Johnny Carson: What Our Current Late-Night Hosts Can Learn From the King
Two Jimmy's And a Stephen Are Failing Us... And America...
PUBLIUS SPECIAL GUEST: Lee Habeeb, creator and host of Our American Stories, a podcast and weekly syndicated radio show.
When many of us think of Johnny Carson, the man who dominated late-night TV for decades, memories of our family pop into our heads. "My dad would always say the same thing," former late-night host Conan O'Brien recalled. "Let's just watch a little bit of the monologue. I'm laughing and my father's laughing and how often can you watch something with your father, you know? He [Carson] crossed generations."
Carson crossed partisan divides too, divides that were as alive in his generation as they are now. Unlike late-night hosts today who are overtly partisan and overwhelmingly favor Democratic politicians—Steven Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and the five hosts of The Daily Show come to mind—Carson had too much respect for his audience to choose sides.
"You never knew Johnny's politics," Jay Leno said with admiration. "Johnny would come out and equally make fun of everybody." Indeed, Carson played host to seven presidents and, as he put it when asked, "thankfully for comedy." Carson understood that his job was not to sway elections or change the audience's mind about the issues of the day but to entertain it.
"I think one of the dangers if you are a comedian, which basically I am, is that if you start to take yourself too seriously and start to comment on social issues, your sense of humor suffers somewhere," Carson told Barbara Walters in 1984.
"Some critics have said that our show doesn't have great sociological value, it's not controversial, it's not deep," Carson added. "But The Tonight Show basically is designed to amuse people. To make them laugh."
It was a serious business to Carson—and a serious responsibility—bringing people together for some late-night laughs. Americans, he understood profoundly, were tuning in to escape the news of the day.
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BIO: Lee Habeeb, creator and host of Our American Stories, co-founded Laura Ingraham’s national radio show in 2001, moved to Salem Media Group in 2008 as Vice President of Content overseeing their nationally syndicated lineup, and launched Our American Stories in 2016. He is a University of Virginia School of Law graduate, and writes a weekly column for Newsweek.
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Lee Habeeb, creator and host of Our American Stories, a podcast and weekly syndicated radio show.