The
"King of Late Night" TV for thirty years died today at home.
I still remember staying home from school with the measles and watching "Who Do You Trust?", a lame daytime game show hosted by Carson (but more entertaining than Loretta Young or the Guiding Light and the other soaps my grandmother wanted to watch). Later, he moved to late night TV (which was taped at 1:30pm at Studio 6B in NY's Rockefeller Center). My dad worked on the show as a video technician, and I used to go visit now and again before he moved to "beautiful downtown Burbank" in 1972 (to be near the celebs). He retired in 1991, turning over the keys of the kingdom to Leno.
I also remember Carson fondly for tolerating the employee's kids hanging around the control room. I only met him once or twice (my dad said if I wanted to see him, stand near the bathroom and watch him run for it after the show was done).
Some video clips can be found here of Carson's Nebraska humor. What's more important is his political humor, tame though it might be, that he introduced to late night audiences. This example is from 1991:
To me, democracy means placing trust in the little guy, giving the fruits of nationhood to those who built the nation. Democracy means anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president (
ed. think Dan Quayle).
Democracy is people of all races, colors, and creeds united by a single dream: to get rich and move to the suburbs away from people of all races, colors, and creeds. Democracy is having time set aside to worship -- 18 years if you're Jim Bakker.
Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead. And, unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective political party; it means having two ineffective political parties.
Democracy means freedom of sexual choice between any two consenting adults; Utopia means freedom of choice between three or more consenting adults. But I digress. Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto -- usually a mop or a leaf blower.
(...)
Things we take for granted on TV weren't so easily accepted in the 70's. It took Carson's non-threatening 'everyman' persona to make political humor acceptable (Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl were much more biting, but could not reach that larger audience). The King of Late Night is dead... long live the political humor he contributed to.
Update [2005-1-23 14:40:49 by DemFromCT]:
Al Rodger's previous diary on the topic is here. As this is more of a personal remeniscense, I'm leaving it up. But do visit Al's diary for comments.