This week in the Hollywood and Total Podcast.

These twenty twenty five films made life almost unbearable this year, but there were a few films that actually put a bounce.

In my step.

I'll explain, And we talked to author Mark Malkoff about his new book Love Johnny Carson.

If you're frustrated by late ITV, or if you're sick of the divisiveness, well this is a trip down memory lane he won't want to miss.

Welcome to the Hollywood in Total Podcast, entertainment, news and reviews without doubt, woke Hollywood, narrative, free speech, free expression.

Now that's entertainment.

And here's your host, Award winning film critic Corstian Toto.

Every time I leave a movie theater just furious, angry, confused, disappointed or even outraged, I take out my phone and I go through my Google calendar.

I put a note down in the middle of December saying, hey, don't forget this film.

It was a clunker and you got to put it on your worst of the year lists.

So months past, the list grows and grows, and now here we are.

But well, there are a bunch of movies on my list.

I want to focus on three films that really just made me cringe.

The first one star is a legend, Robert de Niro and Robert de Niro, Yeah, he's in the film twice.

It's called The Alto Nights.

It's a story about these two gangsters in the nineteen fifties and how their lives kept intersecting.

And know, these characters aren't related, they aren't twins, they aren't siblings.

They're just different people.

And they're both.

Played by Robert de Niro.

And I am still scratching my head.

I saw it months ago.

I can't figure out why they did this.

Listen, DeNiro was a great actor, who's always been a great actor, but his politics aside.

He's the best of the best, and you don't hire him twice.

Everyone knows that it was a disaster.

It was completely distracting and the movie is an absolute snore.

Now, this is from Barry Levinson, the director who gave us Diner Bugsy a lot of other good films, lost his fastball, lost his way, well passed a retirement age.

I don't know what the answer is, but this movie is a complete snooze, a dud, and I'm so glad that no one saw it in theater.

It was a complete bomb, so a lot of people kind of sniffed it out since it was a dud right away.

I wasn't so fortunate.

I've got to watch these movies, but I really do regret that time spent watching The Alto Nights.

It's the worst movie of the year for me, especially since there's so many good people attached to it.

What a disaster.

I think I want my money back.

My second worst film of the year is Mickey seventeen, and I feel a little badly about this one because you know, we're crying out for new films, original stories, something interesting and novel and this one is all those things on paper.

It's a story at this evil corporation.

They had this way of cloning humans, and they decide to pick this sad sack who volunteers for the gig.

He's played by Robert Pattinson, and they keep cloning him and cloning him when he dies and dies because they're putting him in these really unsafe terrains and they're trying to figure out how they can get humanity to survive in these terrible conditions.

So it's an interesting premise.

You've got a very good actor, Robert Pattin said, nothing wrong with him in his performance.

And the movie is just disastrous.

And there's also, i mean, in addition to the whole corporations are bad, which is just exhausting.

And I'm just, I mean, I just, you know, can we move on from that way?

They're evil?

We get it, We got it, Hollywood, You've sent the message.

We can move on from there.

You feel I can take a broken record.

But more specifically, it's another bashing Trump story.

You've got Mark Ruffalo playing a Trumpian figure.

Heavy Handed doesn't even begin to describe it.

Mark Ruffalo is a very good actor, but you know he's leaning into his worst impulses here, another bad decision.

So Mickey seventeen, it's a bad, bad movie.

And again it's a shame.

But it also didn't get a lot of attention in theaters.

But you know, again, people someoneys have a sixth sense about these things.

They realize something isn't quite right.

And that's why no when showed up to see Mickey seventeen, the third film on my list, is actually getting a lot of attention in theaters right now.

Now, I never played the Five Nights at Freddy game.

Just not a big gamer.

It's just nothing I do right now.

I'm too busy with life and marriage and kids and watching movies and doing podcasts.

You're old and listen.

But you know, very popular game certainly made sense bringing it to the big screen.

You've got a following.

And also those animatronic creatures that come to life, they're creepy.

They get it.

So the first film was to me mediocre.

At best watchable.

I've seen much worse in the horror genre.

But it made some money and it connected with audiences, so of course you've got a sequel.

The new film makes the old film feels like Citizen Kane.

It is disastrous, it is poorly acted, it is boring.

It's certainly scare free.

I didn't jump at wall, even with the attempts at jump scares, and it made not a lick of sense.

So it's making some.

Money at the theater.

And the scariest part of all and it is only one scary moment and the whole film is that the ending teases a third film, which, like that now says, is inevitable.

So those are the three worst films of the year.

Clunkers.

A lot of them a.

