Allen to Jimmy Fallon. It
Speaker 2: feels like The Tonight Show. And I feel like at
Speaker 2: some point, if you're a NBC, this is who we are,
Speaker 2: with the Today Show and some shows and then the
Speaker 2: Tonight Show, and that's who we are. I struggle to
Speaker 2: see the Tonight Show going away. Especially Fallon is sales friendly,
Speaker 2: willing to play ball, not particularly edgy. I think that
Speaker 2: one will stick around.
Speaker 1: He's on other NBC shows that he's hosting as well,
Speaker 1: which I mean, if you've noticed Kimmel up until you
Speaker 1: know recently he got yanked, but he was hosting Millionaire
Speaker 1: for ABC who wants to be a millionaire. So I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's part of like the double duty
Speaker 1: stuff that is like now with with some ratings and monetizing,
Speaker 1: if this is part of the deal that they have
Speaker 1: them hosting other shows or how anything works. But I
Speaker 1: think that that fallin in terms of the people that
Speaker 1: watch the audience. He does a good job. I think
Speaker 1: he did a good job recently addressing the whole Kimmel
Speaker 1: where he mentioned I thought it was a funny joke
Speaker 1: saying that, like his dad texted him like, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: he got fired because people constantly are calling Kimmel fallen
Speaker 1: and fallen Kimmel or thound. You did a good job
Speaker 1: with that, And I hope he's he's around. I think
Speaker 1: he's done a good job. I really do. I really though,
Speaker 1: like revision is history. I know that he got a
Speaker 1: lot of bad press for this, but if I was
Speaker 1: the decision maker, I think that at the time I
Speaker 1: would have given it to Brian Williams. I think he
Speaker 1: would have succeeded wildly. There's so many news people that
Speaker 1: went into entertainment and vice versa that have done different things,
Speaker 1: but just you know, he was number one, I think
Speaker 1: at NBC News, and so they to have somebody like
Speaker 1: make that switch. I just they I just the way
Speaker 1: it played out, especially publicly, it did him. It was
Speaker 1: not good for him. But I think if he would
Speaker 1: have been given that chance, I think he was. He's
Speaker 1: so witty and so good at that at doing that broadcast,
Speaker 1: and and so just the likability thing. I think. I
Speaker 1: think his show, I think he would still be on
Speaker 1: the air, if that's me. But I know that that
Speaker 1: that that he never even came up, and but I
Speaker 1: know he is his skill set that that he would
Speaker 1: have done I think very well.
Speaker 2: And Jimmy Fallon just turned fifty one, Colbert sixty one,
Speaker 2: Kimmel's fifty seven, Johnny Carson retired at age sixty six.
Speaker 2: Now that was a four cigarette packs a day sixty
Speaker 2: as opposed to a salad sixty six. So we might
Speaker 2: have been headed for a generational change in the near future.
Speaker 1: Anyway, we'll see what happens. I mean, it's like Johnny
Speaker 1: was doing two packs of Pall Mall's. I know that
Speaker 1: his friend Michael Landon who passed away from pancreatic cancer,
Speaker 1: and that they're saying that maybe the alcohol and cigarettes
Speaker 1: was something he was doing. Some people say up to
Speaker 1: four packs. It was just people were smoking and drinking
Speaker 1: back then. It was just such a different time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the younger, younger people to be interested. I really
Speaker 1: hope with the late night shows never go away, like
Speaker 1: I could see it being sicklical where you know, like
Speaker 1: nobody ever thought that primetime game shows would come back,
Speaker 1: and now, like I mean in the eighties or nineties,
Speaker 1: if you ever thought there would be primetime game shows
Speaker 1: like this, and they're all over the place now. So
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's hard to say. I mean that
Speaker 1: anybody can do things on YouTube when like with a phone,
Speaker 1: and I think that these things hopefully will alway they
Speaker 1: just exist in some format. But I definitely I don't
Speaker 1: know if you're going to see the big bands and
Speaker 1: anything or any more to the extent, which is I
Speaker 1: think a big shame.
