The King of Late Night Television
Heeeeer’s Johnny!
The “King of Late Night,” he was one of the best-known television personalities of the twentieth century. Before becoming famous he served in the US Navy during World War II. After the war, he started on radio before moving to television.
Hosting the Tonight Show for 30 years (from 1962 to 1992), his farewell show drew more than 50 million viewers! A true mid-westerner, it was said he was kindness personified.
As the host of the Tonight Show he earned 42 Emmy nominations winning seven trophies. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1987. President George H. W. Bush awarded him the highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1992.
Born John William Carson in Corning, Iowa in 1925, he was famously known as “Johnny.” Johnny was active for 44 years in comedy and on television. He died in 2005 at the age of only 79 years old.
Johnny hosted practically every top comedian, movie star, and major politician on his show. Without question, Johnny himself was one of the leading comedians and show hosts of the century. You can get a taste of Johnny’s quick wit and wonderful humor on his website, johnnycarson.com, and on YouTube.
Let’s take a glimpse into this man’s extraordinary life by looking at a number of quotes from a variety of sources. In them you will find a sample of Johnny’s humor and wit.
As his sidekick, Ed McMahon said every night on the Tonight Show, heeeer’s Johnny!
Entertainment
“I play my life straight — the way I see it. I’m grateful to audiences for watching me and for enjoying what I do — but I’m not one of those who believe that a successful entertainer is made by the public, as is so often said.”
“I’m an entertainer; I try to give the public what it wants while I’m on the screen, and I’m completely sincere about it. If I don’t happen to be a laughing boy off the screen, that doesn’t make me a hypocrite or a phony.”
“Entertainment is like any other major industry; it’s cold, big business. The business end wants to know one thing: Can you do the job? If you can, you’re in, you’re made; if you can’t, you’re out.”
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“I’ve worked ever since I was a kid with a two-bit kit of magic tricks trying to improve my skills at entertaining whatever public I had — and to make myself ready, whenever the breaks came, to entertain a wider and more demanding public.”
“People will pay more to be entertained than educated.”
“I can’t say I ever wanted to become an entertainer. I already was one, sort of-around the house, at school, doing my magic tricks, throwing my voice and doing Popeye impersonations. People thought I was funny; so I kind of took entertaining for granted It was inevitable that I’d start giving little performances.”
“The Hollywood tradition I like best is called “sucking up to the stars.”
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“Audiences have proved time and again that they don’t want a steady diet of any entertainer airing his social views — especially if he’s a comedian.”
“I’m an entertainer, not a commentator. If you’re a comedian your job is to make people laugh.”
“As you all know by now, this is the 51st annual Academy Awards. Two hours of sparkling entertainment spread out over a four-hour show.”
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“George Burns has been on my show twenty or thirty times, or maybe more. How can you turn down a guy that age?”
“In Hollywood if you don’t have a shrink, people think you’re crazy.”
“People are hypocrites. If you ask them what they want to see on TV, they’ll tell you they want better quality programming. And then what do they watch? ‘Gilligan’s Island.’”
Performing
“Find me any performer anywhere who isn’t egocentric. You’d better believe you’re good, or you’ve got no business being out there.”
“You become successful, the way I see it, only if you’re good enough to deliver what the public enjoys. If you’re not, you won’t have any audience; so the performer really has more to do with his success than the public does.”
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“From the time I was a little kid, I was always shy. Performing was when I was outgoing. So I guess I am a loner. I get claustrophobia if a lot of people are around.”
“As long as I don’t commit any crimes, you have no right to judge me except by my performance as a professional. On that level, you’re welcome to think whatever you want about me.”
“I never analyze it. Analyzing it would just be a waste of time. I just go out and do it.”
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“When the public starts classifying you as thoughtful, someone given to serious issues, you find yourself declassified as a humorist.”
“There’s only one critic whose opinion I really value, in the final analysis: Johnny Carson. I have never “needed any entourage standing around bolstering my ego. I’m secure. I know exactly who and what I am. I don’t need to be told. I make no apologies for being the way I am.”
Politics
“Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn’t grow up can be vice president.”
“Democracy means free television, not good television, but free.”
“Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto. Usually a mop or a leaf blower.”
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“Democracy is buying a big house you can’t afford with money you don’t have to impress people you wish were dead.”
“May you have the income of a Republican and the sex life of a Democrat!”
“Democracy is the eagle on the back of a dollar bill, with 13 arrows in one claw, 13 leaves on a branch,13 tail feathers, and 13 stars over its head — this signifies that when the white man came to this country, it was bad luck for the Indians, bad luck for the trees, bad luck for the wildlife, and lights out for the American eagle.”
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“The vast majority of us don’t want to face the fact that we’re in the middle of a sweeping social revolution. In sex. In spiritual values. In opposition to wars no one wants. In opposition to government big-brotherhood. In civil rights. In basic human goals. They’re all facets of a general upheaval.”
“I hear that whenever someone in the White House tells a lie, Nixon gets a royalty.”
“Did you know Richard Nixon is the only president whose formal portrait was painted by a police sketch artist?”
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“I can empathize with President [George Bush]. I know what it feels like having a young guy waiting around for you to keel over.”
