Hey, everybody, Welcome back time again for word Balloon, the comic book conversation show John Centris Here.

Mark Malkoff joins me today on word Balloon.

Now, Who's Mark Malcoff?

You might ask, I'm glad you did.

For eight years, Mark hosted the Carson Podcast, all about the legendary talk show host Johnny Carson.

He became fascinated by him as a kid and did his best to chronicle the life and times of this incredible broadcast host for NBC for twenty nine years from nineteen sixty two to nineteen ninety three.

In addition to doing the Carson Podcast, Mark has currently out on the road promoting his brand new book, Love Johnny Carson, which features four hundred interviews chronicling the life and times of the talk show host.

You hear all about his formative years in Nebraska, his years in New York hosting The Tonight Show there, then moving the show to Burbank, California for its remaining years, and also the subsequent years after retirement.

What did Johnny?

He was not a recluse, says You'll hear Mark explain lots of great stories, rally lots of interesting insight as well and couldn't help it.

But you know, Mark is also doing a great show called Inside Late Night Now where he continues to do interviews with people involved with late night television, so I had to ask him about the current environment of late night television and its possible future.

We know Colbert's days are numbered.

Kimmel did re up for another year, but only a year, which I think is suspect.

We'll see what CBS does to replace Colbert.

Fallon continues, but we'll see.

I really think we're on the last legs of weeknight late night television.

We also talked a little bit about SNL as well, but it was great to get Mark's perspective and I really enjoyed this conversation Mark Malkoff talking about the life and times of Johnny Carson and the history and future of late night TV on today's word Balloon.

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Mark Malcoff, Welcome to word Balloon again.

It's great to you coming back, man, and congratulations.

I mean, I respected everything you did with the Carson Podcast, but now you've got this fabulous book.

Love Johnny Carson, thank you so much for having me Backy, It's good to see you.

It is one of those things.

When I started the Carson Podcast talkingpo about Johnny Carson, I thought maybe if I get ten episodes, that might be.

The top number.

But it didn't foresee it going eight years and talking it for the podcast and the book over four hundred people.

It never occurred to me.

And really, the level and depth of your research and knowledge of Johnny beyond the show is amazing, and my favorite parts are obviously the parts I didn't know about it.

I mean, I told you man, I started watching in the early seventies.

I have vague memories of it still being in New York and when they made it, well I'm old, Well I'm home.

But truly, everything you know, from his birth to everything he did in media before the Tonight Show is fascinating to me, you know, and I mean, you know, starting in radio and also those weird like he had his independent show Forgive Me because you know, I got to show that.

You know, you and I could talk about he of the local shows and everything, but then all those game shows, and it's been fun watching Buzzer and seeing pre Tonight Show Johnny Carson on to Tell the Truth and stuff like that.

Talk about that pre Tonight show years for.

Yeah, he was doing a game show called Earn Your Vacation.

He did Carson Seller.

He had a five minute show in the morning called Carson's Coffee Break, and He's like, next year, they might give me six minutes.

So yeah, he started local in Los Angeles, and before that, for a couple of years he was at WOW in Omaha, Nebraska, and yeah.

He got out of that, went to college.

Yeah, got out of the Navy, went to college, and then went right into radio and very ambitious for him to move his his family to Los Angeles.

His goal was within one year to get his own show similar to what he had at Wow.

He had The Squirrel's Nest, which was a TV show kind of like The Tonight Show.

And his goal was within one year and he was able to achieve that locally.

And you know, even though he was.

Local, he still had huge fans like Red Skelton and Jack Betty and all these people watching him.

So it was the perfect place for him to be in develop when he got his big, big break when he substituted for Red Skelton when Skelton injured and got a concussion, and Skelton is he's being carried off in the ambulance that there's only one man who can take my place.

And they had like two hours and it was Johnny, and Johnny was he was ready.

I mean, he had been performing since he was fourteen, and he did it effortlessly and that was his big break.

You know, I love the fact too that.

Yeah, even before he became a broadcaster, he was an amateur musician and not a professional musician or magician at a young age.

He's also a great musician, but brilliant all the slight of hand stuff, the great CARSONI that's really cool.

Yeah, he loved the magic.

When he turns seventeen, he graduated high school and he hitchhiked to Los Angeles and the Yeah, he would go and watch He watched orson Wells do magic tricks, and yeah, he snuck into the USO shows he did.

He listed in the Navy but wasn't fully in the Navy, so yeah, he snuck in.

He got a uniform a fit that wasn't supposed to do that, and he got in trouble and got arrested.

But it was definitely very impactful to go at to Los Angeles.

He went to Jack Benny's home.

He got like a star map and waited for Benny to come out, who didn't.

But yeah, the magic was definitely.

I think the catalyst started when he was like thirteen or fourteen.

I was watching last night a couple of clips and I caught him doing the card tricks with Angie Dickinson that one episode and doing the fan and the big wave you know kind of shuffle and everything.

It's uh yeah, he and also it was very adorable when he had the little kid, the Spelling Beat kid, and he popped the quarter out of the kids.

Here the kid was freaking out.

Which is that really was?

That's one of my favorite clips, I think because I really shows Carson's talent in terms of how quick he was and how good he was.

That there's certain hosts that are okay talking to actors, there's certain hosts that are better talking to regular people.

He could talk to anybody and make them feel comfortable, make them look good, and bring the best out of people.

But that clip that you're mentioning is one of my favorites, the Spelling Beat Trip Champion.

Yeah, you know.

Later, I want to talk about where late night is, and of course your podcast, your current podcast late Night.

Yeah sure, yeah, it's inside late Night on Late Night or we talked to people from all over the different late night shows past and present.

You're doing a hell of a job, man, and you're a really a great interviewer.

Now you know what you're doing, man, and you make it very conversational.

Clearly, the people relax when they talk to you, and you get great.

Stuff back to Carson.

Yeah, I love the New York stuff because again, I have very vague memories of like maybe the final year early early seventies and you know, before he made the jump permanently to LA But I am fascinated by that period because it was a different vibe of guests.

When you say it really wise, I mean you had Broadway because it's New York and they can't really do that in LA as much.

And they had intellectuals like Jimmy Breslin and definitely a lot more authors.

And it was at this small studios, like maybe two hundred and forty people something like that versus four hundred and sixty.

So it was just a more intimate, i'd say, more relaxed show.

But when they would a couple times a year go to Los Angeles during trips, the shows would go off the rails, Like the first time they went out to LA in sixty nineteen sixty four, Johnny had this idea.

He said, we're gonna have champagne for all the guests.

This is gonna be great.

We're gonna treat them really well.

And Marlon Brando was on.

It was a huge coup for some a Brando to be doing the Tonight Show and he back then now they put the most famous guest on first, but back then they would put them on last to make sure the viewers would tune in.

So Brando comes on last and he's been drinking champagne for ninety minutes and it doesn't go well and he has wasted out.

Of his mind.

And back in a couple.

Of years later in nineteen sixty eight, Brando and Johnny were reminiscing and Brando's like, yeah, it was completely gone.

But when they did go out to La it did seem like things like that would happen, that be more drinking, more relaxed, and just complete anarchy.

But the first ten years, as you know, most of that was a race by NBC.

So I really did make it my mission with the book and the podcast to try to come up with as much information as I could and fill in the blanks, talking to somebody like mel Brooks, who was on Johnny's first show October first, nineteen sixty two, what's going on backstage before the show, what's going on during the show, and try to fill those things.

And we did that in the book, So I'm very happy about that.

Again, incredibly extensive, and I love that you're going chronologically and pull from these various anecdotes everybody from the top echelon of entertainment to one of our favorites, the guy who pulled the curtain for Johnny every night.

That's right, Irving Davis.

Yeah, I always wondered.

I remember as a little kid asking my dad who helped the kurtain open for Johnny?

And I just wanted to know what was going on because now I know that they're certain late night hosts like Letterman.

You know, he wouldn't want anyone to talk to him.

He needs silence, and everybody has their different process.

But Johnny would be back there telling jokes, smoking, just hanging out casually before the show.

And then he would just go out in front of you know, millions of people watching him at night and just be so relaxed in control.

And yeah, he was such a master.

Again, You've got so many great, extensive stories about every era of Carson.

Have you really looked at like an athlete?

Would you can you quantify what Carson's prime was?

Would you say his prime years would be.

I'd probably say late sixties through the seventies.

I think, look when the show is ninety minutes and he had the energy to sustain it, I think and hour forty five they started, and that was rough for him, five days a week and he had to fight to get more vacation.

But I think the probably the sevenies hold up, I would say the best.

But he would pace himself like an athlete every show day, Like he wouldn't have lunch with people during a show that he'd be working.

The moment he got up, he'd be focused on the show, but he wouldn't be at the office all day like Jay Leno or Letterman, because he thought that would take up, really use up a lot of his energy.

And he it so fiercely that that's one of the reasons he didn't want to see the guest normally before the show and keep it fresh and during the commercials why he didn't normally talk to the guest.

He was saving his energy.

Some people might look at that as being cold in a loop, but he knew how much energy that that took to do that show.

And I think Gary Shanlin was the one that was saying, nobody knows how exhausting doing that show is it, And I mean it was people.

That have tried that.

We'll call it murder.

I mean it's it's relentless and that's why a lot of famous people that have been offered those shows will not take them.

I mean, it just takes over your life.

Yeah, Neil Patrick Harris, Everyone's like, oh, d you'd be amazing, and he's like, no, thank you, no way.

Yeah, I mean no, it sucks your energy.

You have to be you have to be built for it.

Mark.

I mean, honestly, I had thirty years in broadcasting and just radio, but even just doing a four hour a day show, whether I was playing music or zero straight sports talk, it's a grind.

Yeah, it really is.

And somebody like Joan Rivers was great every five weeks.

But you know, famously she went competed against Johnny opposite him on Fox.

And if miss Rivers would have gone to him and said I have this opportunity, Johnny would have blessed and said you have my blessing.

But he would have warned her that he believed her style would not work every single night and the guest would not be showing up every She was making all these Elizabeth Taylor fat jokes and would make fun of the celebs, and it's like that style just at least back then, he did not think you could do that every night, and he was right.

The ratings just they started out really high and they sunk.