Speaker 2: I do think they'll survive. Like you said, you may
Speaker 2: pull back the budget. Really you just need a host
Speaker 2: and a desk and a chair and you know basically
Speaker 2: what Mark Maron does but film it. I do think
Speaker 2: there's something for eleven thirty. Some people have asked about,
Speaker 2: you know what, what else can Jimmy Kimmell do. And
Speaker 2: one thing that is true, I've been showbusiness so showbiz
Speaker 2: adjacent for a couple of decades. Now. In Hollywood, they
Speaker 2: do keep score. You know, your Oscar is better than Miami,
Speaker 2: and we both know it, and we keep score that way.
Speaker 2: There is a big difference between I've got a late
Speaker 2: night show at eleven thirty five and I've got a
Speaker 2: podcast and make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: I mean, the podcasters are all doing so well, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them the people that are those comedians
Speaker 1: that are doing selling out arena. I mean, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It's just it's different metrics definitely, like younger people listen
Speaker 1: to like stuff like Theovaughn versus maybe watching the traditional
Speaker 1: late night shows. It's just things have changed.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, and money and money wise, Theovon is probably
Speaker 2: doing really well, but at the fancy Hollywood party, if
Speaker 2: we care about such things, Theovon is not Jimmy Fallon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and things definitely in terms of like traditional media,
Speaker 1: which is just yeah, I mean things definitely, and broadcast
Speaker 1: television and those type of It's like people that are
Speaker 1: under thirty, I can't believe. And I do get it
Speaker 1: just because it's so different, like the like the YouTube
Speaker 1: people or the people that like we grew up with that,
Speaker 1: Like you know, the mainstream people are like all on
Speaker 1: YouTube people we probably don't even know, you know that
Speaker 1: they that's who they've gravitated to. And it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just completely a different boat ball game.
Speaker 2: Well, you talked earlier about how you knew who some
Speaker 2: of these celebrities were. We grew up in the monoculture
Speaker 2: where I kind of knew who Humphrey Bogart was because
Speaker 2: Bugs Bunny did an impression. I kind of knew who
Speaker 2: Carry Grant was because you know, Rich Little did an impression,
Speaker 2: or these people are on the Hollywood squares. I'll let
Speaker 2: you go a second. I do want to talk to
Speaker 2: you about Jay Leno, who had become obsessed with So
Speaker 2: jay Leno recently said, you don't want to tick off
Speaker 2: half your audience, which, according to Mark Malkoff, author of
Speaker 2: the book Love Johnny Carson, is something Johnny Carson said,
Speaker 2: But jay Leno was completely lionized. How dare he even
Speaker 2: weigh in on this? So what does jay Leno know
Speaker 2: about Late Night? He's the worst person ever. No, my
Speaker 2: take and I've been doing a bit on Jay Leno's
Speaker 2: the worst person ever? Is he seems like a nice
Speaker 2: guy who's taking care of his wife who's suffering from dementia.
Speaker 2: We can get into the conon of it all or
Speaker 2: not well well debated, well discussed, but he seems like
Speaker 2: an okay person. But anyway, why did we lionize Jay
Speaker 2: Leno for saying, don't lose half your audience?
Speaker 1: You don't know, I mean that there were definitely I
Speaker 1: think people that some of those hosts that he was
Speaker 1: talking about. I think some of the hosts probably didn't
Speaker 1: appreciate and some of their audience. But I mean, Lena
Speaker 1: has asked his opinion. I mean, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: definitely think it's easy. He's an easy target to bash,
Speaker 1: I think people. I mean, he was still an amazing
Speaker 1: stand up comic and his letterman appearances when he was
Speaker 1: with Dave on the NBC Show were amazing, amazing. He
Speaker 1: was number one for his entire run on The Tonight
Speaker 1: Show when he was host. You know, he's a really
Speaker 1: really nice guy. I've met him a couple of times.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would not want to compete with him.
