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Johnny Carson: An Anti-Eulogy
By Joe Sobran
Posted on: February 11, 2005
Many years ago, I roared when Johnny Carson named his favorite Mexican restaurant in New York: The Groaning Gringo. I laughed again during one of his uglier divorces, when his estranged wife had obtained a court order forbidding him to speak of her on TV; he slyly got around the injunction by announcing, "I have a new hero: Henry VIII."
Though Carson had a stable of highly-paid gag writers, I don't think I can recall hearing him deliver five other really funny lines in his 30 years on the air. Steve Allen and Jack Paar, his predecessors on THE TONIGHT SHOW, were both wittier and more interesting. So is his successor, Jay Leno. I once saw Leno give a live performance in a steamy, packed auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri; he kept us all laughing hard for two full hours. Today, David Letterman and Conan O'Brien have also raised the standard for midnight comedy.
But the best of all late-night hosts, for my money, was Carson's one-time competitor, Dick Cavett. His liberalism irritated me, but his quick wit and literacy more than made up for it. His humor also had a warmth that Carson's lacked.
Carson's death at 79 has brought forth a flood of fawning eulogies so excessive as to suggest that Americans have lost their critical faculties. Great comedian? I stopped bothering with his opening monologue after hearing his umpteenth joke about Dolly Parton's chest, though Ed McMahon's reliable guffaw was supposed to certify the mirth. Dolly's joke about herself was far better than anything Carson ever said about her: "Do you realize how much it costs to look this cheap?"
Carson did have a knack for drawing his guests out and letting them do their stuff. He was particularly encouraging to young comedians, many of whom have said they owe their stardom to the big break he gave them. He could be the perfect straight man, not only for humans but for animals. He was at his best when a joke flopped and he scolded the studio audience with mock indignation. But to speak of his "cultural authority" and "unifying voice," as one writer did this week, is to find profundity where there was none. (The same writer likened Carson to Walter Cronkite -- "credible, tolerant, pluralistic, authoritative." Golly!)
Carson himself might be embarrassed by the posthumous praise he's receiving. His cultural canonization began in 1977, with an interminable puff piece in THE NEW YORKER by the brilliant English drama critic Kenneth Tynan. Tynan tried to explain Carson's American popularity to readers abroad who'd never heard of him; universally known in this country, he could vacation in Europe without being recognized.
Rereading that article now, I still find Tynan's enthusiasm for Carson unfathomable. A famous wit himself, he was able to quote hardly a single funny line from Carson, let alone any interesting insight about comedy. The ostensibly flattering profile revealed a timid, icy man who happened to be one of the most powerful figures in television. Tynan marveled more at his Nielsen ratings and staggering income than at his talent. But the piece made it acceptable for intellectuals to like Johnny Carson.
Whatever slight talent Carson had, it was certainly durable. In a notoriously fickle world of show business, he established his niche and maintained it for three decades. By moving his show from New York to California, he single-handedly shifted television's center of gravity from the East Coast to the West.
It's startling to recall that when he inherited the show from Paar, his salary was only $100,000 a year. A few years later he was making millions. He'd hesitated to take NBC's first offer; filling Paar's shoes seemed a big challenge at the time, and Carson already had a very popular daytime game show. The network had to do a lot of coaxing to persuade him. In his later years, he rejected all offers to do movies or even brief TV appearances.
By the time of his tearful retirement, he'd become tiresome. You watched Carson because you had nothing better to do at that hour and, as of 1979, weren't up to Ted Koppel. Koppel thrived on the current controversies Carson had always avoided. But it was Carson who, right to the end, got the ratings. That's entertainment, of sorts.
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Joe Sobran is an author, syndicated columnist, and editor of a monthly newsletter, SOBRAN'S. See www.sobran.com for a free sample or call 800-513-5053. This article is reprinted with permission.
Copyright (c) 2005 by The Vere Company, All rights reserved.
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