Posted on 01/27/2005 8:42:29 PM PST by Lancey Howard
Between the 8.5-horsepower thrill of clearing my driveway with my new snow thrower and the excitement of the Eagles' win on Sunday came the sad news of the death of Johnny Carson.
Johnny Carson gone? It's like a treasure has vanished. Or an old friend.
Carson: "If I ever catch kleptomaniac Claude Cooper from Cleveland who copped my clean copper clappers kept in the closet ..."
Webb: "Yes?"
Carson: "I'll clobber him."
If you don't get this stuff, skip it. There's something more important to Carson's legacy than faded one-liners: He knew when to walk away.
Carson had the sense to realize that his show looked old. Still at the top of his game, he called it quits.
Sounds easy, but so few of us really know how to do it - or even would if we could.
Had Dan Rather quit at 65, he'd be legendary. Today, he's just a laughingstock. Had Jim Greenwood left a term or two earlier from Congress, he might be as beloved as he once told me he is.
The inability to know when your time is up is rampant in show biz, the media and politics.
I bet Howard Stern, the radio comedian, and Bill O'Reilly, the bloviator on Fox News, will limp across the finish lines of their careers rather than bow out with grace.
Knowing when to move on takes guts. Doing it with class is nearly unheard of.
(Excerpt) Read more at phillyburbs.com ...
My favorite line.
I seem to recall that Carson was forced out by Jay Leno, not that he left on his own.
The closest retirement I can think of that meets this criteria is Sandy Koufax. Wins 27 games one year and then retires.
He knew when to quit making fag jokes about Wayne Newton - When Mr. Newton threatened to kick his a$$.
The Esquire interview he gave after he retired was very illuminating. Carson was a national treasure, and he was so very American.
Wayne Newton looks like he's had more facelifts than Joan Rivers.
I seriously doubt that Jay Leno, at that time, would have been able to "force out" the legendary Johnny Carson. In fact, I recall that after Carson decided to call it quits, NBC had to choose between Leno and Letterman to take over. They chose Leno, and Letterman then left NBC and went toe-to-toe in the same time slot on CBS. NBC came up with Conan the Librarian to take over Letterman's Late Show.
It's too bad Carson didn't know when to quit smoking.
By several accounts Carson was forced out when Leno & his manager went to NBC and convinced them that Jay could draw a younger audience. From John Dvorak:
It was kind of depressing and pathetic to watch Jay Leno do his tribute to Johnny Carson last night since it was Leno and his manager who were responsible for Carson’s forced retirement when Carson still had a number of good years ahead. Worse, the shoddy treatment of Carson by NBC after 30 years of service resulted in Carson’s never returning to public life thus robbing us all of some great humor and who knows what else. Now we see this tribute. The true story of Carson’s ouster is clearly documented in the book, The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night, by Bill Carter. This was made into a made-for-TV movie that featured Cathy Bates as Leno’s creepy scheming manager. Rent the DVD if you can find it.What I found appalling is the fact that with all these tributes the injustice and underhandedness of NBC is only mentioned by one lone Canadian news outlet. What is the point of glossing it over? Fear? Incompetence? A desire to get on MSNBC? One other outlet – Slate – mentions NBC’s willful and callous destruction of the old Tonight Show tapes and kinoscopes from the early New York era of the show.
It's not his legacy at all, no one has even come close to Johnny as a talk show host.
I know about it, it was a rumor.
Jay Leno's mentally unstable idiot of an agent (whom he fired) started dropping hints about it.
Leno fired her. He didn't so much care when he got Carson's spot, as long as he got it, and knew it would be his whenever Carson retired.
Security in the future, he was or would have been content to keep waiting, and make no bones about it, since he was going to get paid guaranteed.
Its no secret that Carson, personally, preferred Letterman.
Agreed. With Cronkite still alive, Rather would be nothing more than a footnote today.
Instead, Rather will always be remembered as the Richard Nixon of news.
Carson lived to 79. 3 years longer than the average life expectancy of a man. When are we going to see the stories about how smoking extended his life?
"The closest retirement I can think of that meets this criteria is Sandy Koufax. Wins 27 games one year and then retires."
Kofax retired due to injury:
http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/koufax_sandy.html
Leno wound up firing the manager/agent who wanted to push Carson.
The HBO movie your referring to, had several notable innacuracies and is debatable by all involved.
All the characters involved denied everything, and there is no corroberation for certain allegations.
There is a book about the whole thing, and I read excerpts way back when. Leno's agent, Helen something-or-other, did quite a bit of backstage manuvering to try and get Carson out and Leno in. There were also stories of Leno hiding in closets when execs were meeting, trying to find out if he or Letterman would get the gig. That's how desperate he was to get the job. Carson wanted Letterman to succeed him. I guess he got back at Leno by feeding jokes to Letterman. :)
Just one of life's harsh realities, not everyone can be as good looking as you and me.
Emphysema killed him. He smoked like a chimney. I'm sure there's no connection whatsoever.
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