The Squirrel's Nest

John William Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host, comedian, writer and producer. He is best known as the host of ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (1962–1992). Carson received six Primetime Emmy Awards, the Television Academy's 1980 Governor's Award and a 1985 Peabody Award. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987. Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992 and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1993.Johnny Carson
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(2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 30, 2009.

During World War II, Carson served in the Navy. After the war, Carson started a career in radio. He moved from radio to TV and followed Jack Paar as the host of the late night talk show, ''Tonight''. Although his show was already successful by the end of the 1960s, during the 1970s, Carson became an American icon and remained so even after his retirement in 1992. He adopted a casual, conversational approach with extensive interaction with guests, an approach pioneered by Arthur Godfrey and previous ''Tonight Show'' hosts Steve Allen and Jack Paar but enhanced by Carson's lightning-quick wit. Former late-night host and friend David Letterman, as well as many others, have cited Carson's influence. He is a cultural icon and widely considered to be the king of late-night TV.

Early life and career

John William Carson was born on October 23, 1925, in Corning, Iowa, to Ruth Elizabeth (Hook) Carson (1901–1985) and Homer Lloyd "Kit" Carson (1899–1983), a power company manager. He was the second child of three children. He had an older sister, Catherine “Kit” (Carson) Sotzing (1923-2014) and a younger brother Richard Carson (1929-2021). As a child, he lived in the nearby towns of Avoca, Clarinda, and Red Oak in southwest Iowa before moving to Norfolk, Nebraska, at the age of eight. There, Carson grew up and began developing his talent for entertaining. At the age of 12, Carson found a book on magic at a friend's house and immediately purchased a mail-order magician's kit. After purchasing the kit, Carson practiced his entertainment skills on family members with card tricks. He was known for following his family members around saying, "Pick a card, any card." Carson's mother sewed him a cape, and his first performance was staged in front of the local Kiwanis Club. He debuted as "The Great Carsoni" at age 14 and was paid $3 a show. Soon, many other performances at local picnics and county fairs followed. After graduating from high school, Carson had his first encounter with Hollywood. He had hitchhiked to Hollywood, where he was arrested and fined $50 for impersonating a midshipman, a story often regarded as apocryphal.

Military service

Carson joined the United States Navy on June 8, 1943, and received V-12 Navy College Training Program officer training at Columbia University and Millsaps College. Commissioned an ensign late in the war, Carson was assigned to the in the Pacific. While in the Navy, Carson posted a 10–0 amateur boxing record, with most of his bouts fought on board the ''Pennsylvania''. He was en route to the combat zone aboard a troop ship when the war ended. Carson served as a communications officer in charge of decoding encrypted messages. He said that the high point of his military career was performing a magic trick for United States Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal. In a conversation with Forrestal, the Secretary asked Carson if he planned to stay in the Navy after the war. In response, Carson said no and told him he wanted to be a magician. Forrestal asked him to perform, and Carson responded with a card trick. Carson made the discovery that he could entertain and amuse someone as cranky and sophisticated as Forrestal.

Education

Taking advantage of educational opportunities from the Navy, Carson attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he joined Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and continued performing magic (then paid $25 per appearance). He majored in journalism with the intention of becoming a comedy writer, but instead switched his major to speech and drama a few months later because he wanted to become a radio performer. Carson's college thesis, titled "How to Write Comedy for Radio", was a compilation of taped skits and jokes from popular radio shows with Carson explaining the comedic technique in a voice-over. It allowed him to graduate in three years. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in radio and speech with a minor in physics in 1949.

Early radio and television

Carson began his broadcasting career in 1950 at WOW radio and television in Omaha. He soon hosted a morning television program called ''The Squirrel's Nest''. One of his routines involved interviewing pigeons on the roof of the local courthouse that would report on the political corruption they had seen. Carson supplemented his income by serving as master of ceremonies at local church dinners—attended by some of the same politicians and civic leaders he had lampooned on the radio.

The wife of one of the Omaha political figures Carson spoofed owned stock in a radio station in Los Angeles, and in 1951 referred Carson to her brother, who was influential in the emerging television market in Southern California. Carson joined CBS-owned Los Angeles television station KNXT (now KCBS-TV). In 1953, comic Red Skelton—a fan of Carson's "cult success" low-budget sketch comedy show, ''Carson's Cellar'' (1951 to 1953) on KNXT—asked Carson to join his show as a writer. In 1954, Skelton accidentally knocked himself unconscious during rehearsal, an hour before his live show began. Carson successfully filled in for him. In 1955, Jack Benny invited Carson to appear on one of his programs during the opening and closing segments. Carson imitated Benny and claimed that Benny had copied his gestures. Benny predicted that Carson, who readily admitted Benny's substantial influence on aspects of his comedic delivery, would have a successful career as a comedian.