Sequel, a gangster film, and also a movie that was brimming with originality that just didn't know where to go.

But I don't want to end up negative note and got some good movies to talk about, including one that just came out on Christmas Day, Marty Supreme, And of course it's the actor of the moment, Timothy Schallo.

May you know I resisted the Chalo may whole situation.

He's this great actor and he's the next generation.

And I watched him on screen.

I thought, you know, he's perfectly fine, but I don't really get the enthusiasm.

I don't get the wave of emotion coming over everyone about this actor.

And then I saw a complete unknown from last year.

Of course, that's the Bob Dylan biopic, and I'm thinking, Wow, this guy's good.

He's really good.

He really doesn't have it Bob Dylan.

Well, he's much better here.

And that's no insult to that performance.

It just says that his role in Supreme is outstanding.

He is charismatic, he is difficult to love, difficult to like.

In this movie, he's playing a ping pong prodigy.

He's trying to rise to the top of his sport.

Not a sport that a lot of people know about or care about, but he cares about it an awful lot.

The ping pong action, the rep parte.

And just the journey of getting from his humble roots in New York City to becoming the champion.

If he can do it is amazing.

This is an intelligent film, beautifully shot, great performances all around, including Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank making a good I don't know if this is his first film, but it's really his medius role I with today, so.

Kudos to him.

And it's just chock full of imagination.

It's the kind of movie you don't know what's going to happen next, but it all makes sense in its own weird, wonderful way.

So I loved Marty' Suprime.

It's my favorite movie of twenty twenty five.

Another good one.

I'll mention two of him.

Actually it's a double dose of horror.

You've Got Sinners by Ryan Cookler a terrific movie that is about a juke joint in the early nineteen hundreds, talking about race and class and great music, and then a vampire movie breaks out and Boyd does a change gears in a wonderful way.

Just great performance, is great acting, and you know, Ryan Coogler is one of these directors who knows a genre and says, I'm not going to do it the way that everyone else is doing it, so he kind of subverts horror in a wonderful way.

Great film.

And also there's Weapons from Zach Kreiger, who gave us Barbarian, which I didn't love from a couple of years ago, but I did enjoy and I thought this guy seems to know what he's doing about the horror genre.

Well he proved that in spades here told with a very interesting gimmick.

I'm not going to give it away, but it.

Seems kind of hokey at times, but all the pieces fall together, and of course you've got an amazing performance by Amy Madigan.

I don't even want to say much about who she is what she does, but she's terrific in it, and everyone's talking about Ant Glad as her role.

For good reason.

Weapons is terrific.

Sinners is quite good as well, and of course my favorite movie the year is Marty Supreme.

So there you go, some clunkers and some great films, and I felt a little bit more who are comfortable about twenty twenty five.

Often I struggle mightily to come up with any films on my best of list.

I see a lot of good films, but not great ones, so this one felt a little bit easier for me.

I also want to mention F one was excellent.

Is This Thing On, which is in limited release right now with Will Arnett and Laura Dern.

Excellent movie again from director Bradley Cooper, who's really making a name for himself behind the scenes as a director.

You know, he's such a good actor.

He's got dramatic chops, he's funny, he can do it all.

But I think as he's getting older, he's sensing maybe this is the way he wants to go in his career.

And I can't blame him for that.

He's got some real talent there.

So good movies all, And also want to quickly mention October eighth, which is a hard watch but a great watch.

This is the movie that looks at anti Semitism exploding after the October seventh attacks.

Is stunning to watch.

It's a necessary watch.

It's beautifully crafted as well, and also the most amazing thing about the whole film is that it really keeps politics off screen.

I'd say, for the most part, a couple of scenes, a couple of moments with different politicians almost seems unavoidable.

But I think it's a good idea to keep it nonpartisan because the message here is so vital and so scary.

By the way, five Nights of Freddy two maybe scar free start to finish.

This one is scary.

From start to finish and in all the worst ways.

So there you have it the Year in film.

See if you agree or disagree, let me know in the comments below what films that I leave out?

What films should I have tagged?

And by the way, a quick maya kulpa here, I didn't see Brideheart, I didn't see The War of the World's with ice Cube, which all seemed incredibly bad.

But again just a judgment, just based on my fellow critics what they were weighing in on.

They could have made this list.

I don't know, didn't see them, so maybe they're wonderful and everybody get it wrong.

But I have to wait and see.

Maybe I'll check it out on a home video over the Christmas break.

I'm kind of a glutton for punishment sometimes I do enjoy my bad movies, but it's got.

To be in the right mood.

Not in the theater.