And after ten months, Barry Diller went to her husband, who was the producer, and said, you're fired.

And Joan said, if you fire him, I'm leaving.

And Barry Diller said you're fired.

Joan thought he was bluffing, and then that was it for Joan.

Unfortunately, it's really sad, but I think she was great every five weeks.

But to do what night after night after night is not everyone can do.

That, absolutely.

You know, I'm fascinated by the late night format.

And again, growing up when I did, I saw these successes in failures Thick.

Of the Night, Joan.

I had forgotten until your book about David Brenner briefly having a late night show.

Of course, it in famously Chevy Chase and again we're, oh, yeah, it'll be great.

Oh oh, you're just talking to people.

How does that really?

God?

Damn.

Yeah.

Brenner went back on with Carson very shortly after a show was canceled and said, nobody should ever try to host a late night show.

He's like, it's the hardest thing I've ever done, And Johnny said, it's murder and then Chevy guest hosted once for Johnny Carson in nineteen eighty six and had a really tough time.

A month later, goes on with Johnny Carson and said, I didn't know how hard this was.

It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

No one will ever be the next Johnny Carson.

And I guess mister Chase forgot how hard it was because a few years later, in nineteen ninety three, he takes the gig and I know that they gave him a lot of money, but I mean, oh gosh, they famously only gave him like twenty six episodes or something like that.

Well, and also that first impression matters back to Carson in sixty two, it took a while for Johnny to catch on having to follow Jack Parr and am I right that of all people?

And again, this may be a name that younger people might know, but they're like, you know, maybe we should go with Merv Griffin instead.

And yeah, Murv was kind of a rival back in the early sixties.

He was here's a bigger name.

It's really tough I think for the public to see that the perception of Johnny Carson was a game show host, and once the public sees you with something, it's tough.

There's a lot of times it's an adjustment that has to take place.

And people were used.

To Jock Part eleven thirty being very eleven fifteen being very controversial, wee be and emotional, and Johnny Carson thought the show should just be an entertainment show and no manufacturer controversy of it organically happens, that's fine, and he got criticized for being bland and dull early on, and it just took Carson, I think, a while for the public to realize and it didn't take that long, but there was definitely an adjustment that took place for the people to accept him.

The same thing happened to Conan O'Brien, but that was like almost two years of him really figured in out the show.

But anybody that's new, it's that.

It's really it's it's going to take at least a little bit of time.

Conan and I have the same agent.

Those first couple of years, I didn't like it, and he really had grown, but his his integrity and his sincerity and just and I had the opportunity to meet him when I was covering boxing at Madison Square Garden one night, had a nice conversation with him.

No, he's great and truly the way he handled the whole Leno Tonight's show things documented in Bill Carter's excellent book.

I mean, class, guy, man, just class.

It was so great.

You got to Kennedy hon her before our currency.

It's unbelievable.

Yeah, I was going to the show early on when they couldn't fill this studio.

It was only one hundred and ninety some seeds and they couldn't even fill it.

They tried.

The NBC pages would be out on the street begging people to come to the show, and it was getting I think renewed every thirteen weeks or twelve weeks, and Gary Shanling said no, Dana Carvey Rosie O'donnald, Greg Kennear.

They're trying to give it to anybody, and no one wanted it.

I mean, it was kind of like the same thing, like who's going to replace David Letterman.

This is like nobody can fill these shoes.

And Conan persevered and it was really exciting to see him.

You know, Johnny gave him the best advice, which was like you have to leading up to that.

Johnny was honored at the Plaza Hotel.

They had a luncheon for I think was the communication dinner and luncheon rather, And he told Conan, he said, the only way it's gonna work is if you're yourself and you tell the truth.

And you know, the media made Carson out to be this guy that they say cold and a lou of no friends.

But everybody that I consistently talked to him, I've said this in some interviews.

The people that knew him the best told me that he was almost the same person on and off camera.

The people but these are the people that knew him very well for years, and he felt comfort.

It was a small circle of people.

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

I mean, definitely, Carson had was a shy person, so when he's not doing the show, and just for self preservation, he couldn't have that energy all the time, just go to waste.

And you know, people were trying to get to him.

You had threats in his life, so he had to be careful with that and stuff.

But I really do believe that he was that was him out there.

I mean one of his wives said that a bunch of people that were friends with him maybe a little less gregarious, but he was himself and there's no other way that would have worked without it.

Well, and also there's that.

Expectation from the audience that, well, he's in my bedroom or living room every night.

So if there's almost a subconscious like, well, Johnny knows me.

I see him every night and he knew him.

And again, to have that kind of pressure as the entertainer I and especially doing it in New York those first ten years when, as you know, everybody's on top of each other in Manhattan.

Yeah, yea.

New York was tricky.

Like it got a little bit better in Los Angeles.

But when he would go out to a restaurant in New York, people would sit down at this table like they uninvited.

People were constantly sending drinks over to him, and he felt like he had to take a sip and say thank you for that.

But people would grab him by the arm and you know they felt like, oh, come here, meet my husband, meet my wife, and yeah, you're right, they're going to bed with this guy.

They feel like, this is our friend, we know him, and Johnny just couldn't get any peace.

So when he's in Los Angeles, he's it's a lot easier.

He's driving around.

It's a little bit they I think famous people maybe are left alone a little bit more out there possibly, but yeah, it was definitely.

The security thing was tough even at NBC people back then, the security.

It's amazing to hear the stories back in the sixties and early seventies, like people would just get by like they it seems like they would let anybody buy and people would just be Carson would just be up on in the studio floor outside the studio when Dick Cavitt remembers having to like shoe people away, tourists that just got past security that were just hanging out.

So Johnny, it was hard for Carson to get any piece.

You know, Cavot is such an interesting guy that you've had a pleasure of interviewing, and he's in the book, he's in your podcast interviews, and really had a perception.

It's funny you say that because Caviot, of course, getting his big break was him walking into NBC unannounced.

That that's right.

I've got something for Jack Parr and then he became a Jack bar writer because he wrote up good jokes.

Yeah, it's unbelievable.

And then nineteen sixty four he wrote for Carson for about two years and yeah, I'm really glad.

I was like Dick Cavot, I heard from his wife Martha really like the book, and I was, that's great, just to kind of show there's a really touching thing when stan Laurel passed away the day that stan Laurel and Cavot had not known Laurel and Johnny had been on the phone with stan Laurel a couple of times in the hospital and a Cavot remembers just going into Johnny's office to drop off jokes and Johnny had tears in his eyes and he's like, you've heard and they kind of bonded over that.

But Cavot was just really super just to hear that story.

I mean, Cavit's told it before.

But when Kaviak was like twelve years old being in Nebraska going to the Magic show and it's the local Johnny Carson, this is the guy that's on the radio and getting to meet Carson from that young age and Carson then during the show introducing the twelve year old Cavet and his two magician friends in the audience, and Cavotte and his diary writing, this was the greatest day of my life.

I met Johnny Carson.

And I love when Cabot or when Carson would tease Cavot because he had his start and stops over his great talk show career himself.

Yeah, and that great line of well I got I guess it's Armed Forces radio for you, now, Richard, Isn't that right?

You know that look?

You know, yeah, he did know.

There's definitely something paternal, something of uncular about it.

And yeah, Cavot was just a really good recall and was always wonderful on the show.

One of the big traits that I had I got to do and I know you're going to be talking with him sometime soon, is Dan Pasternak.

And for my one hundredth episode, I think it was the one hundredth episode of the Carson podcast, we had Dick havevit back, and after we were taping, we were showing him kenniscopes of when he was on with Carson in like nineteen sixty five, sixty six, and Kavit just was like, couldn't believe it.

I showed him guest hosting for Johnny and Cavot.

I think he called his assistant it's like, cancel everything for the rest of the night and just stayed with us for hours.

But it was just to watch his face watching these old clips that we were able to find was unbelievable.

You know, the archive is really interesting, and JEFF'SASIG is I know, the head of if it's so called Carson Productions and stuff, and I know too from a broadcast standpoint, you can get access, but it is and it's a shame that whatever does survive, is it more available to the public.

Have you talked to Jeff about that at all?

I love Jeff has been really nice to me and he's helped me.

The thing with Carson Entertainment Group, it's really really hard to license to do all the clearance is necessary to broadcast some of the clips.

The first thing that you'll notice on Antenna TV or some of the others when they do the episodes is the first thing they go over the musical guest.

You're not going to see that.

It's the most expensive residuals.

And unfortunately they have decided that they can't do that.

So I know that in the last like six months or seven months, I believe that they cleared one hundred more shows to show, so I I mean, I've asked Jeff why they can't do anything with the guest host collection, because, like, to me, that's one of the most fascinating things because you have everyone from Kirk Douglas to Orson Wells, to Arnold Palmer to Joe Namath guest host in the show.

Yeah for christ Yeah Live Man or you know, at Home.

But that was where Peter less Sally's idea.

Peter les Sally said, I want Kermit, and NBC thought it would be too complicated, and Peter really championed it.

And yeah, it was one of those things when people tuned in, it could be Diana Ross guest hosting The Tonight Show or Roy Clark.

But it was really fun for I think America just to tune in and see who that would be.

I mean, they always wanted Johnny, but it was definitely interesting the number of people that you would not be expecting.

You wouldn't expect like a Lord and Green from Bonanza to host the Tonight Show.

So I don't remember that I do remember a couple of good Steve Martin hosting moments, which was really cool to see.

Yes again, maybe not five days a week forever, but you know, to pop in and actually be as effective as he was.

I was pretty impressed.

Yeah, I know, he was phenomenal.

Some people really could do it.

There were other comedians like Charles Nelson Riley that had a really tough time with it.

But then there were people like the best.

I think the probably some of the best, but like McLean, Stevenson, Richard Dawson was really good at it.

Yeah, it was definitely a skill set that not everyone could do.

Cosby was hit and miss, and I remember a couple of bomb nuts.

I remember one night and Mark again, I'm so glad that you're, you know, researching the guests because it is interesting in contrast, and we get a sense of it in the book as well.

I remember one night where Cosby's monologue really bombed and he said, no, they're gonna flash the employe, and I don't want you to applaud.