Speaker 1: There was definitely like when he was trying to get
Speaker 1: Dave's job. I go into when him and Dave were
Speaker 1: competing for old Dave really was and he was like,
Speaker 1: I think the best person should get the gig. What
Speaker 1: steps Lena was doing to get the Tonight Show, and
Speaker 1: I talk about some of that stuff and some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that went on with Conan. I think those
Speaker 1: are the probably the things that maybe people have brought
Speaker 1: up with, things that they might have issues with him.
Speaker 1: But you know, I mean, I think at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I think Jay is just an amazing
Speaker 1: stand up and yeah, I mean his Tonight Show. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't argue with being number one. I mean, I
Speaker 1: definitely think it is hard for him from what I hear,
Speaker 1: just the fact that, like every comedian, it seems like
Speaker 1: in all that the TV historians is just like they
Speaker 1: praise Dave and his Tonight Show and his innovation and
Speaker 1: just everything he has done for comedy, and Jay kind
Speaker 1: of gets a little bit forgotten on the Tonight Show.
Speaker 1: But it was just a different choice. Jay's goal was
Speaker 1: just to be number one, and he did that. But
Speaker 1: I definitely think it did come with a price, which
Speaker 1: is I think people with kind of like looking back
Speaker 1: at the two of them and the shows and stuff,
Speaker 1: Dave's stuff just kind of stands out and just remember more.
Speaker 2: I think, like Jimmy Fallon, Jay Leno understood what the
Speaker 2: Tonight Show is and how you do it, as you
Speaker 2: said his Letterman appearances, we saw a different, edgier ish
Speaker 2: Jay Leno back in the eighties. He understood what the
Speaker 2: Tonight Show was. He executed the mission.
Speaker 1: He was obsessed like a lot of people with I
Speaker 1: don't know if Letterman was like this, but Jay was
Speaker 1: obsessed with the writings. Every morning, look at the writings.
Speaker 1: Would called Rick Ladwin, vice president of the NBC Late
Speaker 1: Night how did you think this show was? He just needed,
Speaker 1: like Rick told me, at least the late Rick Ludwin
Speaker 1: that he needed. Jay needed, like I guess a superstitious
Speaker 1: athlete or whatever, just approval from him every single day
Speaker 1: until near the end when Rix supported the whole NBC
Speaker 1: decided that Conan was going to take the Tonight Show
Speaker 1: in four years, and Rick supported that, and Jay kind
Speaker 1: of yeah, stopped talking to him for a bunch of time,
Speaker 1: and near the end of Rick's life they did reunite,
Speaker 1: which was good that they did get back on speaking
Speaker 1: terms and friendly, but there were a bunch of years
Speaker 1: where they weren't. And you know, I mean he I
Speaker 1: think he knew his audience as well as Johnny in
Speaker 1: terms of in terms of getting the ratings and staying
Speaker 1: number one.
Speaker 2: I do think it's insane he didn't mention the previous
Speaker 2: host of The Tonight Show in his first episode. That
Speaker 2: was his Managres's call. As the story goes, but just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It seemed like it was a very from the people
Speaker 1: I've talked in a very unhealthy relationship and that she
Speaker 1: was just controlling in that the dynamic was very complicated
Speaker 1: and unhealthy. And I talked to Jay a little bit.