By the way, that's the worst place to see a bad movie because you've just lost a lot of money and wasted precious time.

Here's Johnny.

For thirty years, Johnny Carson ruled late night TV.

Now what's amazing about I mean, there's so many things that's amazing about that.

But a lot of people came and went trying to dethrone Johnny over the years.

Joan Rivers, Dennis Miller, Chevy Chase, Oh my gosh, what to you know?

These people enter the late night realm and they just fall on their face.

It is very, very hard.

And as much as I dislike Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, you got to give him some credit for hanging around so long.

This is a super competitive landscape and they've been able to survive.

But nobody, nobody did it better than Johnny Carson.

With class, with style, with humor, with a reverence, with a sense of a party, with a sense of Hey, we're going to put you to bed each and every weeknight with a smile on your face, and it's just magic.

To quote Archie Bunker, those were the days, which brings us to the current late night landscape.

It's certainly more divisive, it's certainly angry, or it's more partisan.

That Carson model of speaking to both sides and not insulting one half of the country.

It's over.

You know, whether it was bound to end at some point.

I don't know whether someone could bring in kind of catch that Carson vibe and restore it.

I don't know.

You know, Jimmy Fallon of The Tonight Show, he gets the closest to the old Carson model.

He's not overly aggressively partisan.

He's trying to put on a show, but he doesn't have Carson's chops, and he is left leaning.

His monologues are clearly attacking the right much more than the left.

Not as vicious as the others.

But you know, you can sense that, and you can sense he's not really playing fair when it comes to politics.

So I think from that perspective alone, he's not really living in that Johnny Carson mold.

And that's the problem.

You can see his ratings, they are not good.

Carson was the king of the Hill for so long.

Jimmy Fallon not so much nobody's watching them, but all of this.

Brings us to love Johnny Carson.

It's a new book that captures the.

Whole history of Johnny Carson, from the very start to the end.

But it's much more than that.

It's a fascinating look at pop culture.

It's a behind the scenes take on what happens at NBC, how the sausage is made, you could say.

But my favorite part of the whole book is just so many incredible stories with some of the biggest stars on the planet, Bert Reynolds and Judy Garland, just star after star after star.

Some of the anecdotes are wonderful, some of them are silly, some of them are dark, and some of them are really tragic too.

It's all here.

It's an amazing book.

I highly recommend it.

It's an incredible read.

It's the kind of book you can read in short doses or you just want to kind of run through it because it's so darn entertaining.

And I'm so happy to have the author of this book, Mark Malkoff on the show this week to talk about all things Johnny Carson.

And before we get into it, I want to mention that just for people who listen to the show regularly.

This could have gone in a very political direction, but I didn't want to do that for a couple reasons.

One, I don't know what Mark's politics are, and I didn't want to really bombard him with it.

And also, in the way, it's an honor and attribute to Johnny himself, who was not political.

You know, he may have had his views, he may have injected them a time or two, but he really, for thirty years kept it to himself and entertained all parts of the country, the left, the center, of the middle, didn't insult those who didn't agree with his point of view.

And I thought, in Johnny's spirit, the very least I could do is just have a conversation about what made him so magical, and that's what we scratched the surface of here in my conversation with Mark.

But more importantly, love Johnny Carson really does capture the whole story.

And by the way, while it is a love letter to Johnny and his legacy, it shows his flaws as well.

He could have a thin skin.

He notoriously banned some people from his show.

So I don't want to let people think that this is just a very sweet and loving homage.

It is, but it does recognize that he was flawed, that he had his own issues and quirks as to the people around him.

So I think from that perspective alone, it's just an amazing So hope you enjoyed my conversation with Mark, and I hope you do check out Love Johnny Carson, available in bookstores right now.

Well, Mark, thanks for joining the show.

You know, I grew up on Johnny Carson.

We all grew up on Johnny Carson, at least those of a certain age, and we all have our memories of what he gave to the public and how engaging he was and how unique and so just a one sin of generation talent.

But can you recall your earliest experiences watching the Tonight Show and what connected you?

Could it be the celebrity interviews, some of the sketches, the self deprecating humor, what initially grabbed you about Johnny and made this whole in a way a lifelong passion about him.

Yeah, I really think it was simply Johnny.

It was him.

I remember five six years old, my dad, I'm letting me stay up on Fridays to watch him and My dad saw Carson in nineteen sixty eight in New York and just would tell me about it, and there's just something so likable about him.

They would do these.

Anniversary primetime clip shows and with we'd tape it on VHS.

I'd watch it over and over, and he'd be with animals, he'd be with kids, he'd be with comedians, famous movies, and there was just something so likable and fun about this guy.