Let's go right to a commercial.

And literally his last words were, let's show that something wrong happened, and they faded out and went into the commercial, and I have that kind.

Of Cosby was really tough because Peter less Atte told me that you never knew with Cosby because he didn't put do any preparation or very little.

He was either brilliant or he bombed, and you never know what it was gonna be.

So I mean, if he was doing that when he was guest hosting, if he didn't do well, maybe sometimes it only made Johnny look good.

But there were like six or seven years where Johnny didn't put Cosby on just because he wouldn't prepare, and you never knew what you were gonna get.

But what's Cosby kind of like became the face of the network.

They started putting him on.

But even Cosby's final appearance on Carson, I think that was like, yeah, it was the last one.

That would have been probably May or April of ninety two.

Johnny had asked Bill Cosby to do his Noah routine stand up and Cosby does maybe ten or fifteen seconds of it something like that, and it's like I forget the rest, and Johnny's like, you could have prepared and again, wow, does not prepare so very little prep So yeah, you could tell Carson wasn't happy about that, but it's you know at that point, I mean Cosby was h yeah, the face of the network and was kind of royal TV royalty.

So one of the tragedies of that you cover in your book is Freddy Prince, Freddy Prince Senior, who was a great comic.

I had the album and everything, and you'll forgive me, but Tony Orlando came to our sports station and we had we had the album of Looking Good his stand Ubu because it was recorded in Chicago.

Actually it was got in Columbia and he's like, can I have this?

And we gave it to him and he was so filled and he told us about that night that he hosted the Tonight Show and you know he and he's like, you know, he was like ten years old.

He was like an older brother to Prince, the way Carson was the cabinet.

And he's like, hey man, you know you're twenty or whatever, nineteen and he's like can you handle He's like, I got this, don't worry about it, and I you know, to as a safety.

Bob Hope was one of the guests along with Tony, and I guess at one point this is Tony's.

Story, but he's like, how old is this kid?

And he's like nineteen.

He's like, god, damn, this is a talented kid.

So you get did you ever talk to Tony about it?

I met him once, but I never got to talk to him about it.

I would have loved it.

Yeah, the whole Freddy Prince thing.

I thought it was important in the book to kind of put things that people believe that we're just not true.

Like Freddy Prince's rise was unbelievable, but he did not get a sitcom overnight and NBC did not even want him.

So he goes on.

He went on the Jack Pars Sunday Show, did very well.

Yet he sent that tape into Carson's talent coordinator and then a few months later, Freddy Prince made his debut on Carson and it was like a week or two later.

It was the producer of Chico and the man had heard of Freddy Prince.

Yeah, I saw the video tapings, like, oh my goodness, this guy is amazing.

Let's audition him.

And then NBC didn't want him.

I mean he was completely untested, he was new, and he really thought for him, and everything did happen quickly, within six months, Chico and the Man premieres and it's the number one show or like in the top three, So it happened very quickly.

But the whole thing where people are like overnight, it just it's simply it's a good story for.

People to think that and to say it.

But I want to kind of debunk that type of thing because it really that did not happen.

True.

But as far as comedians going on the Tonight's show, as you well document from dozens, if not hundreds, that it really was life changing.

And again we got to remember it was three channel or five channel world that even you and I grew up in, you know, it.

Was there were only fifteen people to my knowledge that were called over in thirty years to the Couch.

So yeah, I mean there were definitely people that were not called over, like Roseanne that got it comes.

I mean, I look at nineteen ninety one, it was Carson's last year and it was within like three weeks it was an unknown Drew, Carrie, Ray Romano, and George Lopez, and they all wound up with their own sitcoms.

So it was one of those things you never knew.

I mean, Seinfeld I don't think it was called over for five four or five times.

It took him a while to get called over.

I just would keep doing stand ups, so you just never knew.

I mean, there are people that I talked with the Tonight Show to this day that still believed the only reason Freddy Prince was called over is because Sammy Davis was laughing so loud and the audience saw Sammy laughing and they ended up kind of like infectious laughter.

But I thought Freddy Prince was great, and I mean his debut was as strong as his anybody's.

I think, well, again, your extensive research for not having been able to because you were too young to go see Carson Burbank, dude, and I'm forty three years ago.

How you doing?

Everybody?

You know, I was seventeen times older eighteen, and I saw the show.

I told you, and uh and and and you mentioned Sipho.

That's the reason why I bring it up.

I kind of think his segment might have been taped and he wasn't actually physically there because it was Victoria Principal and Charles Groden, and I think Roden, in his usual fantastic way on the couch, would just improve that wonderful animosity towards Carson, which was and he carried on to with Letterman and others and stuff.

But yeah, but you know again, but it was great to watch everything that happened, and like you said, the fact that no, if anything, Johnny was smoking between the second and stuff and not talking to the the other people and stuff and that and that canned open that McMahon would perform.

And again I saw live ball was new to me, you know whatever, But just every and then Doc would do a cool the band would do this great jazz piece and stuff.

It was.

It was so great.

I'm really better that I got to experience.

Oh, it's unbelievable now, the power of that show and just to be there alive and McMahon.

Ed.

McMahon basically did the same type of warm up for thirty years and it worked.

Jeff Sutteg said it was so bad, it was good, and yeah, people were really excited for d to be there, and Ed at least like the last bunches of years, would always say in the warm up when Johnny was going to be there that night, and he's like, and I.

Have good news for you.

The person whose name appears that appears in the title of the show, is actually going to host his own show.

Johnny would kind of roll his eyes back, but he knew that you know that he was.

It was kind of true at that point three days a week.

Yeah.

Well, also that relationship is fascinating and how I think it was closer in New York than it was in LA And I mean, and of course your your book is great because there really is warts and all.

I mean, you really do talk about Johnny's demons.

He had a drinking issue.

He's smoking.

Obviously in a fasima cost him his life.

But that guy ed was around a lot of times in New York when it was one drink too many and did save.

The thing that I did feel good about.

With a lot of the things that I did bring up that maybe are not pleasant with Carson is he would talk about this on the Tonight Show as his struggles.

So it wasn't a secret like he would talk about that he was not a good drinker, that he would instead of being like some people when they drink at very loving he would Carson said he would want to fight everybody.

He said it was just one more to drink, one more drink than I should have had, and he said he turned him into Attila the haun.

He talked about his problems with being overly competitive, and he would talk about about Ed, you know, like saving him a couple of times back in New York just to make sure that he would get home.

But yeah, McMahon was they needed each other.

They were so good together in their chemistry.

I mean, there were a couple of times McMahon overstepped his bounds and got reprimanded, but for the most part, if they started out as as really close friends, I know that like Johnny took the train from New York down to Pennsylvania with Ed a couple times when he was have a marital problems, but by the time they got to New York, I think that the relationship would run its course.

So they'd get together for anniversaries, usually the anniversary.

Of who Do You Trust?

And maybe birthday, so they get together a couple of times a year, but they had different social surtfis.

I think like Ed would have really liked to have been closer to Johnny, but you know, it's what it is.

And Ed before every episode would go into Johnny's dressing in for a minute or two and they would chat.

So they had a relationship.

It just it kind of became something a little bit different over.

Yeah, a little more distant or whatever is as year's went well, and you know, Johnny, because of his wives, apparently found himself in a strata of celebrity that he kind of leapt.

And I mean the wives are fascinating, all of them.

Yeah, I want to ask about Jody, the first wife.

I did you ever have an opportunity or had she passed before you started doing your stuff?

To my knowledge, she's still alive.

I've never seen it a bit.

I was doing research online and to my knowledge, he's still around.

You'd be ninety nine or one hundred.

I never talked to her.

I talked to wife number two briefly on the phone, talked to WAFE three and we emailed back and forth.

But yeah, the wives were very interesting.

I mean wife number two, especially Joanne, was the architect of the tonight show.

I mean Johnny turned it down.

She's the one that told him you were going to do this, that gave him the confidence to do it.

She's the one that.

Brought in Fred de Cordova.

I mean she was firing and hiring people.

Peterle Sally told me nobody knew how powerful Joanne was behind the scenes.

Johnny had no idea.

I mean, Joanne's the one that contacted NBC without Johnny's knowledge and said, come to the Friars Roast of Gary mar Moore, my husband Johnny is going to be performing, and set the whole thing in motion.

I mean she was really dynamic.

I mean she was a cheerleader.

She was in the front row for months when Johnny was started at the Tonight Show.

She was the one also that said when he was getting all this big money offers to play Vegas, he was too nervous to do it and he didn't have an act, and She's like, we're going to do this together.

In nineteen sixty four, they worked on the act together and it broke Judy Garland's attendance record.

I mean it was like it was unbelievable.

But I don't think Joanne personally gets enough credit for the Tonight Show.

I don't think.

I don't think there's any way it would have happened without her.

And Joanna wife three well, first of all, and I'm so glad you cover this because I had heard about infidelity.

Joanne was was with another guy and Johnny bust In and and and I mean this crazy story.

Read the book.

You will be amazed at this story.

It's one of the one of the great stories.

But then so just as Joanne was so important at getting him the Tonight Show, it seemed like Joanna was the connection to the Gregory Pecks and and the the Hollywood world of celebrity.

It was definitely more social like Carson.

I can't imagine him ever going to you know, really go into as many parties.

I mean, he was just kind of retreat in the corner and do magic tricks and just it was really tough.

But she was she loved being social.

He was an introvert.

She was more of an extrovert.

She would do a lot of charity work and Carson would have to entertain and do things.

And I think there were good things about that.

Like the one thing that he did love, and it took a little bit of convincing was going over to Europe, and Johnny fell in love with it.

I mean it was he liked it to an extent.

You know, he could walk around anonymous.

People weren't watching the show.

Once he started hosting the Oscars and it went global.

It was a little different, but he loved being able to walk around unbothered and he would be hanging out in France with Roger Moore, He'd be going to parties with Michael Caine in England.

He loved Wimbledon, so he was up and about and he really that became an annual thing, almost annual, and he just loved his tennis.

He left going to the Jazz festival Buddy Rich and niece, so that was definitely Joanna's influence.

And again but I'm.

Glad you mentioned jazz because you know, amateur drummer.

