If you're not already visiting Mark Evanier's website, now's a good time to see what the man has to offer... because he's been posting some crazy good stuff about the late great Johnny Carson. (Archives begin here and continue on for several days.) What makes his weblog so interesting is that his career in broadcasting/animation/writing has brought him in contact with so many industry greats... and anyone he hasn't met, he's done research on. (He's mentioned alongside some terrific Bob Kane stories in a book about comics I just read, Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones.) So he always has a good story to tell. Particularly about celebs from the classic eras gone by. Unfortunately, these folks are becoming scarcer and scarcer, so he's posting more memorial items than he'd like. To wit: the passing of Carson.
The thing about the rush to lionize Carson posthumously is that he is largely irrelevant to anyone under the age of 30. I don't deny his effect on television, his place in history, or his influence going forward... but he's been away for so long that the modern twentysomethings just aren't going to have the same warm fuzzies about his legacy. That's a shame, but inevitable. When they go old like that, there's always going to be a sizable population that has never heard of them. Jackie Gleason died in 1987, and his database entry in my head is only for a debatably amusing sitcom that inspired the Flintstones.
I watched Carson, because it was you did. It will always be a rite of passage for kids to earn the right to stay up late... and in those days (mid to late '80s for me), the only thing to watch was Carson/Letterman and Saturday Night Live. I learned about program formatting from the Tonight Show - monologue, comedy bit, interview. I learned about razzing the sidekick, the band playing you to the desk, smoothly getting to the plug, saving the comedy bit that goes flat, talking to the studio audience... all talk show standards that I first experienced under Johnny Carson's guidance. The Tonight Show was comfortable, reassuring. Eventually I came to see Carson as the "old guard," the comic for the previous generation. By the end he was mainly a speed bump on the way to Letterman.
But when he left, it felt like he was abandoning my age group. We were just coming of age to stay up late and see the Tonight Show, and now the guy was bailing. And instead of bringing in the rightful heir to Johnny's throne, we got that guy from the Improv. The whole Carson vs. Leno vs. Letterman thing left an ugly taste in my mouth, so I left Tonight and never returned.
As cable stations proliferate, the importance of the late night talk show has been greatly diminished. There is no more "national dialogue" led by the likes of Carson or Cronkite. The audience is simply gone, scattered in the pursuit of more individualized programming. I watch Adult Swim every night (when I'm watching anything), regardless of competitive programming... hell, even regardless of what Adult Swim is running. I don't foresee anything that would bring me back to the Tonight Show. I haven't even considered Letterman in years. Their place as a touchstone for pop culture interviews, current events commentary, and absurd watercooler acts has long passed.
There are no more big fish in TV. Johnny Carson was a big fish, perhaps the last one.
