Late nights not the same since Johnny Carson left

Doc Severinsen, Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson

Last night I watched a tape of Johnny Carson's final show on YouTube. I had only seen it once before, on May 22, 1992, on the television in the living room of my last apartment just off Beach Blvd on the way down to Huntington Beach.

In four months, I would meet Nicole and my life would change completely. But I was covering the Dodgers that spring, and I usually got home just in time to see the late night shows. Actually, I had been watching Dennis Miller on Fox that spring, back when he was funny.

But when the announcement came that Johnny Carson was retiring, that May 21 would be his last show with guests and the following night would be an hour of reminiscing, I wasn't about to miss either one.


I actually taped the last show, but I never watched it and I got rid of the tape years ago.

I watch Carson a lot on YouTube, particularly Carnac. I watch the opening monologues from the years he hosted The Academy Awards, and if I realize anything, it's how much we miss having a Johnny Carson.

Carson as Carnac

From 1962-92, Carson ruled late night. There wasn't a comedian who didn't get their start performing for Carson, and there wasn't a movie that didn't get plugged. In an era when there were still basically three or four television choices, Carson was the ultimate water-cooler show.

"Did you hear what Johnny said last night about ...?"

He was pretty much the arbiter of middlebrow culture in America for 30 years, and while much has come out since he died in 2005 to show he wasn't all that nice a guy, the character he played on TV was exactly someone you wanted to have in your home at night to help you go to sleep.

Until 1980, it was a 90-minute show, but for millions of viewers, it was only the first 15 minutes that mattered. After all, people had to get up in the morning. So they generally watched Carson's monologue and then went to sleep.

His monologues weren't overly political, and someone once wrote that when Carson left the show after 30 years, America didn't know if he was a Democrat or a Republican. He did have a point of view, though, and he never fell into the trap his successor Jay Leno did of following jokes about one party with jokes about the other party.

He was truly unique, a national treasure, and before he did the Tonight Show, he was a quiz show host on ABC with "Who Do You Trust?"

During its first year on the air it was called "Do You Trust Your Wife?" and two of his contestants in 1958 were a young couple from Dayton, Ohio, named Norman and Yvonne Rappaport.

How they looked and what questions they answered are memories that vanished from my memory long ago. I do remember that they won twice and wound up spending three days of the show.

They won $1,200, which was a nice chunk of change in 1958. They used it to convert our small garage into an additional room for our house.

Those shows aren't around anymore.

And in a way, neither is that world.