I don't know if you ever drummed professionally, but certainly was incredible.

I remember that sixty Minutes episode we see him, that's right.

I remember seeing him and Buddy Rich screwing around on the Tonight showIn clips and ed O'Shaughnessy is on Tonight Show drummer and everything.

But yeah, and I you know, again we're rocking roll kids, but it was.

You know, it's interesting, I'd forgotten and you document.

I have to say I always was under the assumption that there weren't a lot of top forty performers on The Tonight Show, and there were for a time.

Maybe as I got older, it was less and less describe that for me.

A lot of it was it depended like they were like the Beach Boys, there were top forty people.

A lot of the more hard rock would have been with guest hosts, like a Jimmy Hendrix would have been with a guest host I think Flip Wilson.

It really dependent, Like Johnny really loved the big band stuff, but would he would occasionally he would put just as like a one off, like someone like an Alice Cooper or Zzy Top made their network television debut and.

That was like a big thing for Zzy Top.

It sold like thirty million records.

Johnny hosted that though, when You're saying yes.

And he did it on purpose just for the visual so he could go he could have the beard, the z Eazy Top beer.

So once once in a while they would go that route.

But yeah, for the most part, it was Tony Bennett, Joe Williams.

That was his extent.

I mean, he really did like put in occasionally like somebody like a James Brown or Tina Turner and Ike Turner.

But he definitely believed people are going to bed at eleven thirty.

They don't want really exciting music.

So that's why I talk about it in the book.

Billy Preston gets the standing ovation and people are on their feet for him as he's playing his two songs and anywhere else that would be a coup in there, like we want him back next week.

But Johnny was upset because he's like, the people at home that are trying to go to sleep are now not going to be able to go to sleep.

And Preston was never allowed back on with Johnny.

He was allowed to do with guest hosts, but Johnny firmly believed that you just can't do that.

It is interesting the various celebrities that for whatever reason, I mean, he had his feuds and and some self imposed like the Wayne Newton thing, and again g.

Yeah, yeah, you know.

And it's fascinating the Joan Rivers thing.

My god, you do such a great job.

And I'm fascinated by her trajectory.

And I mean she did rightfully say at least that she did all it all.

The Carson Carson's the one that really pulled her out of obscurity, and just that turn from the Fox years till the end.

And yea, because she had she never let go.

It's tough.

I mean, she would definitely compliment Carson and being the greatest straight man ever in her career.

And I mean she had gone on Jack part and did nothing for her career.

She goes on and I think it was sixty five with Carson, and you know, very quickly, the newspaper column is Walter Winshell.

They're all like the new Carol Brunette, and she's heralded it and was back with Carson within like a week or two, and her life changed, and it was unbelievable.

And Johnny made her the permanent guest host, the first person ever to be the permanent guest host, and she had within a year, she broke broke Frank Sinatra's record with getting paid in Vegas.

Atlantic City was like residency.

She's set a record.

And that's only because she was permanent guest host.

I mean that that visibility, the same thing happened when Leno took over per Minute.

Your money goes up skyrockets with that visibility.

And famously she she got her own show on Fox and didn't tell Johnny Barry Diller told me to my face in New York.

He said, I told Joan, you owe it to Johnny to tell him you were gonna go opposite.

You know, Barry Diller was in a poker game with Johnny and they were friends, and Miss Rivers told Barry Diller and other people, I can't tell Johnny.

They're going to be unforeseen circumstances and her River's own friends that Johnny's gonna be furious with you.

You need to tell him.

And obviously she didn't.

Johnny found out from NBC President Brandon Tartakoff, and that was just devastating.

Carson couldn't even believe that.

But then when Joan tried to take his Johnny's producer Peter le Sally, every talent coordinator, all five were offered double their salary.

Trying to poach the staff.

Johnny just thought that that was just terrible and just never really got over it.

And yeah, what a coup you had.

And the few that have talked to Peter le Sally at length, because that guy even before, as you know, even before Carson Walking Broadcast History with Arthur Godfrey, the same with the coort of a Walking Broadcast History with Burns and Allen and Jack Benny.

Yeah, it's really true.

And it's like tough with Peter because him and Joan Rivers, like their families would go on vacation together, and it was just I don't know what miss Rivers was thinking, Like, well, I do know.

What I think she was thinking was that she was trying to be subservient to her husband, Edgar Rosenberg, who wanted to be a big time producer, and I think he was that he was just not good for her for many reasons that the friends have said professionally, and I think.

That was a big reason.

Yeah, r And I think that's a big reason.

And what a pall over, not only obviously Joan, to poor Melissa as well.

It's unbelievable.

And then Miss Rivers found out she was in millions in debt, and just the fact that she was able to reinvent herself and be that resilient, unbelievable comedy icon for sure, But the way that she would tell the story about Johnny is just ridiculous.

Though in my opinion, she would just say, you know, I didn't do it.

I couldn't tell Johnny.

You could have told Johnny, And then she said like the first call I made was to Johnny, but yet after he found out, you knew we found out.

So yeah, there was a lot more to it, and she doesn't like to talk about the fact.

She did admit that she did try to take Peter less aally, but she didn't like to to kind of talk about that part.

She left that part out that she tried to take the staff out with with her.

It's been interesting hearing people talk to Leno as well.

And I loved Leno's strategy.

I guess when you know there were other candidates potentially to be the permanent guest host and Brillstein tell the story about how Brilstein's clients and the economics.

Jay talked to me for fifteen minutes.

I don't think he wanted to.

He said he was going to talk to me for the podcast.

He ghosted me.

We talked on the phone.

He's like, tell me about this, and he's like, when are you gonna be in Los Angeles?

And then he ghosted me.

Rick Ludwin, vice president of NBC, said, Jay probably knows that you know too much and does not want your questions.

So I sent him an email when I did this book, and I said listen.

Jim McCaulay, tailand booker for The Tonight Show for the comedians, he wrote this story that you yelled at him.

If you want to give me your version, here's my phone number.

Within an hour, Jay Leno was on the phone with Mark Malca.

He calls me and he gave me fifteen minutes.

And I really really do appreciate it.

But yeah, I mean I asked him a lot some tough questions.

I thought he was fair, and when he wasn't, I kind of like gently kind of put what I thought was the truth.

But yeah, he was telling me, and it makes sense.

Johnny had ownership of The Tonight Show from nineteen eighty I think nineteen eighty on was coming out of his paycheck and you know the brillstink big clients you had people, Yeah, like Gary Shanling was one of them, and he did a bunch and Bernie told Jay, I can get you whatever, twenty thousand a week or something like that, and Jay was, do you do it for scale?

I think he did it for five hundred and twelve dollars per show, because if you do that for Scale number one, you're gonna get the gig number two your money in Vegas and all around the country is going to skyrocket.

And Jay just played the long term game.

I mean, Helen Kushnik's manager.

They were just really smart.

And not only did they do that in terms of laying the foundation for them for Jay to get the Tonight show, but she was having to go to all the NBC affiliates and be politicking around where Dave Letterman thought, you know, if you do a good job, they're gonna get just give me the show.

It's okay that I make fun of the NBC execs and call them pinheads.

I can make fun of Ge And he.

Really thought that they were going to still give them the show just out of merit, and that was not the case at all, unfortunately.

I mean, Johnny would have preferred Dave but had zero say, and it wouldn't make sense that NBC would want somebody a lot easier to deal with, and that's what happened.

Well, and again, just like people should I love Johnny Carson and get the Carson story right next to it on their bookshelf, should be the Lake Shift that Bill Carter wrote, Oh really documenting all that, and man, I want to talk to you about that great panel that you did with Bill and John from the Late Night Channel about the future of snreay night before before we wrap up, But you know, mentioning Letterman, I'm fascinated that.

And again we don't know because we don't get to see the kinescopes.

But back in the sixties, Johnny was running around doing out of studio sketches at the same level that Dave was, wouldn't you say he.

Was like on the Friday before he took over on October first, nineteen sixty two, that Monday, he was at the yank Yankee Stadium throwing pitches to Mickey Mantle and Roger Morris.

And then a couple of years later he's with the New York Jets and he's playing at the Polo Grounds.

He was skydiving, he was hot air balloon and he was all over the place.

He was at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Mario Andretti and Parnelli Joe go in hundreds of my I don't know how like over one hundred miles an hour.

So yeah, Johnny was.

It was definitely a different type of show.

And then Craig Tennis, who was one of the talent cornators would get Johnny to do all these stunts that no other host would do.

You would see it in Burbank some of the tape near the early of Burbank where he would Johnny would fall like twenty or thirty feet onto a mat or something like oh thing like yeah, yeah, So it was definitely one of those things where Johnny back in the day, Yeah, was active like that.

And like Johnny was.

Like the first one when he confronted Don Rickles about the broken cigarette box for him to interrupt a live broadcast.

To my knowledge, I don't think that had ever been done it late night, and Dave Letterman took that Rickles thing and made it a staple.

He would interrupt the news and other things, yeah, which was great fun TV.

But yeah, there were a bunch of things that Dave that Johnny did first, like new products and he did a version john did a version of Jay walk In that Jay ended up doing.

And Johnny was such a polite guy.

He's like, now we're not making fun of these people, you know, just whereas Jay the whole thing, his whole humor was like these people are stupid punchline that.

But Johnny was very over explained, like, we're not making fun of them, but yeah, they He.

Was diplomatic with the common man and really made you feel whether you were sitting on the couch or in stump the band or whatever that you he really gave it dan for those you know people.

He respected his audience so much that he would not do something to make somebody look back, Like whenever he had the quote civilians on the people that weren't famous, that had weird hobby hobbies or.

Things that he never made fun of them.

Exactly, he never made fun of them.

When merv Griffin made fun of tiny Tim, the audience turned on him, like you can't Johnny wouldn't make wouldn't make fun of them.

He respected the audience who respected his guests.

He wouldn't even have like somebody like like Paul Rubens, Pee Wee Herman or Gilbert Godfrey.

He wouldn't have on somebody that was in character if the audience couldn't tell if they were in character or not, Like it's somebody like super Dave Osborne, Bob Einstein was so obvious.

That was fine.

For Carson, someone like Father Guido's Ardugi Donavello, that was okay.