And I really do feel that that's the reason for thirty years he dominated American culture.

People were tuning in for Johnny.

If you got a great guest, that was a bonus.

But there was just something about that man, and people tried to challenge him, but there was a reason that he succeeded on such a level that he's been off the air for over thirty years and we're still talking about him.

All the late night hosts still talk about him to this day.

There's a reason for that.

One of the things that I enjoyed about him, and I think it's something you describe in the book and also in a way share the hard work behind it, was he made it look easy.

He always seemed comfortable at ease, whether he was poking fun of himself, questioning these big stars, diffusing a situation.

He just looked like nothing's going to rattle him.

There's something comforting about that.

Can you talk about that part of his persona?

Because I thought that was so important and so so hard to realize.

You know, it might sound like you want to do that, but to actually create it is quite different.

He made it look easy.

In the beginning.

The show is an hour and forty five minutes, and it went down to ninety minutes.

And he would protect his energy like a quarterback started on a Sunday.

Every show today.

I mean the amount of energy that that man expelled.

I mean he'd be working on the show at home during the day up and go maybe an hour or two before showtimes show up.

But it was just to protect his energy.

Is as an introvert, being around people would zap his energy unless he was hosting that show, and people thought it was easy.

It was like watching Michael Jordan or people like I think I could do something like that, or Tiger Woods or anybody a great artist, and people would try, like Carson would watch the guest host people that would attempt, like people like Arnold Palmer.

The Golfer, like really, people you would not think of.

The movie started Kirk Douglas trying to guest host the show and just thinking that Chevy Chase in eighty six, thinking this is going to be a breeze.

And he would on the show with Johnny a month later and said, I know one is going to be the next Johnny Carson.

I had no idea how hard it was.

And Carson for thirty years kind of fooled the public into thinking that almost anybody could do it, but that just certainly was not the case.

Yeah, what I've learned through some interviews.

I talked to George.

Flotter a few months ago.

Oh yeah, reading your book, celebrities, they have a very thin skin.

Their egos are very delicate, and they're wildly talented, and they're wildly complicated.

I think one of the great things about your book is it really shows that Gosh, in so many ways, from Johnny himself to the guests to the bruised egos.

Were you so sure as when you dug deep into these stories and you found those revelations, Because I'm always amazed when I hear them and they're entertaining, and I think, oh, gosh, they are just like us.

I really did feel like for somebody that was that iconic and that famous for thirty years, that people would have a thicker skin.

But doing the research, Dave Letterman was the same way.

Johnny would say, I do not believe it when famous actors I'm on my show and say I don't the critics don't hurt me.

He's like, if you have any sensitivity at all, it hurts.

But he took it to a new level, like his staff knew, like Doc Severans and his band leader for twenty plus years, knew not to correct Carson if Carson said something wrong about oh that song was this, and Doc knew it wasn't the song.

He'd be like, you're absolutely right, Johnny.

His friend, the astronomer Carl Sagan, corrected Johnny twice and interrupted Johnny during his segment, and Johnny Bann have never had the guy back on again.

He was embarrassed.

So I really was surprised of the level of that he would get embarrassed, and Letterman again the same.

I think that for maybe that's celebrities in general.

Yeah, you've been doing research for years with your podcast and of course for the book itself.

What were some of the more surprising elements of the Johnny Carson era?

The personality, the people around him.

I mean, there's a million anecdotes.

And one of the things that I love about this book and why I recommend it so Hiley, is it's so dense, and I mean that in a good way.

There's just so much stuff there.

Every page is a revelation and out story.

But what things really surprised you when you really dug deeper into Johnny.

The biggest thing that surprised me, by far is the media for decades called the said this man is cold and a loof.

Johnny would make fun of the media's labeling cold and a loof.

And I talked to the people that knew him, that spent lots of time together with him, more than anybody, his friends, and they consistently, independently would tell me that he was almost the same Johnny on and off camera.

It was a small group of people that he felt comfortable with, that he showed loyalty, that he expected loyalty.

They told me he would do anything if he was a friend.

And just to hear that he was the same guy on and off maybe a little less Gregaris shocked me.

I really did believe the cold in aloof thing, and he was that to some people, I mean self preservation.

This is a man who might have been the most famous, most recognizable man in America couldn't walk five steps without somebody coming up to him, grabbing him by his armed.

People are going to bed at him eleven thirty they feel they know him.

FBI routinely protected in his life from threats.

Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon, had a short list of people to kill if it wasn't Lenin Carson was on the list.

The guy protected his energy, like I mentioned before, so the cold and loof thing for and he was shy as well, so that was part of his personality.