Carson hosted several shows besides ''Carson's Cellar'', including the game show ''Earn Your Vacation'' (1954) and the CBS variety show ''The Johnny Carson Show'' (1955–1956). He was a guest panelist on the original '' To Tell the Truth'' beginning in 1960, becoming a regular panelist from 1961 to 1962. After the primetime ''The Johnny Carson Show'' failed, he moved to New York City to host ABC-TV's ''Who Do You Trust?'' (1957–1962). It was on ''Who Do You Trust?'' that Carson met his future sidekick and straight man, Ed McMahon. Although he believed moving to daytime television would hurt his career, ''Who Do You Trust?'' was a success. It was the first show where he could ad lib and interview guests, and because of Carson's on-camera wit, the show became "the hottest item on daytime television" during his six years at ABC.

''The Tonight Show''

NBC's ''Tonight'' was the late-night counterpart to its early-morning show ''Today''. Originating in 1954 with host Steve Allen, ''Tonight'' was somewhat experimental at the time, as the only previous network late-night program was NBC's ''Broadway Open House'' which starred Jerry Lester and Dagmar. ''Tonight'' was successful, and when Allen moved on to primetime comedy-variety shows in 1957, Jack Paar replaced him as host of ''Tonight''. Paar left the show in 1962.

Carson's success on ABC's ''Who Do You Trust?'' led NBC to invite him to take over ''Tonight'' a few months before Paar's departure. Carson declined the offer because he feared the difficulty of interviewing celebrities for 105 minutes each day. Bob Newhart, Jackie Gleason, Groucho Marx, and Joey Bishop all also declined. NBC finally convinced Carson to sign by early February 1962. Carson can be seen discussing his upcoming job for the first time on the February 11, 1962, episode of ''What's My Line?''. Due to Carson having six months left on his ABC contract, NBC used multiple guest hosts until he could take over. Guest hosts included Merv Griffin, Art Linkletter, Joey Bishop, Arlene Francis (the first woman to host ''The Tonight Show''), Bob Cummings, Jerry Lewis, Groucho Marx, Donald O'Connor, and others.

Although he continued to have doubts about his new job, Carson became the host of ''Tonight'' (later called ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'') on October 1, 1962. After a difficult first year, he overcame his fears. While ''Tonight'' under its previous hosts had been successful, especially under Paar, Carson's version eventually did very well in the ratings. Billy Wilder said of Carson:

McMahon followed Carson from ''Who Do You Trust?'' as his announcer and sidekick, and Skitch Henderson was installed as the maestro of the NBC orchestra. McMahon's famous introduction, "Heeeeere's Johnny!!!" was followed by a brief monologue by Carson. This was often followed by comedy sketches, interviews, and music. Carson's trademark was a phantom golf swing at the end of his monologues, aimed stage left toward the studio orchestra. (Guest hosts sometimes parodied that gesture. Bob Newhart rolled an imaginary bowling ball toward the audience.)

Paul Anka wrote the theme song, ("Johnny's Theme"), a reworking of his "Toot Sweet"; given lyrics, it was renamed "It's Really Love" and recorded by Annette Funicello in 1959. Before taking over ''The Tonight Show'', Carson wrote lyrics for the song, and so claimed 50 percent of the song's performance royalties (though the lyrics were never used). The theme is heard being played on sound recordings of Carson's first ''Tonight Show'', and it was used without interruption through to his last broadcast on May 22, 1992.

The show was originally produced at the 30 Rockefeller Plaza NBC television studios in New York City, with occasional stints in California. The program began videotaping in advance during the Jack Paar days, although during the 1970s, NBC fed the live taping from Burbank to New York via satellite for editing (see below). Carson had a talent for quick quips to deal with problems. If the opening monologue fared poorly, the band would start playing " Tea for Two" and Carson danced a softshoe to laughs from the studio audience. Alternatively, Carson might pull the boom microphone close to his face and announce, "Attention K-Mart shoppers, clean up in aisle four!"