It was so obvious that this is a bit.

But if it was, the lines were kind of blurred.

Carson just was like, I can't.

I don't want to do that to my audience.

Like Andy Kaufman, he did put on three times, but it was it was after the audience is kind of knew that this was a guy that was doing a bit.

So but if there was any any question about it, he Carson, I was like, I respect my audience.

I'm not going to do that to them, all right.

I gotta take a quick tangent in modern days.

Yeah, because this is what drives me nuts about Larry the cable guy.

And again, everyone has their fans, that's fine, but the guy that drives me nuts as a late night host that I don't know if you're aware of that wrestling turn k fabe.

Oh, I know very well.

Yeah, for the audience, and.

I'm assuming most of my audiences.

But in case you don't, that's when the wrestlers in the camera, I'm gonna.

Get you Saturday, I'm gonna rip you a partner.

Of course, it's full theatrics.

Fine, we get that, that's wrestling with RIGI nuts about Greg Gttfeld is he did a New York Times podcast interview recently half k Fabe half regular, and.

It's like, dude, oh wow, can we it'd be.

Nice to just see you normal and not just being a little too.

I mean, he was just swiping at all.

That's interesting political left talk hosts and stuff, and it bummed me out.

And and also it is interesting from a societal standpoint that Gottfeld is having the success he has because truly, you know, you had I guess Less Crane maybe in the in the sixties.

I'm trying to think of and more like Downy Junior other people like that, but they weren't really George Pye shows.

Joe Pine had a boy that.

Yes, yes, yes, you know Gutfeld does better in the numbers, but in terms of profitability, in terms of making money at the metrics, it that's how it works anymore, in terms of his audience is much older and just the money is not coming in to think, so yeah, I think like I think the other shows are probably making even though Colbert's show is going away.

I believe that the Nielsen's definitely they placed some into it and stuff.

But Gottfeld has been very successful with his audience.

I truly just have been busy for four years and haven't watched much of anything.

That's that's really interesting.

That he is like the k fa thing, because I I used to go when I was a kid to wrestling, and this k Fabe was still very very much there, and I love that whole theatric stuff, and that doesn't really exist anywhere anymore.

I mean, but that was the ultimate theater was And I couldn't tell if someone like Jack Parr, if that was k Fabe, if he that was a character with the whole weeping in controversy.

But people that I talked to that knew him, that he was exactly like that, and that was one of the reasons that he had to quit his He just for his health.

He couldn't take putting himself through that much pressure, and that he would manufacture controversy a little bit like professional wrestling here and there.

But that person was Jack, and I just wasn't really sure completely if that was him or not.

I thought that was interesting.

Did you do you think his like feud, his real famous feud was him in Sullivan and they really went back and forth, and I wonder, I mean, cause it's it did seem genuine.

I don't know, man, I think that.

There was a little bit, but I think Parr was a master at ratings and manipulating that stuff.

Like I I mean.

I think the highest rated shows I could be off or maybe when after the water closet joke I think.

And referred to it as a water closet the second wit, well, the sensor is like, no, we can't allow that, and he's like, if I can't say something is innocent as that?

Goodbye?

And he was gone for like a month or whatever was.

And then he returns and he says as I was saying.

And that episode I think maybe when he went to cubea with with with Fantrastro and yeah, and they were and he was supposed to be doing a live debate with Ed Sullivan that Knight who did not show up because they couldn't agree on the debate rules.

But that those were I think the three highest rated pars.

But that whole, like the whole feuds and stuff, to me, it really does seem like Parr was just a master manipulator.

With with with with that, with some of some of that, I.

Mean, he had everyone from like like like Jimmy hoffa suit part at one point, I I think, I don't think par probably mind it very much.

And just like Johnny and his last year when mister Blackwell sued him, because Johnny did some joke with that about about mister Blackwell calling mother Teresa like her fashion, like a nun, no no or something, and Johnny was delighted.

And obviously this that suit was thrown out, but Johnny delighted and talking about it, and that Blackwell would even think that he could do litigation and win.

So you document his final days so well, not only final days on the air, but all the years afterwards.

I mean he lived another over ten years, was like thirteen.

Fifteen years, It was like thirteen years something like that.

Yeah, yeah, I thought so.

I mean again, I was a sporting news radio when we got the word that he had passed, and we were all upset.

Again he was one of our idols, absolutely, but I love I didn't know.

We didn't mention Alex his fourth wife.

And granted, like you said, I guess the European trips or world trips started earlier than that.

But my god, him going to Russia and him going to him going to Africa with Jim Fowler, the Wildlife Guy, which that was so cool to hear that, like beyond the show where they clearly had chemistry, that they were friends that way.

And it wasn't enough for Johnny to go to Russia.

He has to have somebody come to his home for four months and teach him Russian.

And so he has somebody from Brext, this guy who was probably like, I can't believe I'm going to Johnny's Carson's home in Malibu and teaching him Russian.

So Johnny could go and he learned Swahili where he could communicate with the Africans and they couldn't believed that an American really took the time and they respected it.

Johnny was just super curious like that, Like he was taking Spanish lessons in Vegas in between shows.

And just really really curious.

But yeah, Jim Faller told me that the Africa changed Johnny.

He just fell in love with that place.

And I, you know, I really kind of thought, until I started doing the podcast and doing more research, that the media kind of made Johnny out to be a recluse in retirement and it wasn't true.

He was out with his writers having lunches, he was at the office with friends.

He definitely liked his alone time.

He was an introvert.

I'm an introvert.

I like my alone time, but I still around people all the time, and Johnny was so I think that the whole battle recluse, like he didn't need the spotlight.

In terms of.

Him going back to television, I think he definitely missed the monologue.

But he retires from the Tonight Show at May twenty second, ninety two, and for two solid years he's on The Simpsons.

The American Teacher Awards, Bob Hope's ninetieth birthday Kennedy Center Honors, he gets the Presidential Medal of Honor from George Herbert Walker Bush and then goes on stage in May of ninety four his last appearance, which was Dave Letterman at Television City, and he makes that cameo the Top ten List.

Yeah, and then Johnny's done.

And it was one of those things always waiting for him to come back and do something, but he he just did not want to be Bob Hope or somebody that he thought stuck around too long.

Johnny at this point had quit smoking and he had gained a little weight, and I think he just his appearance.

There were a bunch of factors, but he's he would take the pitches and consider coming back, but he's like, you know what I've done.

I did it.

Let the work speak for itself.

It's interesting.

And also I had no idea how many different shows that he executive produced beyond you know, Letterman the World, the NBC Days, Carson on The Letterman Show as well.

But I mean that Lonnie Anderson was Lonnie.

And Linda Cartner.

Yeah, yeah, partner, that's right.

And he was great personal story that when poor Anderson and everything faced some personal tragedy that Johnny stepped in.

It was like that with so many people I talk to Lannie Anderson, Yeah, told me not only like when she found out that her mom was dying, that Johnny is like, here's my plane and was flying her to San Francisco to La on the weekends.

It was when Burt Reynolds, when so many of his friends abandoned him when there were rumors that he had aids in the late eighties, and Lana Anderson said Johnny was always there for him during in that time when a lot of people weren't and when they adopted their son, Quintin some quentin that Johnny was there, and the people that I talked to that knew Johnny the most told me the most important quality that Johnny demanded.

But he would give his loyalty.

And if he was loyal to you, people would say that he would do anything for you.

Well.

And also again, he really couldn't have a normal non TV life because he was so in audience's minds.

So that's why I absolutely respected the fact that he would just be very selective.

And it's good to hear that he was going out and wasn't you know Jadie Salinger on the on the House on the Hill and everything, and just you know where Charles Foster came at the end.

Yeah, No, he kept in touch with people from Nebraska.

He kept in touch with his old radio and TV friends, and yeah, it was just out and about.

He still was playing in his poker games up until I think like the last year of his life, writing jokes for Dave Letterman the last like eight months or so of his life, and yeah, being delighted when Dave would do his jokes, and Dave sometimes would do like the golf swing and inside joke.

Everybody at home would have no idea what's going on?

But uh, yeah, it was really I thought.

I felt I really did want to chronicle Johnny's retirement in the last days because there was just a really lot of questions on like on what exactly happened, and I pieced that together the best I could.

Alex wouldn't talk to you.

We we went back and forth a little bit on an email.

She was very very cordial and very nice, but no, that wasn't gonna happen, and I figured it wouldn't happen.

But yeah, she was helpful, like in certain things, Like I think the biggest thing that she was helpful is I think I'm the first person ever in the history of the media to spell her name last name right.

It's mss Mass.

It's not m Aas that everybody in the media calls.

I emailed Alex, and I'm like, my publisher's giving me a hard time because they're saying everyone else from like all the newspapers spell your spelled the name m a as And I'm like, Alex, I did so much research and I'm aulmost positive that it's mass Mass And she's like, laugh out loud, you're right, I guess her And Johnny thought it was hilarious that for thirty or forty years that the media just would get that thing wrong.

But I was happy that I was at least able to get that clarification.

But I hope she's happy.

I've never met her in person, but yeah, I was.

It was nice just to be cordial with her on some email exchanges.

Yeah.

I mean again, I really I don't know if she'll ever reveal.

I have a feeling she won't.

I think she really.

Probably not privacy and therefore I think it I think.

It was probably it was tough initially when she found out that they were going to do the PBS American Masters.

Uh, and then she saw it and loved it, and I think she changed her mind.

I had heard Peter Jones did such an amazing job with that.

But yeah, definitely the privacy gene, I mean, just the fact Johnny always didn't want a funerally he I mean, it was in his will.

I think up until from like the sixties or seventies, he was.

Going to be cremated.

They had they had a memorial for the close family on a boat spreading the ashes.

That was after he died, but nothing in public.

But that was very much like Johnny and want to go out very quiet.

Did you ever encounter the other biographers from Lemur to Yeah Bushkin and the Bill Zemi went in Chicago's very own Yeah.

Well, I did definitely talk to Bill Zema on the phone and we emailed, and he told me his book would never come out.

His friends told me it would never come out.

And then Bill passed away.

And I get that Simon and Schuster wanted a return on their investment because they did pay him.

I'm asking that's what it was.