Speaker 1: I talk about that in the in the book about
Speaker 1: Helen Kushnik. Jay has gone on record so many times
Speaker 1: saying that was a mistake, and yeah, Helen wanted Johnny
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that Jay or do something on Johnny's last show,
Speaker 1: and Johnny's like, no, not doing that. I mean, he
Speaker 1: Johnny said to them, and I talk about this in
Speaker 1: the book, he said, I just didn't I never understood
Speaker 1: the whole Helen kush thing. She basically Johnny said, He's
Speaker 1: like she Jane never would have gotten the permitted guest
Speaker 1: host if it wasn't for Johnny's and if it wasn't
Speaker 1: for me, they would not have gotten it. And it's
Speaker 1: just like I never understood like like like our show,
Speaker 1: like the thirty Years, like how they treated us in
Speaker 1: how thirty years like we didn't exist or anything, and
Speaker 1: just yeah, it wasn't yet that just that Pallenge just
Speaker 1: didn't do Jay a certain Yeah, did him a disservice.
Speaker 1: And that's Johnny's opinion. I talk about that.
Speaker 2: When NBC hit the panic button on Conan, if j
Speaker 2: says no, do they give Conan more rope? Do they call?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Gary Shandling, what was the planed c.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I have no idea. I talked to
Speaker 1: Jay and I asked him because I said that one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I think that they kept you is
Speaker 1: good that if you would have left, they would have
Speaker 1: had to pay they would have one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that got rid of Conan is because they would have
Speaker 1: had to pay you, like it was like one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty million. And Jay said that was absolutely not true,
Speaker 1: that that day they didn't have to pay him all
Speaker 1: that money, and that's the work. The reports that came out,
Speaker 1: I don't know what they would have done with Conan Leban. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the skill set is really tough. Maybe would have moved
Speaker 1: falling up. I'm not sure, but it's yeah for the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show for eleven thirty, it's a tough time slot
Speaker 1: of somebody doesn't have their skills up to part me.
Speaker 1: People forget like like Letterman was like the hottest thing
Speaker 1: in TV in August of the ninety three when nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three and he premiered. He had done the show
Speaker 1: for eleven and a half years. Prior to that, he
Speaker 1: had guest hosted, he had a morning show, and he
Speaker 1: had guest hosted for the for Carson all those times.
Speaker 1: So by the time he got his show in February
Speaker 1: of eighty two at twelve thirty, he had already had
Speaker 1: so much practice. So the critics liked him and he
Speaker 1: knew what he was doing. The interview is still it
Speaker 1: still took him a little bit more time to figure
Speaker 1: those things out, even with that practice. But by the
Speaker 1: time you get to eleven thirty, if you don't know
Speaker 1: what you're doing, they're going to collabor you. And that's
Speaker 1: what happened to Colbert that first year when he was
Speaker 1: at CBS sent me people forget But I just remember
Speaker 1: on the message boards and comments on articles like Deadline Hollywood,
Speaker 1: but I can't believe this is the worst mistake ever.
Speaker 1: And like sure enough. I was like, just give him
Speaker 1: a year and see if he figures it out. And
Speaker 1: he did, and then he gets back he's a number one.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just that you need time to figure
Speaker 1: out though shows. The line out too. I said to
Speaker 1: Jay on the phone when we spoke, because he was
Speaker 1: basically like, you know, if Conan show is better, I'm
Speaker 1: like you, no one gets and they're like, Jay, your
Speaker 1: show was not the great the first year. You got
Speaker 1: all that time. You got to go to New York
Speaker 1: to figure out like, oh this works with this type
Speaker 1: of setup, go back to Burbank and switch studios and
Speaker 1: have kind of like an eight ah Saturday night left
Speaker 1: studio with the thrust stage of the audience up there.
Speaker 1: You had wean more time. So I think I don't
Speaker 1: think Conan had enough time. I mean, Jay certainly was
Speaker 1: given more time to figure those things out. That they're
Speaker 1: extremely hard. They look easy. There's people that watch them
Speaker 1: the public that watch it and think that I could
Speaker 1: do that, and I promise that that is probably It's like,
Speaker 1: it's the hardest thing to do. People say, that's what
Speaker 1: people say.
Speaker 2: I think history proved that if you were going to
Speaker 2: pull the plug on Cone and fair or not, that
Speaker 2: Jay was the right move. I struggled to imagine thirty
Speaker 2: six year old Jimmy Fallon and whatever it was twenty
Speaker 2: nine and twenty ten.
