Johnny Carson: 1925-2005
by Bob Cook

As his eulogists have attested, there never will be another one like Johnny Carson. In saying this, Carson's tribute-bearers are generally assessing the impossibility of matching his talent as a talk-show host. They also could be assessing the impossibility of matching his impact as a mass-media figure.

When Carson retired May 12, 1992, after 30 years hosting NBC's "The Tonight Show," it was more than the end of an era for late-night television. Looking back, it appears that was the retirement date for what we know as mass media.

Not to go all Marshall McLuhan on you, but at the point of Carson's retirement, the global beast of media had begun a transformation from a behemoth with a few, large, husky arms and legs to a millipede — lots of limbs, very small and thin. Carson's retirement date came about the time when cable TV moved from being an oddity (remember the Cable ACE Awards?) to a threat to the old network guard. Not to mention the first tiny limblets being sprouted by the Web at that time.

It's tough to get inside Carson's head — even his best friends found him either shy or stand-offish — but you wonder if he stepped down because he knew television domination wasn't going to be so easy anymore. At his death, the generation that remembers when he could dominate late night, even when he would take a month off for vacation, also realizes the number of titanic media figures is dwindling. We live in an age when any media is defined by what niche it occupies, not by the mere numbers of its audience.

After working his way up through local TV in his home state of Nebraska to writing gigs for network comedy and hosting game shows, Carson took over "The Tonight Show" from Jack Paar in 1962. He didn't invent late-night television, but he perfected it. Carson's Midwestern mix of friendly yet prickly made him a middle-of-the-road figure. But enough of each side emerged to keep him from utter blandness, especially when he took potshots at sidekick Ed McMahon's drinking habits.

Carson showed his friendly side most during interviews with children and the elderly. The prickly side showed in his personal and business dealings, given four marriages (one of which did last until his demise), frequent contract squabbles, and the personal and professional freeze-out of Joan Rivers after the frequent "Tonight Show" guest-host launched a competing show on Fox in 1986.

As Rivers' effort shows, Carson was hardly immune to competition, though he smote most of it. Facing the likes of "The Joey Bishop Show," "Thicke of the Night" and David Brenner's "Nightlife," smiting wasn't terribly hard to do, especially when you had the power to ruin careers by informing anyone who appeared on competing shows that they were banned from appearing on the ranking powerhouse.

It may be a stretch to say one particular competitor ushered Carson out the show-business door, but in retrospect it certainly appears that the "Arsenio Hall Show" could have been the signal to Carson that time was running short.

Hall now is treated as a joke. Heck, even then he was, by the likes of "Saturday Night Live" and "In Living Color." But Hall, whose late-night show premiered on Fox in 1989, had buzz, something no Carson competitor had ever had. Hall booked hip-hop acts and other guests that appealed to younger, nonwhite viewers, the kind of acts Carson wasn't booking. Hall's show, by the time of Carson's departure, was a strong second in the ratings to "The Tonight Show."

The success of Hall's show proved that even if it seemed "everyone" watched Carson, part of the reason was because there were only three network channels on in most homes at night. (Fox didn't appear until 1986.) As more networks and cable channels appeared, viewers sought out what they liked — or what pandered to them.

Of course, Hall's show got canceled in 1994, sucked up in the maelstrom of the Leno-Letterman battle that emerged after Carson's retirement. It was also sucked up by the beginning of an era — which hasn't ended — of anybody who wants a talk show, gets one. Carson, with each contract, negotiated more and more days off. He had spent most of his 30 years on "The Tonight Show" in a state of relative comfort. He wasn't going to summon the energy to wage this fight.

Carson was famous for booking unknown comedians, who immediately became known once they appeared on his show and got the Carson nod of approval, or even grander, an invitation to sit for a chat. Who was the last unknown anybody who became instantly famous through a talk show? Or any network show? William Hung, maybe? Yes, that's who becomes famous — the freak, the oddball, the self-promoting Paris Hilton type. However, with so many media limbs, they're easily avoidable.

Not in Carson's day, not that Carson would have had either Hung or Hilton on his show. But there's no Carson-type to control the gates of entry for stardom. So anybody can get a show, and anybody can get famous. Johnny Carson was a benevolent dictator of stardom, and part of the reason he was beloved is because he's the one of the very few dictators in world history to step down before the masses revolted.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.