And they had a gentleman I've never met, who I hear is very nice name.

Mike Thomas.

Finished the book and it got published, but Bill told me it was never going to And I don't know if you would have liked it to be published or not, but I do get that the that Simon and Schuster, yeah, that they wanted to put it out and I did it did very well.

So I talked to him and Bill was great.

Yeah, he was just so many health problems.

And then Lawrence Lamer and I did some phone calls and she was.

Very helpful with the book.

I really do think in terms of Johnny's life in Nebraska especially, I feel like Liembert probably did the best research I've ever seen in terms of that part of Johnny's life.

I think that he did really well on that and some of New York.

I mean, so Lamur was very helpful.

I just you know, from get The one thing I do can think that I think is in my book that he didn't really get is because Johnny was still alive and his friends were too loyal to talk.

So it was hard to get any sense with the Lemur book, even though I'm not going to argue that it wasn't factual about the Johnny that people loved him and he had friends and this warm, generous side of him, like Lima wrote that a little bit with one of his friends from Nebraska.

But overall, when you don't have the people participating given those stories, it's just I feel like there was something that Johnny's true personality, at least from the warm side, the gracious side, just was not represented in that book.

That's just what I've noticed I understand.

I read Leemer's book, I read Bushkin's book.

Zimmy's is on my reading list, and I didn't realize all the controversy of releasing it that you've explained, Man, I'm gonna tell you go ahead if you have a comment on that.

Oh no, I just I have no idea.

Bill was right here.

I try to get him on the Carson podcast.

He was telling people months before he even passed away that he was going to go.

I was the first podcast he was going to do, and then Gilbert Godfrez was the second.

And I had such an awe of Bill and he was wonderful to me.

And I did read.

Somebody gave me Henry Bushkin's book, and I did.

I read it.

There are some things there that factually is just not true.

Yeah, I'm sure.

There's a lot of stuff that is, uh, but I did.

Stuff that there are certain things that just bothered me, Like.

Sure because for example, like Johnny and Bushkin were not had no relationship that I'm aware of.

After nineteen eighty seven or eighty eight, whenever it was, it was pretty much over.

And then Bushkin put makes the claim that Johnny died all alone and it's like, no, his family was present.

Wow.

I feel like he tried to make Johnny out to be like he was all alone and no friends.

I'm like, he died with this his wife was there, his k two kids surviving kids were there and other people he was with family, and he was very much just it seemed to me tried to make it out to be like I was never Johnny's friend, and it's like his wife who passed away said they were absolutely friends, or like at least as close as you could be with friends.

And then Bushkin went on some podcasts and said, you know, Johnny and I were friends, and so I just I just feel like with that book, he was trying to make it out to be like that Johnny didn't have died alone and didn't have friends, and that wasn't the case.

I always his friends.

I mean, it's it's got facts in it, but it is definitely more tabloidy than other biographies of other people.

But yeah, and.

I'm glad I read it.

It is interesting to get you again because you've got the perspective.

Dude, you did so much great reason tried well.

But beyond beyond.

The interviews, I mean, it seems like you know, the library was your best friend, and you really researched all the tried.

To do as much as I tried it as much as possible and put what to my knowledge would actually happened.

The whole Frank Gifford thing is laughable at exactly everybody that.

We can actually supposedly when they busted it like that, maybe Joanne was having the affair with Giffrid, was.

You know, it was Peter Revsen Joanne.

Johnny had suspicion because Joanne had walked in on him on close to New Year's Eve.

Johnny was with somebody from the Tonight Show in a compromising position.

Uh and yeah, so Johnny was worried Joanne.

Joanne had been going on the weekends to get out of New York.

She was feeling sick, and she would go to a race.

She was obsessed with race car driving, so she was going to the race car drives and and Johnny had a suspicion that Joanne was having an affair, and they hired somebody and they they tipped off her, paid off a build a manager and he had a private detective track down this place where they thought this might be where she was hold held up, and they were able to get a key and there was no break in.

They they were able to get the key, they.

Opened it up and it was clear from the people that were there that it was absolutely Peter Revsen, the race car driver that she was having, oh fro having in a relationship with, and she it's very it's very possible that there was a photo of her and Gifford because she did apparently have a relationship with Gifford pre Carson before she met Carson.

She did bake Gifford, so that could have been there, But at that point she was she was it was a serious relationship with Revsen.

The Gifford thinked to me, I'm not even gonna say anything else but that, other than I do not believe that that was a thing, but it definitely got with get more attention, saying Frank Gifford than Peter Revson the airedor Revlon playboy, but apparent heir.

So I don't know, do you mind if we keep going We're almost We're in an hour now?

Yeah?

Sure a kind Mark, thank you, I have brilliant questions.

Sure, let's do it.

Also, the Summi Werblin relationship, by the way, basket bombastic Bushkin, as Carson would refer to him, was Johnny's lawyer and they did palel around.

So I'm sure there is like fun stories, but like Mark just said, there's stories that you can't know are true.

But Sonny Werblin really opened the door in terms of endorsements.

And again as a little kid, we used to get the series catalog.

We saw the Johnny person soup line and everything, and that was a big deal.

Yeah.

Werblin was another Joanne Higher.

They were lived on the same floor at the un Plaza building and Johnny loved going to the Jets games with Joanne and she remembers when the Jets won one of their championships, being in the locker room and name it pouring champagne over Johnny and Johnny being like, that's the first time I've ever seen you waist booze and they they piled around a lot, and yeah, Yeah, Werblin was really good with getting Johnny Moore control of the Tonight Show and was very good with the clothing line was the thing that really did well.

There were a lot of other things that they tried that did not go well, with restaurant franchising and things that just didn't go well, and they at one point, we're gonna be thinking about doing producing movies and just doing some stage and TV.

Johnny was not great at that's you didn't have a lot of interest in it, like Carson Productions was kind of hands off on it.

So but definitely Warblin was was big because at this point the.

Tax Johnny was paying in like for the tax was like ninety being taxed like ninety percent or something ridiculous.

I don't know what it was back then, but because Johnny was like I really was like, I'm gonna be as honest as I can, whereas like some other people would get to somebody an accountant to kind of yeah yeah product war Blin saved Johnny a lot of money and turned him into a corporation where Johnny was paying so much in taxes.

So that did change him a lot.

Warbline and got him into horses for a while.

He was into horse racing for a while and they'd go to the races.

So I didn't know until your book that Carson Productions was behind the big chill they were.

That was the big success.

That and Amen were the two big successes.

The TV show shermany after the Jeffersons.

Sure, I do want to point out there is this I leave a myth that is not true that Johnny didn't put or like to put female comedian stand ups on the show.

The only female comedian, the only comedian that got a development deal with Carson Productions was Maureen Murphy, who was an Australian comedian who went on the show something like twelve times.

She was based in Los Angeles.

But I mean, I talked to so many people women that did stand up on the show.

As Ellen DeGeneres said, back then, there just weren't many women's stand ups period.

Yeah, but yeah there were.

To me, it's hard to name that many names that didn't get to do Carson Show, and I talked to so many of them.

Was there an yeah with him in Elaine Boosler or did.

She Elaine would?

Elaine did not want to talk to me.

She said, you do not want to know what I have to say.

But Helen ready put Elaine Boosler on the Tonight Show's guest host and she did well, and then Johnny put her on, And I'm not going I don't want to get into any specifics other than somebody that knows Elaine very well told me that Elaine was told not to do a joke and she did.

And I watched the videotape and I.

Think I know what the joke was and was told not to do it, and she did and Johnny was furious and never had her on again.

That is according to somebody that knows her that told me, and I did watch, and I'm like, I don't think she would be allowed to do that.

So if somebody did.

That, like Brad Garrett did a joke that Carson thought was inappropriate, you were not gonna do the show anymore with Johnny And uh yeah, miss miss Boosler very talented.

I think she just fit very much with David Letterman and they She did have a great ride over there.

It would have been great if she got more Carson bookings.

But I definitely think doing a joke, if that is true, that she was not supposed to do that.

It was just she never recovered, I guess from that.

But like you know, we.

Already mentioned Roseanne of course, and Degenerous and Reader Rudner.

I remember being on and I thought she was on.

With Carol Leefer, Kathy Ladman, Jan Carrum, Carol Siskin.

Yeah, there are a bunch of of wonderful stand up that were on.

Victoria Jackson said that Saturday Night Live she got SNL through Carson they looked at one of her tapes and that really helped.

So of course we started with for sure, you know.

Sure, I mean if somebody was funny, that was the prerecorlisit.

I mean, the first woman that they called over was Liz Torres in New York.

Was the first female comic called over to the couch.

And if somebody was funny, he was going to put them on, and that that's what it seemed like at least well, and Liz.

Had transitioned by the time I was aware of her in the seventies as a full on actress and I had no idea that she was a stand up.

But again, that was a great revelation from your book.

Yeah, she was at the improvo.

She was great.

I mean, Johnny would have had Bette Midler on all the time.

And she did a lot of.

Appearances the first few years, and then it.

Became hard to get her, and even they tried to get her.

They eventually got her to be the final guest, but even like leading up, they couldn't secure her.

She basically her friends say that she says no to everything, or it's just you have to keep asking and asking and maybe eventually she'll relent, but she didn't even want to sing one for My Baby.

According to Mark Shayman, he had to really talk her into it.

She's like, I can't hit those high notes, and he had to talk her into it, and obviously it was TV history and she won an Emmy.

So you know, you document that those last two shows, the last show with guests like Robin Williams and Ben Midler, the final show where it's just Johnny and clips and ed doc and again, man, the world really did stop for those two shows.

It was really hard.

I remember watching both of those shows knowing that this guy was going to go away.

I remember as a teenager just recognizing the significance of just watching that show from even when I was younger, that this thing was going away, and it was monumentous.

It was really, really tough when Johnny said goodbye and faded to the credits and were like, this is it.

I didn't think.

I ever see that guy, and it was nice.

He made some cameos and we did that Letterman thing two years later.

It was great, and held off that maybe this guy was gonna come back to us, maybe one more time, and it wasn't.

Meant to be.

But yeah, to turn into in terms of TV history, that pull the penultimate show with Bette Midler and Robin Williams.