But this other guy that was actually very similar to the person that for thirty years.

I don't think you can filk the American public and not be yourself for thirty years out there like that.

That and all the generosity, and I couldn't even fill the book with it.

All the kind things that he did behind the scenes and didn't want to acknowledgement, those were all the things that I was shocked.

I had no idea when I started this.

I really did think from some of the other Carson books and just everyone cold and a loof did the show just not the greatest guy end of story, and it was way more complicated than that.

And we go into that in the book.

Yeah, one of the there's so many celebrity anecdotes that are amazing, that was the most touched in a way by the Judy Garland.

Segment of them.

Sure, can you talk about that real briefly?

Again, I want to tease the book and it can't spoil.

I can't spoil it as a soldier, But I just thought that was such a fascinating chapter.

She was such a delicate person.

She was so troubled.

It's funny I interviewed Eliza Milly years ago when I was in DC, and she had a similarity to it.

She just seemed brittle to me, but obviously Judy was much more troubled and much more broken.

This was tough.

Yeah, it was tough as Christmas nineteen sixty seven, that December, and she was, oh the irs so much money.

I think they put a lien on her house.

I mean, she was the day of her show, she was with Carson talent coordinator walking down the street and she looked into a record store and on one of her albums.

She wanted it, but didn't have enough money to buy it.

So the person that with the Carson Show got her the album, and then Johnny found out and bought her a record player.

But she was she needed to balance her hold on to somebody to even watch.

She was so frail.

She was addicted to not even alcohol but pills.

I mean, it was really a really bad situation.

Carson's driver said that she looked like she was on her death bread that bed in rehearsal.

There were people I've talked to that said they didn't know she's going to be able to go on.

It was just really a really sad to situation.

And Johnny just really appreciated her work.

I mean, Johnny was a movie usher when he was a teenager in Nebraska and grew up, you know, watching her and wanted her just to shine.

And she was one of those things where she would she would be calling Johnny for like a solid week at the office NonStop, and like somebody that knew lizam and Elie said that, yet people in Judy Garland's life just stop would stop talking to her including lives at that point because she was just Judy Garland was in sass that she would not stop calling people and was just not in the best date of mine.

And then Johnny's driver did mention late on a Saturday night, they were driving the two of them around and they were she was staying at the Plaza Hotel at that point, and Johnny took her inside and came out in an hour later.

I do not know there were relationship, but Carson definitely was a lady's man and got around.

But I can't imagine Miss Garland in that state that that would have been a relationship that Johnny was interested.

I could be off on that, but it's really sad.

She did.

She got through the show and then didn't last more than six months before she died something like that.

Maybe it was six months, but it was definitely really sad.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a remarkable chapter in the story and what a way for a legend to go out too.

One of the things I love reading about older showbiz stories is that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

Between the animosity between Johnny initially and the media, which didn't take to him right away, that's right, I just feel like life circles back in so many ways.

Did you feel that when you were researching the book and doing these injuries, Like, I just felt a lot of modern day parallels.

I know the technology is different, the culture is different, but some things just don't change.

I mean, entertainment at the end of the day's entertainment, but it does grow on people.

Conan O'Brien, certainly, when I was going to his show when he first started.

The first year, couldn't fill the studio audience.

It was less than two hundred people.

No one wanted to be there, no one liked him.

Now he is a rock star, I mean the younger people.

He's out of all those late night personalities, he's probably the most popular right now and beloved.

You know, people were used to this other guy, Jack part who was the biggest thing in TV, controversial, would cry on the air, feuds with some of the biggest people, people like Jimmy Hoffa su sued him.

It was and Carson was like, I'm going to do an entertainment show.

People were going to bed at eleven thirty.

I'm going to be entertained, and that really, I mean, critics were calling him bland and boring compared to part It just took.

A while for people to really get it.

And he was a game show host previously, and once America sees you as one thing, it can take some time for that to develop, for them to accept you as someone, and that definitely took Carson.

I do see parallels today with anything that's new.

Sometimes it definitely takes a while for people to come around.

When I was reading the book, I thought, especially in the early years as the show was forming, as they were getting their sea legs, as they were establishing what they wanted to do, one of the ideas I thought was so good that.

They should bring back today.

I don't think they have it today as much is the panel format where the guest comes on and then he or she just shifts over the couch, and then by the time the third guests is there, you've got a whole gaggle of people.

They could chime in, they could back and forth.

Are you surprised that they abandoned that format or what's the uh?

I just that's something that could work today.

Jimmy Fallon did it a little bit on his twelve thirty show.

