JOHNNY CARSON is dead,
and I can't help remember what a wonderful window on the world his show was for a young kid staying up late to peek in on what the adults watched. It turned out that the same things that made grown ups laugh also made kids laugh. Looking back at the old clips what impresses me is the spirit of Carson and his show -- it wasn't just about the funny, it was about enjoying things -- jokes, people, music, animals, talent, whatever. Carson was there to have fun and enjoy himself, with the audience in on the fun. Johnny would have the great entertainers on -- Jimmy Stewart, Dean Martin, Jack Benny, whoever and they were great because they were having fun and Johnny and his audience were eating it up. True enough, Carson was better in the 60's and the 70's than in the 80's and 90's -- the breadth of the show was lost when it moved to a 60 minute format and the quality of the comedy declined in the later years. But none of that matters now. What matters is the fun we had then, watching the show.
You can watch Carson eat a potato chip while his guest -- a potato chip collector -- looks on in stunned disbelief here, part of an AP video.
Posted by Greg Ransom