Speaker 1: Same age as Johnny when he took the Tonight Show.
Speaker 2: But a different era, and and Fallon would have been
Speaker 2: following a failed Tonight Show and now we're going to
Speaker 2: throw another young buck in the chair. Uh yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know how that would have worked. It would have
Speaker 1: been interesting. They have different processes. The one thing I
Speaker 1: didn't with that Johnny did, which I don't really understand.
Speaker 1: To my knowledge, I don't think any of the three
Speaker 1: Kimmel's not unfore got yanked. But to my knowledge is
Speaker 1: that this in New York. The writers would do his monologue,
Speaker 1: but they would also look at the pre interview questions
Speaker 1: the talent coordinators, and the talent coordinators and writers would
Speaker 1: write Johnny's ad libs. There were so many famous ad libs,
Speaker 1: and they would do that in Burbank only with the civilians.
Speaker 1: With like the farmer potato chip Lady, they would write
Speaker 1: even though that was Johnny's idea for the potato chip
Speaker 1: lady to bite down on the chip when she wasn't looking.
Speaker 1: But they would always give him ad libs. And I
Speaker 1: don't know why some of the they don't do that
Speaker 1: now with some of the with with some of the hosts,
Speaker 1: But I don't think that that that's a thing. But
Speaker 1: I think it really like New York, there's so many
Speaker 1: things with Johnny and Nixon where they're both like so
Speaker 1: witty and so likable in terms of some of their lines,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, it's always all script, it down to
Speaker 1: the syllable, and I just think like Johnny didn't always
Speaker 1: go with those prepared ad libs, but sometimes he would.
Speaker 1: He really the people told me he didn't need them,
Speaker 1: but sometimes he would slip them in. I think it's
Speaker 1: just a good thing to have. I would really do
Speaker 1: think the host would benefit having those. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was a genius at making them look like he was
Speaker 1: making them off the top of the head. When he
Speaker 1: would do a segment in la If the writing was bad.
Speaker 1: He didn't like the writing that day. He would do
Speaker 1: something like Blue Cards, where the audience would be in
Speaker 1: line and they would write down questions for Johnny and
Speaker 1: the writers would have ninety minutes to come up with
Speaker 1: ad libs for Johnny to type a secretary type on
Speaker 1: a car, and Johnny would read these real questions and
Speaker 1: then you could not tell that they were prepared ad libs.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just like even Mike Greese, who
Speaker 1: was a writer for Carson Simpson's producer, was telling me
Speaker 1: Hughes with his mom and they were watching the show,
Speaker 1: and Mike like, I just wrote that, and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: Johnny just came up with that. She didn't. It couldn't
Speaker 1: make no sense that that an ad lib like that
Speaker 1: would be prepared, because it's so natural the way he
Speaker 1: was able to throw those things out. But yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2: Joan Rivers had the same skill set on her radio show.
