On this date in 1925, Johnny Carson was born in Iowa. He lived a quiet life, serving in the Navy during the end of WWII, graduating from the University of Nebraska with a degree in Logic, and getting his start in TV at the local station with his own morning show, “The Squirrels Nest” where he did mock interviews of the pigeons that hung around the court house and reported on the rumors of corruption. It wasn’t long before the locals were helping him move on and he found himself in Los Angeles where Red Skelton became a fan of his work and invited him to join his show. He hosted a few game shows, his own variety show, and nearly took Dick Van Dyke’s role in the Dick Van Dyke show (it would have been called Head of the Family). Right after this, Jack Paar retired from the Tonight Show and the rest of the story is pretty well known. Johnny Carson stepped in and more than 4,000 shows later and over 20,000 guests, we, the American Public, revered him. Even if he couldn’t make a marriage work or if most of his investments bombed, we still loved him.
I could not decide on his 10 best jokes, or even 10 best moments, there are hundreds. The best I could do was come up with 13 (In deference to his statement on Democracy) comedians who got their start, or at the very least, a boost in the career by appearing on The Tonight Show with Johny Carson.
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David Letterman
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Jay Leno
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Joan Rivers
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George Carlin
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Jerry Seinfeld
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Ray Romano
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Drew Carey
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Jeff Foxworthy
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Steven Wright
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Garry Shandling
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Louie Anderson
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Robin Williams
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Steve Martin
While Letterman and Leno both have their moments, late night television is just not the same without Mr. Carson.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 8:43 pm and is filed under 10 Best Lists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