Conan did it for a while I don't know why if it's the last person to do it was James Corden, and he'd bring all the guests on, kind of like Graham Norton does in England.

I really miss it.

I do think some of it is that now the shows are all about getting the A list movie star or Carson just you didn't have to be the number one movies start in the world.

If you were a good talker, he would put you on the show.

Now it's all the most A list movie stars, big old, big social media prep profiles.

It's probably harder to get them to stay for the whole show.

Oh for some of those people, I think that probably they're publisers, are like in and out type thing.

But I think it definitely loses something with the show.

I mean that was some of the most interesting thing.

They get the panels with some of the most dynamic people you just would not think of.

And it could be the funniest stuff.

Sometimes it could be complete chaos.

I mean back then, George Papard, who people might know from a team and he was in Breakfast to Tiffany's, was drunk out of his mind on Carson's show, and he called Paul Williams, the singer a midget and Paul Williams stood up ready to fight George Papart.

It was so much chaos and that stuff would all get in the show.

Now, if something like that happened, they would stop tape, that would be erased.

Everything would get in, Like if a singer didn't if it was famous, like Robert Gulay didn't know the words to a song and he'd be like, okay, let's stop notes.

Carson's like, no, You're gonna do this until you get it.

And it was some of the charm was that that the mistakes would get in.

It was just very different back then.

But I do miss the panel and I wish they would do that, and the mistake were definitely part of the charm.

And you just don't see that anymore.

I guess bombing and a monologue joke doesn't happen.

Carson back then was famous for recovering and just ad libbing.

But now the audiences are just doubt clap at anything no matter what.

It's either a laugh or clapping, And back then with Carson, it was either laughing or bombing, and that was part of his charm, you.

Know, I think it's ironic that, you know, culture back in the sixties, seventies and even eighties was stuffier, and yet the talk shows what you're talking about, were messier.

And yet today it's very formatted and like you said, it's clean and neat.

I thinks one of the reasons why you're a podcaster, it's one of the reasons why podcasting is so interesting at times, because it's a little raw.

It's a little rough on the edges.

It isn't smooth and polished, and some as we want that, it feels a little bit more.

Really, there aren't many surprises on Late Night show.

Its really surprises.

There are some famous Carson moments that were manufactured, that were scripted that looked real, but there were a lot of stuff that just kind of have and you don't again, and it's just a different it's just completely different.

The model, the booking of guests.

It just like Carson wouldn't want somebody that was an eight list movie star that wasn't a good talker.

They'll put them on no matter what on these shows.

But if they weren't a good talking and they couldn't tell the stories and they didn't have life experience, they weren't gonna get on Carson Show, and I think that is what Carson was really good at as well.

Yeah, this doesn't have to get political, for sure, but I want to get your thoughts on late Night today as sure revenues are going down.

Yeah, even Jimmy.

Kimmel has said, I don't know if this format will survive another ten years.

It seems shocking to even think that it's been such a part of our lives for decades.

But what do you see?

This is your feel you know, your passion.

What's missing today?

What could be changed?

Can can this be saved?

Or is it just the way the culture works.

We want TikTok, we want you know, YouTube videos, and we don't have enough room in our hearts now for late night good, better and different.

Even when Letterman and Craig ferguson We're on CBS, it didn't It wasn't public, but they had to take the host and the producers had to take pay cuts.

It wasn't disclosed.

Even back then, the writing was on the wall.

I mean Seth Myers got his band cut to save money.

Every year network television ratings go down, Carson has at the most something like seven eight writers.

Sometimes he only had six writers.

All the writers now on those late night shows that over twenty riders.

I mean, it's if those shows are to succeed, they're gonna be scaled down Byron Allen seems to be doing it the most economically feasible.

I mean in terms of his that's five shows in a day.

Uh.

And it's just I think, yeah, he's probably figured it out.

I I It's just I don't know how if we're ever gonna see a Johnny Carson type budget with you know, seventeen musicians and just the ratings and stuff.

It's just completely different.

It never occurred to me that you could be number one and not be profitable.

That's true with the Colbert Show.

I mean, definitely the more most people watch that show, but I know it's not cheap to do that show.

I hope those shows exist.

I'd be surprised if Kimmel, if he leaves in the year of ABC, replaces it with any late night show.

Would be shocked if CBS does the show.

I hope I'm wrong, but hopefully some version.

Whether John Mulaney does a show on Netflix once in a while with the Late Night Show and Yeah, Johnny Carson's modeled the background actually on Johnny Carson's home in Malibu.

With that, that was really cool.