Speaker 2: She had two writers with her. They'd rip up pieces
Speaker 2: of paper, pass her note to deliver the line, nail
Speaker 2: it and throw the thing behind her and would clean
Speaker 2: it up after the show. But she had it.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable how they made it look easy. I mean,
Speaker 1: Joan when she had her laid show on Fox, that
Speaker 1: was harder. Like the interviews, she definitely was not listening
Speaker 1: as much as she should have. A lot of people
Speaker 1: said in terms of like to her guest and it
Speaker 1: was just it was just a hard skill set. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think even though she had all that time when
Speaker 1: she was guest hosting for Johnny, it just to do
Speaker 1: it night after night versus every you know, like a week,
Speaker 1: every like five weeks. It was just she just couldn't
Speaker 1: do it. I mean, it's a shame. I mean, I
Speaker 1: definitely think maybe she would have succeeded, I mean a
Speaker 1: little bit more, because if Barry Diller after ten months
Speaker 1: I think it was ten months, was like we're firing,
Speaker 1: we're getting rid of your husband's producer, and Joan thought
Speaker 1: he was buff bluffing as if no, and then Barry
Speaker 1: Diller promptly fired her from the position. But I definitely
Speaker 1: think if she would have stayed, maybe she would have
Speaker 1: figured it out a little bit more and they would
Speaker 1: have been able to take the writings up. I mean,
Speaker 1: the writings were not good when she left when she
Speaker 1: was at the show near the end, But I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think Joan had good intentions, and I just think
Speaker 1: she in terms of not telling Johnny, I go into
Speaker 1: that in the book, but I definitely think it was
Speaker 1: some of some of it had to do a lot
Speaker 1: of it had to do unfortunately with her husband, Edgar
Speaker 1: Rosenberg kind of hurt like listening to him and his
Speaker 1: opinions and just kind of differing him, and I think
Speaker 1: it ultimately was not a good thing. I think it's.
Speaker 2: Also a brand mismatch. You know, Fox, especially in those days,
Speaker 2: was edgy sitcoms and Simpson's and then you're you're throwing
Speaker 2: on you know, Joan Rivers from Las Vegas, a little
Speaker 2: older than your demo. It visually looks kind of eighty cheesy.
Speaker 2: The set I think has not aged well. So I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of that there, Whereas in the
Speaker 2: scenario where had Conan gone to Fox, that made more sense.
Speaker 2: Now Conan may have been older than Joan Rivers was
Speaker 2: in these scenarios, but Conan just feels more Foxy than
Speaker 2: Joan Rivers did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely think it would be more of a fit.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was tough with Joan because it's like
Speaker 1: she's doing these stunts like given a Victoria Principal's home
Speaker 1: number on air and like Victoria Principles, like I suit
Speaker 1: her or did vile the loss, and I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened with it. So it's like, why would an
Speaker 1: A list person go on her show? Like I mean,
Speaker 1: she would trouble getting guessed? Is my point is that
Speaker 1: she would do these things, and it's like she she
Speaker 1: really felt like people like Barry Diller would use their
Speaker 1: personal connections to help get guests. But like I mean,
Speaker 1: there were just so many complicated things that things that
Speaker 1: were mismatched with running that show. But definitely the way
Speaker 1: that she was perceived with guests. I always defend her.
Speaker 1: When she was guest hosting for Johnny, she always, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, with maybe one or two exceptions, made the
Speaker 1: guests look good. She did not do the jokes at
Speaker 1: people's expenses like people. I think people sometimes they get
Speaker 1: this idea that she would make her guests uncomfortable like
Speaker 1: Dave Letterman would sometimes. And she was very good at
Speaker 1: making her guests look good with with a few exceptions
Speaker 1: over there, but I thought she she overall she took
Speaker 1: Johnny's note about making her guests look good. I thought
Speaker 1: she did a good job when she was a guest host. Well,
Speaker 1: and that and that aspect.
Speaker 2: Well, anybody still listening to us clearly enjoys your company
Speaker 2: as I do. The podcast Inside Late Night is back today.
Speaker 2: And do you have a book coming out? Can I
Speaker 2: pre order it? How do I get this book? What's
Speaker 2: it called?
Speaker 1: I heard it's called Love Johnny Carson. And you can
Speaker 1: go to either Amazon, Barnes and Noble Books, a million Target,
Speaker 1: there's Walmart. There's so many places, and people have been
Speaker 1: asking me, and this is really nice that they want
Speaker 1: if they want an autograph copy. There's a place called
Speaker 1: a Story of Bookshop that's an astoria in Queens, New
Speaker 1: York City. So a Story of Bookshop is pre ordering
Speaker 1: for signed copies. So yeah, please make me happy and
Speaker 1: pre order. And there's definitely stuff in this book that
Speaker 1: it's primarily new stuff that people do not know. This
Speaker 1: is not on my podcast, and I did my best.