It was the hardest thing for Carson to to be like, I have to follow this, Like Peter lis Ali and Johnny were like, this should have been the flash show.

We have to do another show.

And a lot of people in the public still believed that was the last show, the one with Bett and Robin.

And the next morning, Johnny had been up since three point thirty am.

He couldn't sleep, he was so wound up from the night before because it said nothing ever that magical and had ever happened to TV.

He's never had anything like that happen the bet moment, and Robin Williams called him that morning in tears, was crying so emotional.

It meant so much to him that he could be on that show.

And then Johnny, you know, just went over to NBC Burbank for that final tape in and with illegal pad and was writing out what he was going to say and wrote he wrote like ninety percent of his opening remarks.

He sat down on a It wasn't a traditional monologue.

There were still jokes, but most of that was him, and yeah it was.

I think the way that he went out was so class.

And then he takes the helicopter for the first time back to Malibu to make sure that he's there to create his staff that are all going to be going to his home for the for the final after party.

But yeah, that's staff.

I mean, oh my goodness, here and there stories and how much Carson meant to them in that show.

That was probably some of my favorite episodes.

Again, these incredible stories, and people don't realize the value of what they call in the Hollywood movie thing, the below the line credits, and they're the ones that really have the amazing stories and again so well documented on both your podcast and Love Johnny Carson your book.

It's excellent.

I appreciate that absolutely.

And shame on me, man, because I should have brought this up earlier.

Your own involvement in Late Night.

You were a writer for Colbert.

I was not.

That's so nice that you say that.

I forgive me.

Correct, correct the record.

The audience coordinator, I was in charge of one hundred and seven people that came to this show.

I had to make sure that they had pulses that they could laugh, and I would talk to.

Them before the show.

I would be the pre warm up to the warm up, and I had no creativity involvement whatsoever.

I've been in TV interviews where people have have credited me as the as a Colbert Red I never wrote for the show.

I was there.

I had a day job at the Dave Letterman's CBS show for eleven months and fifteen days as well.

I was not a writer, but it was great just to be in those spaces and to witness that and to have someone like, you know, Mike Wallace come over to Colbert and I could talk to him about interviewing Johnny Carson with him.

So like somebody like Ted Copple would come over, we could talk about Carson or Dave Letterman, and people were always very very kind with their time to open up and to have those conversations.

Well, you have been creative beyond the Carson podcast and the late night Er channel stuff you do forgive me your specific show is Inside Late Night?

Is that what it is?

Yeah?

Inside Late Night?

It's been fun.

We've talked to a lot of people from Saturday Night Live, Letterman, Conan, just hearing the stories about working behind the scenes, try to get as many kind of like surreal Larry Sanders story type moments that that are kind of unbelievable but true things about Late Night.

So but yeah, it's definitely been fun to get those stories.

And Late Nighter has just done such a good job with Late Night Night current and past, and yeah, it's an honor to be working with them.

Yeah, forgive me John's last name, Canadian guy.

What's what's his last name?

The guy, the main guy.

Do you remember his name?

It's okay if you don't.

Oh starts with us.

Oh, John Schneider, John Schneider, Yes, yes, John Schneider.

And then you have Dan Pasterneck and Jed Rosen's wag.

We did the Carson one hundred that there were the hundred I think we said greatest moments or moments that we.

Thought stuck out.

So that was really fun that we put to the blog.

Yeah, the blog.

Yeah, John's great too.

We're gonna, I think Bill Carter, John Schneider and I are going to be doing another one of those around tables and just kind of like talking about the state of Late night and what's gonna happen and what we foresee.

So we'll say, well, give.

Me your thoughts, man, because again.

Okay, you know, I'm a I'm thirty years in Chicago broadcasting, another five in small markets and stuff.

I'm I'm a broadcast nerd.

And I really am like, what is going to happen now?

Because things have I mean, obviously Colbert is counting down the days and we'll see.

You know, it's great that Fallon re upped, but the fact that it's only a year says a lot to me that I almost wonder if it's.

A let's give him a graceful exit kind of thing.

If you've noticed, Jimmy Fallon and Kimmel both are shows.

I met Kimmel, but okay, yeah, Kimmel and and and Fallon are both hosting other shows in the net or can.

I don't know if that's part of their deal to keep doing their show or what.

But it does seem like the current model is just not It's just doesn't work anymore in terms of every year late that the viewership goes down for network television, the money is just not there.

It seems that for that it's gonna be more like what Byron Allen is doing, which is, you know, he's taping five shows in a day.

He he is, you know a lot of a lot of those shows.

Yeah, a lot of those shows have most I think every one of those shows, maybe not Seth Myers, but most of them have twenty plus writers.

And I think like, if they do those again, you might Carson only had like six or seven at the most.

I think the the number of writers are gonna be scaled down.

I think it's just gonna be more scaled down.

I don't think anything like Letterman or Carson what they were doing is gonna be It's gonna be hard to do something like that long term occasionally, like Netflix did something with John Mulaney where it was once in a while something like that.

But just to sustain something to do one hundred and eighty episodes a year, I think is gonna be that would be tricky economically to figure out how to make that work.

Couldn't agree more man, And honestly, listen, I love Colbert and I and.

I always have it.

I think he's a nice man.

Oh that's great to hear and it seems like that.

And I even used to see him when he was at Second City here, yeah, ago and stuff.

So yeah, I've been a longtime fan that said that Ed Sullivan Theater has got to be ridiculously expensive to maintain.

Yeah, CBS, Yeah, CBS got it for five million, but it was in shambles and they had put so much money to refurbish.

And then when he got it to Steven's credit, and this was something I was very worried about, is that there were a lot of obscured seats for Dave Letterman where the audience they couldn't see, and it definitely affected the audience and their laughter and lack of laughter.

And Colbert was very much like, I want every seat to be uh, you can see, you can see what's going on.

And I think that that was a really smart thing.

So they redid all those seats.

Wow for that, but no, it is I'm sure it's so much to to all everything just to maintain.

And I'm really glad that they did get him.

Yeah, you know, I'm glad that they gave him a bunch of more months and I forget how many months, six seven months left, but it's it never occurred to me that you could be number one and have and get your show taken away.

But like, I just don't really get because some of the other shows, you have to start scaling you back, like we're gonna cut this, like Seth Myers they.

Cut the band.

You think that they would would.

Have done those things with Colbert Show, And to my knowledge, none of that stuff was ever done to like anything sizable.

So well, and I think there's any foreshadow in Like I mean, if you if they take away your band, that's a big signal that you might not be safe.

But well, if you want to come on on this sets.

But I've been saying to friends the suggestion, you know, again in that panel thing you did with John and Bill Carter and when Bill brought up the fact that you know he's gunning for the Cobert job Byron Allen, and it's like what, And it's like, and that's why I'm saying he's safe.

He's got the A list comedians they make, they do that comics unleached or whatever, that which is such an oxy worn of what we actually get.

It's ridiculous.

He's safe.

But that's why, like on the surface, it looks like I mean, really I hate to compare it because I felt bad for him back in the day.

It's like when Pat Sajak was hoping hosting in CBS.

It's like, oh, there's a familiar face and oh he's got guessed, but he doesn't have the magic.

And I think it's death by a thousand cuts that And again you'll forgive my tin hat theory on this, but I almost wonder if CBS would put somebody like that in to drive down the wad etings and be like and and make some financial deal that makes sense.

You go, well, gee, the audience isn't there anymore, so we're not going to do this anymore.

It doesn't now ieah, I don't know.

Byron Elan is such a brilliant business man, and see him.

Figuring out a way to make it work.

And then he does these mix every all these programs ever green, no politics, so you could run these things for years, yeah, in years, and apparently everyone that's that does the show signs something where you get X amount of money and there's no residuals.

So okay, I it.

Seems like he figured out the model.

If you're going to do a scaled back version of it these things, I.

Think he can do it.

I'm even just more saying from the tinat standpoint that I'm yeah, from the network standpoint of because I don't know the value is again in that pre even in the pre cable world, you watch the late night Show and they wanted you to, and then when you turned out your TV when you're having breakfast, it's still the same channel that doesn't exist anymore.

No, everything's changed.

It's what it is, and hopefully some sort of late night show will always exist, made probably on YouTube or something.

But it's just, it's really, it's just it's a shame that these things, the of like the bigger type shows which.

I always thought would be around, might not.

Like I think, if Jimmy Kimmel chooses not to re up, I can't imagine ABC replacing him with the late night Show.

I could be off on that.

So I think him was gonna probably reup just for that fact.

But I could be off.

Well, and I know too, And I don't mean this in any disparaging way, but he really is employing so many of literally his family and friends and they because of his show.

That's great.

I mean, I give him a lot of credit.

It's a it's a really good group of people.

When I've gone over to visit, when I've been in Los Angeles, everyone it's a nice environment and I do like people over there, so I hope that they keep going.

And I think Carter really did a good job of explaining Fallon, because I liked him on SNL just fine.

But I had to admit, as the monologues of the other show's got more and more political, Fallon wasn't doing it.

And Bill, I think rightfully pointed out Fallon's the party show, and Fallon is the safe show where the A listeners that don't want to lose half their audience and step out politically like a Taylor Swift, although she has had her political brief moments, but that they know they're not going to have to go on and say the current administration is X whether they like it or not, and not worry about Stallone and the Kimmel kerfuffle that happened last year, you know.

And and we got back to him and Stone's like, I'm not gonna do Kimmel.

He doesn't, he doesn't respect me now with him, and you know that it's not gonna happen Fallon.

Fallon toustled Trump's hair, for example, and.

Yeah, it's but you know it's fallin.

Yeah, I mean, it's just it's it's a safe show.

I think he, like Johnny, does not do humor at people's expenses normally, not that the other people don't, but yeah, I think he does very safe and people seem safe with him.

So yeah, again tastes for other people, I guess.

But no, you know, honestly, we are self evident of this, both of us doing the podcast we do with interviews.

I can't deny.

It's so funny.

I think.

Didn't cars In himself saying someday everybody's gonna have their own talk show or something.

Wasn't there some quote?

Yeah, there was something like at the end he was talking about the facts, like the figures.

The population when we started.

