Posted by Randy Barnett:
Great Posts About the Tonight Show With Johnny Carson:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_07_08-2007_07_14.shtml#1184011407
I suspect that readers do not come the Volokh Conspiracy to read about
show business topics, but I just happened across this great
reminiscence on Powerline by William Katz, a most interesting man who
happened to work for a time as a talent coordinator for the Tonight
Show during its zenith under Johnny Carson. Reading this, I was
reminded that, when I was in college in the summer of 1971, I was in
the audience of a Tonight Show taping when Johnny Carson, Ed McMahon
and Doc Severinson were all there. I seem to think that there were a
remarkable collection of noteworthy guests for that show, which was
not always the case, but for some reason the only guest that afternoon
(the show was taped in the afternoons) I can now recall was Jack
Benny, of whom Katz writes very fondly in the excerpt below. I am a
bit wistful that I cannot remember any other specifics of the show,
but I do recall that the Tonight Show band was awesome. They played
through most of the commercial breaks while Johnny tapped on his desk
with a pencil and chatted with the guests. As a viewer, you had no
idea how great the band was from the tiny bits you heard after the
commercials, though on rare occasions, they get some air time of their
own. As Katz writes, the audio on TVs then was too primitive to
capture the power of the band. The Tonight Show was never my favorite
TV show, though in those days you measured your growth by whether you
could stay up late enough to watch it. Still, I really enjoy reading
the whole thing [1]here and [2]here (with more posts to follow). Here
is an excerpt:
On Johnny Carson: He had natural talent. As I said, he was distant,
yet could make you laugh at a staff meeting. Among his gifts was
remarkable self-discipline and a clear sense of who he was and what
he wanted to do. Carson would tell us that "Tonight" wasn't a talk
show, but a variety show. And he was right. Every part of the show
had to be strong, not just the chats.
In the middle of the afternoon, no matter what he was doing, Carson
would get up and say, "I've got to do the monologue," and return to
his office. There he'd select the jokes submitted by his writers,
write some of his own, and learn them. When the show went on the
air, I would look at "the board," a series of cue cards laid out
left to right on a panel placed in front of him for the monologue.
All it had on it were key words and phrases. Carson had essentially
memorized the jokes. He did this every day. One of the many things
I learned from Johnny Carson was the importance of memory in making
presentations. Learn the material. Don't depend on a written text.
Carson also taught, "Buy the premise, buy the bit." It's another
good lesson, applicable to presidential candidates as well as
comedians. If people don't buy the premise of a comedy sketch, or a
speech, or an immigration proposal, they'll never buy the rest.
Many in the audience don't know how difficult comedy is. It's the
most challenging form of writing. It's far easier to make someone
cry than laugh. In working with Carson I was reminded of the
comment made by the great English actor Edmund Kean, presumably on
his deathbed: "Dying is easy, comedy is hard."
If there was a steady influence on The Tonight Show then, it was
Jack Benny. Fred DeCordova had directed some of Jack's shows, and
Jack, in many ways, was Johnny's mentor. Jack Benny was an
extraordinarily sweet man, who could break you up just by looking
at you. Once, when the show was visiting Los Angeles, DeCordova had
a staff party and Jack came over. He related, in his style, how
he'd just gotten a ticket for an illegal u-turn. He then turned to
something he'd discovered -- that you could make a phone call to a
particular number, and hear sex talk. Of course, Jack was a little
boy, so all this came out with a sense of wonder. He had the same
devilish personality off-camera as on. At the party, by the way, he
rushed around to get chairs for the women.
Jack taught Johnny a fundamental lesson - to be generous with
guests, to make them look good. Jack would say, "I don't care who
gets the best lines. I just want people to stand around the water
cooler the next morning and say, 'Wasn't the Jack Benny Show good
last night.'" Johnny adopted that approach. It always worked.
Doc Severinsen is a sweet guy who ran one of the best bands in the
business. You could not appreciate the Tonight Show Band through
those tinny TV speakers, but in the studio it was spectacular. Just
a few weeks ago we lost Tommy Newsom, the saxophonist who led the
band in Doc's absence. Johnny used him as a foil because of his
bland personality. In truth, he was a highly regarded arranger and
instrumentalist.
I am looking forward to future installments.
References
1. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/017961.php
2. http://powerlineblog.com/archives/018012.php
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