“Ronald Reagan just signed the new tax law. But I think he was in Hollywood too long. He signed it, ‘Best wishes, Ronald Reagan.’”
“Nancy Reagan fell down and broke her hair.”
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“He’s so fat, he can be his own running mate.”
“That would have been a great ticket, Reagan and Ford — an actor and a stuntman.”
“In 1932, lame duck president Herbert Hoover was so desperate to remain in the White House that he dressed up as Eleanor Roosevelt. When FDR discovered the hoax in 1936, the two men decided to stay together for the sake of the children.”
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“Who cares what entertainers on the air think about international affairs? Who would want to hear me about Vietnam? They can hear all they want from people with reason to be respected as knowledgeable.”
“I wouldn’t have the slightest interest in running for public office. I’d rather make jokes about politicians than become one of them.”
Marriage
“I know you’ve been married to the same woman for 69 years. That is marvelous. It must be very inexpensive.”
“If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam”
“I think it’s almost immoral to keep on with a marriage that’s really bad. It just gets more and more rotten and vindictive and everybody gets more and more hurt. There’s not enough honesty about marriage, I think. I wish more people would face the truth about their marital situations.”
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“Never marry a girl named ‘Marie’ who used to be known as ‘Murray’.”
“Married men live longer than single men. But married men are a lot more willing to die.”
“New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time, most unsolved.”
“The difference between divorce and legal separation is that legal separation gives a husband time to hide his money.”
Money
“Believe me, you don’t walk away from the kind of money you make with a daily television show. You might get awful tired of it sometimes, but take a second look at the check and you get less tired right away.
“It’s silly to have as one’s sole object in life just making money, accumulating wealth. I work because I enjoy what I’m doing, and the fact that I make money at it — big money — is a fine-and-dandy side fact.”
“Money gives me just one big thing that’s really important, and that’s the freedom of not having to worry about money. I’m concerned about values — moral, ethical, human values — my own, other people’s, the country’s, the world’s values.”
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“Having money gives me the freedom to worry about the things that really matter.”
“The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money.”
“The only issue cash presents you is the independence of not stressing about funds.”
Humor
“If it weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we’d still be eating frozen radio dinners.”
“I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.”
“I see a lot of new faces. Especially on the old faces.”
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“Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.”
“The worst gift is a fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.”
“Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often. “
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“Happiness is your dentist telling you it won’t hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.”
“I heard from my cat’s lawyer today; my cat wants $12,000 a week for Tender Vittles.”
“The closest thing to Roseanne Barr’s singing the national anthem was my cat being neutered.”
“If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.”
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“Your chances of getting struck by lightning go up if you stand under a tree, shake your fist at the sky, and say “”Storms suck!”
“Some sad news from Australia… the inventor of the boomerang grenade died today.”
“Happiness is…..finding two olives in your martini when youre hungry.”
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“It was so hot today I saw a robin dipping his worm in Nestea.”
“It was so hot today I saw a pigeon walking in the shadow of Orson Welles.”
“It was so hot today that Burger King was singing, “if you want it your way, cook it yourself.”
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“If God didn’t want man to hunt, He wouldn’t have given us plaid shirts.”
“There are very few Japanese Jews. As a result, there is no Japanese word for Alan King.”
“Happiness is discovering the prune juice your doctor ordered you to drink has fermented.”
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“Despite the fact that computer speeds are measured in nanoseconds and picoseconds — one billionth and one trillionth of a second, respectively — the smallest interval of time known to man is that which occurs in Manhattan between the traffic signal turning green and the taxi driver behind you blowing his horn.”
“I hated my last boss. He asked, Why are you two hours late? I said, I fell downstairs. He said, That doesn’t take two hours.”
“According to statistics, it’s a lot easier to get hit by lightning than to win a Lotto jackpot. The good side: you don’t hear from your relatives.”
“Happiness is seeing your son drafted the same day he’s been accepted to an expensive college”.
Wisdom
“Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”
“My success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day.” “Adults ask questions as a child does. When you stop wondering, you might as well put your rocker on the front porch and call it a day.”
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“I don’t think it’s you that changes with success — it’s the people around you who change. Because of your new status, they change in relation to you.”
“There’s a big difference between being a loner and being lonely. I’m far from lonely. My day is full of things I enjoy, starting with my show. Any time my work is going well and I have a relationship with a woman that’s pretty solid, that does it for me.”
Life
“I can’t go anywhere without being bugged by somebody. I’d love to just hike out down the street, or drop in a restaurant, or wander in the park, or take my kids somewhere without collecting a trail of people. But I can’t.”
“I think students ought to have the right to protest, but not to the point of anarchy.”
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“I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.”
“I demand my right to a private life, just as I respect that right for everybody else.”
“I am one of the lucky people in the world; I found something I always wanted to do, and I have enjoyed every single minute of it.”
A great question once asked by Johnny, that is extremely important to of each of us is:
“Talent alone won’t make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: ‘Are your ready?’” — Johnny Carson
I leave you with one final quote to challenge you from Johnny.
“I owe one thing to my public — the best performance I can give.” — Johnny Carson
In other words, do what you do in your work to the best of your ability — always!
Bill Abbate Leadership Writer and Editor in ILLUMINATION.
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