In nineteen sixty two is like this many people, and then all these different and then statistics and by this year, every half the population will have their own late night talk show.

Something like that.

He would he would have He'd be.

In the poker game with Chevy Chase and be like, Chevy, you really want to do this five nights a week, and very.

Politely warned him how hard it was going to be.

He did the same thing with Roseanne and he's like tried to talk her out of singing the Star Spangled Banner when she was gonna sing it at the Padres game, and he's like, it's the hardest song to sing.

You sure you want to do this?

And she famously did not.

Well, it's not famous because people don't remember the Carson Warner.

She went ahead and did it, and it was like outrage and maybe it was good publicity overall.

But if the President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush calling, I believe, call her disgraceful.

But yeah, Johnny tried to warn her.

Crazy, that's the kind of story you'll find everybody and love Johnny Carson.

I can't urge you enough to buy this book.

It's excellent.

Thank you, And yeah, well you did the work so good.

I tried.

I felt like ot this weight of responsibility to try to get the thing right.

So and also David Ritz, who's your record.

David Ritz is unbelievable.

I was so overwhelmed to write a book that I had all these interviews and I reached out to six authors, four that I did not know and that were very successful, and David was very intrigued.

We didn't know each other, and we just got on the phone.

We had a lot of talks and he's like, let's try this, and we got a book deal.

And David has done books one on one with me, but Don Rickles, Ray, Charles, Willie and Nelson, so he knew all the Wreath of Reckless, so he knew all these people.

So just the fact that I was able.

To work with somebody that's accomplished as a David Ritz was unbelievable.

Did Paul Shaffer's book.

It was one of those things.

I just cold emailed him and I was like six people, and I'm like, this is my last hurrah.

Like if this works, this works.

If it doesn't, there's no book.

And it just happened that David and I headed off.

So well, I hope you're chronicling your late night or interviews that you're doing, because again, like Carter has been able to do through his job, we get a great picture and this whole phenomenon of late night talk, I think, and just late night programming in general.

What do you think of the Brits and the Lord Michael's doing a Saturay night live in England.

I've heard that.

I don't think it's interesting.

Yeah, I know that they have, don't they have an SML version in Korea.

I think maybe I don't know, but I think the thing that I'm most interested in is two things.

If they're gonna make everyone stay up Tuesday night in the middle of the night to write for no reason, they could just write during the day.

If they're going to keep that the crazy production schedule for no reason.

And if it's the if the environment is going to be as high pressure, which I don't know if it has has to be, but it's just the way it is.

It's like, this is how it was in seventy five.

We're just gonna keep it that the people were gonna be nocturnal and stay up all night to write.

So I don't know.

I hope it succeeds and be interesting well.

And also they've had a much longer success sticking with sketch comedy in a way that American television didn't with the exception of Sarah Night Live.

Now that's sketches more over there for sure.

You know.

Yeah, And I and that's why part of me is like, because it's weird.

I've been listening to a lot of the pop culture pundits and I don't think it's gonna work out with you, and I'm like, really, you guys are not necessarily the news.

You guys are all these other great show you know, a Humori and the Stephen Fry and all these great sketch shows over the decades.

The thing, the thing that I feel like they're paying money for is the format.

Lauren Michaels, and I give him so much credit, did not invent invent sketch comedy by any means.

He was responsible for this a brilliant blueprint, which is that you get a rote, you have a group of sketch performers that are unknown for the most part when they start, You have a host and a music guest, and you do update and that's your model.

And that framework has lasted fifty years.

And Lauren is brilliant because he can deal with both the network and the creative.

Most people cannot do both and he just is was born to do this.

So it'll be interesting to see what can happen over there.

But that I think that framework is just like it's it's sustained for decades, and I think if they wanted to keep going, it'll keep I mean, it's constant.

I mean, you just get the new host, new music, stay relevant.

They probably maybe do rely a little bit too much, maybe on like the Surprise walk Ons, but I guess now there's just so much competition and noise and attention that they feel maybe they have to rely on that, maybe a little bit too much here and there.

But I still think that they do a phenomenal job.

They do a great job.

My concern is having eighteen cast members and it's like, man, that's.

To me what it seems like that what they do with a lot of that is almost like that they're in Vegas and they want to play as many hands as possible to see what hits, like which new cast member is going to hit with the public, and they aren't really sure And it seems like that that's why the cast is so big with the new bees, that they'll like, let's see who hits with the public.

And it's tough, Like I mean, I don't understand.

I mean I can understand both.

Like when the original show with seven people, then when Lauren came back in eighty five, it was a small cast at eighty six was I think seven people plus featured player with Kevin Neil and and maybe maybe Spence still was there for just a little bit then he left.

But it's really really is hard to develop as a new person when you have that many people.

But it doesn't it seems like the strategy, and if I had to guess, was weirdre going to put as many new people as possible and see who gets over with the public.

And this is one, Ashley Padilla.

I think that's how you say her name.

Ye, she's the one right now with that question clearly is the I think she's in her second year.

I think it's her second year and she's I'm in breakout star for sure, and I think that that's what they're looking for with going with that many new people.

It seems that way.

That's my guess.

It's very Darwinian though it really is survival of the fittest.

And I feel for the various featured players from the last couple of years, like Punky Johnson and some of the others.

Or they're all really good and nice and they.

Didn't make it.

Did to make the cut, but it's tough.

I was surprised with some of them, you know, I was surprised Hidie Gardner.

You never know with budget reasons are what is going on, But I was very surprised.

It was weird that it was their decision, but at least she got she got any years.

I mean, she she did it, you know.

I just like normally when somebody stays there that long Lord wants them to stay.

And death and Hit was surprised.

So I was surprised about that.

But they're doing a great job.

And the fact that that man's been able to maintain the show for this many years is unbelievable.

And the testament to his eye is on people that he's been able to discover both writers and performers and to be able to handle the network as unbelievable skill set.

I mean, I don't know a lot of people that could do that.

I definitely think if somebody's going to be the success or, Tina Fey does know how to deal with the network from working on on shows, and I think she'd probably be the most logical choice.

She lives in New York.

I think her kids by the time she would take the gig might be out of the house.

Maybe they'll be older, certainly, but I think she probably could do this, that probably could do it.

But I agree, definitely dealing with the network.

Lorne Michaels.

I don't think anybody is better.

Well, he's got decades on them.

So when a junior vice president is going to try and tell him what to do, it's like, yeah, how you doing.

I'm Laura Michaels.

Like just his like the notes in between, like during the dress rehearsal.

I've talked to the writers and it'll be like her a lot of times will not be.

Giving notes about the comedy.

He'll be like, Okay, change the light lighting here, change this costume, like stuff that.

Like nobody else would really notice or think about.

But so the notes a lot of times aren't even with cutting this joke or things like that.

But he his eye.

He is a training and that I think a skill set that I don't think anyone else has.

Are you gonna like try to get Heidi Gardner and some of the other ex cast members that have recently left after they maybe have some time?

Are you thinking on along?

Though I'd love to.

I've tried it, It's just so hard.

As I've told some of my friends recently, it does seem like public figures being asked to do podcasts.

It seems like the new Jury duty a little bit that They're constantly being asked to do podcast and they do the podcasts that are necessary, like they're good friends are the ones that are like the big ones.

But anybody else like me, it's like, for the most.

Part, it's just hurd or it seems like they're just at least from the publicist, like I don't even think they ask them half the time that when they're when they're very big, it just seems like they just turn it down.

But I would love to talk to a Heidi Gardener or anybody.

I've tried to reach out to some.

Of the other people.

But the amount of podcasts they are asked to do, oh, I'm sure I know, is just astronomical.

So when I was doing my podcast, when I started, I didn't explain to people what a podcast was, yes, and it was just it was one of those things you couldn't even record like this.

That's why I was Yes.

At the time, was in people's living rooms and then offices all around Los Angeles and New York.

So the times have changed.

Back then, a famous person having a podcast did not really exist.

I mean it was unheard of.

And now it's like presidents have podcasts.

Well, that's why man, I feel comfortable having done this for twenty years, but every now and then I do get that momentary cringe of man, especially when they make fun in movies and I forget or a television show and it was like a ten year old kid yelling at his grandmother.

Grandma, you probably be on my podcast.

I'm like that, please don't do that.

No, you know, I.

Think people still do a great job.

It's just like there's a lot more noise, and I think that there's probably some people that have podcasts.

Just for the sake of doing it.

But if people do.

A good job, such as yourself, I'm always happy to do it.

I don't put myself in that their shoes at all.

I'm it's always an honored to talk to somebody that's especially a broadcaster.

That's somebody that's that that has that experience and that knows what they're talking about.

So it's always an honor to do something like this with you.

Well, that's very kind, man, And honestly, you're selling yourself short because those eight years for doing.

The Carson packcast we did eight years.

Yeah, that's a lot, man, And truly, and also again before everybody else jumped in, the pool, and I mean we out think about it, Mark, we outlive Skype, for God's sake.

I just didn't believe that.

Yeah, it was.

It was definitely one of those things that time in was good.

Everybody wanted to talk about Johnny Carson, which I didn't realize was gonna happen.

And unfortunately, those four hundred plus people, it seems like forty or fifty of them have left this earth.

So I mean, I feel very fortunate to get the stories from so many of them before they they left us.

Well, these are the reasons why people really need to read Love Johnny Carson.

And also, thank god the archive is still there of the Park Carson podcast.

Oh yeah, it's still there.

Yes, good good man, hey man.

Seriously, we are literally even me and my little nerd heard them.

Of comic books and the stuff I cover.

We are covering twentieth century pop culture, which fantastic, vital and interesting.

And also, Mark, you're on the younger end of it.

I got a couple decades on you.

But that said, I really believe that people from forty to whatever age you're still Internet savvy.

They want this kind of content.

They want to hear their stories.

They want that they love.

I think it's great you're doing this, and I applaud you, and yeah, it's an honor to be back on your show, and I'd love to come back again.

That would be my pleasure, man.

And truly, I'm thrilled that you and John and Bill are gonna have more conversations because I think the evolution of Late night will continue, and as an observer, I would really love your point of view.

So you've been really kind of your time.

Mark.

Thanks so nice.

Into you again.

Take care, We'll talk soon.