Speaker 1: It's one hundred and thirty thousand words roughly with then
Speaker 1: I think it's like fifty pages of citation something like
Speaker 1: that could be off a little bit, but I thought
Speaker 1: it was important to cite everything. And yeah, we have
Speaker 1: like stuff that when I was able to like use
Speaker 1: like Jim McCauley, who was the head book comedy booker
Speaker 1: on the Tonight Shopers stand ups from seventy seven until
Speaker 1: Johnny retired. He wrote an unpublished book like a manuscript,
Speaker 1: and I was able to use some of it, which
Speaker 1: with permission. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff from
Speaker 1: like that. I just blew my mind that I had
Speaker 1: no idea just doing research reading McCauley's unpublished manuscript and
Speaker 1: some other things. So all that stuff is there.
Speaker 2: Weird bit. Were you able to get to Letterman?
Speaker 1: Dave Letterman talked to me even though I worked on
Speaker 1: his show for eleven months and fifteen days. No, not all.
Speaker 1: Dave will not talk to me. I've tried so many times.
Speaker 1: He you know, I think he just he does it
Speaker 1: when he feels like he'll talk to somebody about race,
Speaker 1: car driving or something. I don't think he likes talking
Speaker 1: about his own comedy unless he has to, or about
Speaker 1: maybe it's Johnny was such a special thing to him
Speaker 1: that I think he did it for the PBS documentary
Speaker 1: talked about Johnny. But I don't know if it would
Speaker 1: just be too hard for him just to talk about
Speaker 1: his guy that meant so much to him. But no,
Speaker 1: I mean I tried so many times back on the
Speaker 1: podcasting with this. I think he knows about it, but
Speaker 1: and it's what it is. I mean, I had a
Speaker 1: bunch of things in the book I did want. I
Speaker 1: tried to get him to verify, but I feel like
Speaker 1: my sources are good enough that I just they're in
Speaker 1: the book and I just would have loved to talk
Speaker 1: to him. Maybe he'll look at the book. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, Dave, from the people I
Speaker 1: talked to that knew him, some of them, he's just
Speaker 1: a shy guy and he just doesn't feel comfortable around
Speaker 1: people he doesn't know. I'm sure it's gotten a lot
Speaker 1: better since he's left the show, but it's just what
Speaker 1: it is. I would not want somebody to feel uncomfortable
Speaker 1: interview in them. I mean I get it. Like I've
Speaker 1: had like certain famous people that are just like I am,
Speaker 1: uncomfortable doing interviews and I was like, Okay, then we
Speaker 1: have nothing else to talk about it. I appreciate you
Speaker 1: getting back to me. I don't want you're feeling comfortable.
Speaker 1: So that's that's all I can do, is respect to know. Definitely,
Speaker 1: there were people that took me five or six years,
Speaker 1: like Diane Cammon or Angie Dickinson, where I just once
Speaker 1: in a while would be like, you know, I'm still
Speaker 1: doing this. I would love for you to consider it.
Speaker 1: This is somebody I talked to you recently. Here's the
Speaker 1: episode which you can listen to. And sometimes I am
Speaker 1: in the game of, like you know, holding out and
Speaker 1: checking in and you never know, and sometimes it takes
Speaker 1: a little longer. So Love Dave to do Inside Late Night,
Speaker 1: so who knows, but so far it has not happened
Speaker 1: with him.
Speaker 2: I'm going to stop asking you questions that we're going
Speaker 2: to be here for four hours.
Speaker 1: Mark now, this is fine.
Speaker 2: His book is Love Johnny Carson. His podcast is Inside
Speaker 2: Late Night. We should also plug latenighter dot com. I'm
Speaker 2: on there daily, a great resource. Appreciate you, thank you
Speaker 2: for your time today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nice to talk to you again.