But hopefully some version will exist, but I don't think we're gonna see the likes of a big production anymore like Letterman or what Carson had, certainly not Nightly.

Yeah, you know, the cynic in me wonders that even if Johnny Carson were around today and he was famous for being a very down the center, kept his politics to himself, hit the right just.

That's right light.

Yeah, the synicay says that we wouldn't want that, that we wanted to pick a side and left to right or whatever, what's your set.

You know him better than almost everyone live.

I don't know.

I mean, he just believed he was an entertainer and he thought when people put their own politics it was a mistake his He looked at Jack Benny he loved, but early Bob Hope and Bob Hope never he said, Benny and Hope never gave their political opinions.

He believed at eleven thirty people are going to bed with him.

They want to be entertained.

His whole attitude was like, why would I alienate half my audience with my political views.

He just he looked down at the political comedians.

His whole thing was, I'm going to make fun of whoever's in office, and you know, the warrier complaints from Nancy Reagan about Ronnie does not dye his hair calling up the show upset Jimmy Carter's mom was not happy with monolog jokes about Jimmy Carter the Ford administration.

Gerald Ford was not happy with Chevy Chason, Johnny Carson stumbling jokes that Gerald Ford's a stumbler, that whole perception thing, so.

He would hammer whoever.

But I can't imagine that we'd be able to tell his politics.

That's just something.

I mean, the only person in Late Night that really isn't doing that, I guess is maybe Jimmy Fallon and his ratings, I mean, we know, are lower than the guy who is taking a stance.

So I don't know what would happen with that with Carson, but I don't I'd be shocked if we knew his politics.

But I think he would be making jokes.

That was his job.

And at the end of the day, it was a comedy show and an entertainment show, and that was the core of the show.

Yeah, are there any comedians out there, podcasters, stand ups, hosts of any kind who have some of that Johnny Carson vine Obviously he's irreplaceable, but is there someone who maybe echoes it or you can see influences there.

Of people that are good listeners, Like, I know this is going to sound strange, but in terms of somebody that being a good listener, the person I hear about from a lot of my peers in terms of the best interviewer out there, and I know this is going to sound strange is Howard Stern, And at the last bunches of years with his interviews, when he gets people, he definitely is able to do what Carson did, which is make people forget that millions of people are this calming effect that millions of people are watching and they will get vulnerable.

They would do that with Carson in terms of the listening and interviewing and the curiosity.

Stern is like that.

Now in terms of you know, Stern does give his political views, Carson wouldn't do that.

But in terms of likability and in terms of like a performer and stuff, there's definitely a little Jimmy fallon not so much in the interviews with carterson It's really I'm trying to think of any of the other people that are out there.

Maybe there are some podcasters that I'm kind of like blanking on at the moment, but he was such a unique talent.

I can't I can't think of anybody.

Can you think of anybody off the top of your head?

You know?

The saying him to mind he's a different kind of personality was Ryan.

Seacrest as a Oh, that's interesting.

Every man mainstream you know, in.

A face it's like a bull.

I mean, the likability thing is by far the most important thing.

Yeah.

I don't know if he had the the ad libs skills and some of the stuff with the Carson had, but in terms of likability, absolutely, And you know he's radio Carson started a radio, Seacrest radio.

So but that that's a that's an interesting thing just to kind of, uh, yeah, look at that.

So this is in a way a little bit of a personal question.

I sure asked me when I fired up the video camera.

I don't you be older.

You seem like a very young person.

You're very nice, and I'm curious.

Yeah, you know, like I'm in my fifties.

Sure I feel and like, as I'm reading your book, I'm getting this nostalgic just washing over me, even in the sixties when I wasn't even around yet.

Why do you think that you connect with with Johnny and this material.

I mean, it's not just loving what he was and what he did.

I get that, but I get this this love for this, for for show business, for old school I would that that kind of bounced off the page for me.

I was kind of curious, Oh thanks.

And then my dad just really got me into old school show business early, like people in kindergarten were talking about you know, Mickey mass and I'm talking about Jerry Lewis and Buddy Hackett.

I mean, my dad got me into this Stanley Kramer's It's a mad, mad, mad mad world, and it's like I knew Jonathan Winners and all these people, and Carson Show really was my education in the old school show business.

It was just this really incredible party, it seemed like watching the clips and just wanted to be a part of it.

I did really do appreciate Dave Letterman's on NBAS show, and I know the people that were my age by far with Dave was the cool kid, innovative and like that was what everybody wanted to be and to watch, and Carson Show was something else.

I could appreciate both on different levels.

