Bier’s Johnny

Entertainment legend Johnny Carson became a late late night host, succumbing to complications from emphysema at the age of 79. Carson invented and spent 30 years perfecting and honing the late-night talk show template on The Tonight Show before Jay Leno turned the show into a parade of morons. The standard of topical monologue, desk comedy and skits and then interviews didn’t exist when Carson took the reins of The Tonight Show in 1962. He spent time at his desk with the movers and the mundane the stars and the starved for attention. From Newman to Redford to Hanks to that nutjob who collects potato chips that look like people, they all found a receptive audience on the couch with Carson always providing the flattering spotlight. With a sharp, quick wit, expressive face and impeccable comic timing, Carson could milk as many laughs out of jokes that bombed as he could from one that killed and there wasn’t a public figure or incident that escaped his barbs over the last three decades. Carson’s stage was a coming out party for generations of young comics. A wink and a thumbs up after a successful set could make a comedian’s night; an invitation to the couch could make a career. One of the most powerful men in the history of the medium, he kept old friends in the spotlight, kept a network afloat and afraid, and kept the 11:30 p.m. time slot to himself, leaving dozens of supposed competitors in his wake. Upon his retirement in 1992, the empty suits at NBC tapped Leno over David Letterman to inherit The Tonight Show. Although he never publicly commented on the decision, Carson’s impromptu appearance on The Late Show with Letterman in 1993 and the revelation shortly before Carson’s death that he had been supplying occasional jokes for Letterman’s monologues as a creative outlet show he never lost his eye for talent.