But I think in terms of a time capsule that encompasses thirty years of dominating popular culture, those thirty years should be studied by anybody that goes into media comedy just and in terms of what the medium was, why the show was so powerful, how it fluence fashion, politics, humor.

What was acceptable, who were the stars at the time.

It's just fascinating for me to kind of look back, going back, you know, decades and decades and see where America was at that point.

I agree, and I think as much as the culture and technology has changed, there are things that are you know, timeless about his approach about the connection about understanding human nature, which I think your book really focuses on.

By the way, I didn't mean to leave that direction, but my dad made me a movie critic, and the reason why I do the silliness that I do now with film in Hollywood is because my dad kind of.

Made that part of my life.

You're honoring him in that way, which I think is really great.

One last question of Sure, what are the key takeaways we can share about the Johnny Carson legacy?

You know, you bring so much to the table, but to be able to survive in Hollywood for thirty years so remarkable.

It's almost like a Clint Eastwood.

How do you get to be ninety and still be a movie star?

Sure, it's such a once in a generation.

It's such a rare thing to do in a brutal industry.

What do you think of the key takeaways from the Johnny Carson model?

It's good and bad.

I mean, you know, in nineteen seventy, when he has all this competition and at eleven thirty, he just can't enjoy his life.

At eleven thirty, is watching four televisions, is watching his own show?

Is competition Dick Cavott, David Frost and either Joey Bishop and Merv Griffin.

The guy could not have trouble I think enjoying it, he would say back then, all I ever think about is watching is the show.

Something would have to suffer, and that was his family life, his kids, his marriage is which I don't think anybody wants to emulate.

But I don't know if he would have been able to succeed at the level he did without it.

So the work.

Definitely, I mean, in terms of the work, it speaks for itself.

That's what he wanted to be remembered by.

That's why he left when he was sixty ninety two, because he didn't want the work to suffer.

He thought Bob Hopes stayed around way too long.

And the work is incredible and that survives.

But I think in terms of one's life, I don't.

There are definitely things.

I mean, he would talk about his drinking struct problems on the show, and I include some of the struggles in the book.

So he definitely had flaws.

But I definitely think it was important for me to show this different side from his friends that loved him, and that I couldn't even put in the book all the amazing things he did for people, saving people's lives.

Literally, I put some of them in there.

But it was like one thing after another, and it goes against everything that Johnny Carson thought that the media made him out to be.

And I thought that that was important too in his legacy and in the book, it was like one thing after another and my john drop, like, I mean, it's not in the book, but this was so typical.

One of his writers that he was going through a painful divorce and Johnny's like, can I take you out to dinner?

Can I I've been through this, I want to sit down with you.

It was like, that's que essential Carson in terms of his behavior, and that stuff is not what people would think about.

I mean, people come up to me and like, what do you do?

And I said, I'm writing a book on Carson.

Now I heard he was a terrible guy.

And I'm like, name two people that had problems with him, Name three people, and they can't.

They just are like, oh, yeah, I never thought of that.

And he definitely had some issues people like Joan Rivers and way Newton, who I tried to ask get them to talk to me and they wouldn't talk to me, unfortunately.

And I go about that in the book from Carson's perspective.

But I think at the end of the day, we have a million plus YouTube subscribers on the official Johnny Carson YouTube channel, over three billion Johnny Carson views.

I think at the end of the day, it's about the work, and I think that his work is still beloved to this day.

Every poll whenever they do one of those greatest late night hosts of all time every few years.

The guy's been off there ever thirty three years, he wins say every single time.

I mean that just shows you about that man's the work and his likability and just his impact on American culture.

Yeah, no, it's it speaks for itself.

And I really highly recommend your book, Love Johnny Carson.

It's an amazing Christmas gift.

Just get it.

Thank you, Go get it.

It's so much fun, so many great stories, so much information.

I could spend hours just retelling some of it.

But of course the book itself is just chock full of great information.

And again, it felt culturally interesting, it felt like it was oddly relevant to today, and you also a nostalgia blast at the same time.

So do you check it out.

It's available at Amazona your favorite bookstore, Love Johnny Carson, Mark, thank you so much for joining the show, and thanks for bringing back some incredible memories.

Thanks, this was fun.

Your character actor of the week is Michael Rooker.

Well, let's it for the Hit cast this week.

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Like that show, we never want to push away our liberal friends.

They are welcome to join.

Lots of a political content on the show, but more importantly, like what we do here, I try to connect dots that aren't being conducted connected elsewhere.

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So.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season.

We're almost at the new year.

Oh my, twenty twenty six coming in hot, so we'll see how that goes.

But for now, everyone have a wonderful time.

Doctor's orders