Move to Burbank

On May 1, 1972, the show moved from 30 Rockefeller Plaza to Burbank, California, because of the studio's proximity to celebrities.

From July 1971, Carson stopped hosting five shows per week. Instead, Mondays featured a guest host, leaving Carson to host the other four weeknights. Shows were videotaped in Burbank at 5:30 pm, fed from there to the Central and Eastern time zone stations via cross-country television line at 8:30 pm Pacific time (11:30 pm Eastern time), and later sent from Burbank to the Pacific time zone stations at 11:30 pm Pacific time. Since only two feeds originated from Burbank, Central time zone stations received the Eastern feed one hour earlier at 10:30 pm local time, and Mountain time stations received the Pacific time zone feed one hour later at 12:30 am local time.

In 1980, at Carson's request, the show cut its 90-minute format to 60 minutes on September 16; Tom Snyder's '' Tomorrow'' added a half-hour to fill the vacant time. Joan Rivers became the "permanent" guest host from September 1983 until 1986. ''The Tonight Show'' then returned to using rotating guest hosts, including comic George Carlin. Jay Leno became the exclusive guest host in fall 1987. Leno joked that although other guest hosts had upped their fees, he had kept his low, assuring himself more bookings. Eventually, Monday night was for Leno, Tuesday for ''The Best of Carson''—rebroadcasts usually dating from a year earlier, but occasionally from the 1970s.

Although Carson's work schedule became more abbreviated, ''Tonight'' remained so successful that his compensation from NBC continued to rise; by the mid-1970s, he had become the highest-paid personality on television, earning about $4 million a year ($ today), not including nightclub appearances and his other businesses. He refused many offers to appear in films, including title roles in '' The Thomas Crown Affair'' and Gene Wilder's role in ''Blazing Saddles''. He also declined director Martin Scorsese's offer to co-star with Robert De Niro in the 1983 film '' The King of Comedy'', with the role of a TV talk-show host then going to Jerry Lewis.

In recognition of his 25th anniversary on ''The Tonight Show'', Carson received a personal Peabody Award, the board saying he had "become an American institution, a household word, ndthe most widely quoted American." They also said they "felt the time had come to recognize the contributions that Johnny has made to television, to humor, and to America."

Uri Geller

In 1973, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic Uri Geller appeared on ''The Tonight Show''. In the ''NOVA'' documentary, ''James Randi – Secrets of the Psychics,'' magician and skeptical activist James Randi says that Carson "had been a magician himself and was skeptical" of Geller's claimed paranormal powers, so prior to the date of taping, Randi was asked "to help prevent any trickery." Per Randi's advice, the show prepared their own props without informing Geller, and did not let Geller or his staff "anywhere near them." When Geller joined Carson on stage, he appeared surprised that he was not going to be interviewed, but instead was expected to display his abilities using the provided articles. Geller said "This scares me." and "I'm surprised because before this program your producer came and he read me at least 40 questions you were going to ask me." Geller was unable to display any paranormal abilities, saying "I don't feel strong" and he expressed his displeasure at feeling like he was being "pressed" to perform by Carson. According to Adam Higginbotham's November 7, 2014, article in ''The New York Times'':

However, this appearance on ''The Tonight Show'', which Carson and Randi had orchestrated to debunk Geller's claimed abilities, backfired. According to Higginbotham,

Comic characters

Carson played several continuing characters on sketches during the show, including:
* Art Fern was the "Tea Time Movie" announcer, whose theme song was "Hooray for Hollywood". Carson once admitted on camera that this was his favorite character, based on late-afternoon TV hosts who would deliver commercials throughout the movie. Each sketch usually featured three long commercials interrupted by silent, four-second clips from antique films. When the camera returned from each clip, Art was always caught off-guard and immediately reminded viewers that they were watching a film favorite. The movies always had unlikely casts and even less likely titles: "Slim Pickens, Patti Page, 'Duke' John Wayne, and Charlton Heston in another classic Western: 'Kiss My Saddle Horn'!" Carson originally played the fast-talking huckster in his own voice (as Honest Bernie Schlock or Ralph Willie), and finally settled on a nasal, high-pitched, smarmy drone, reminiscent of Jackie Gleason's "Reginald Van Gleason III" character. The character, now permanently known as Art Fern, wore a lavish toupee, loud jackets, and a pencil mustache. Actress Carol Wayne became famous for her 100-plus appearances (1971–1984) as Art's buxom assistant, the Matinée Lady. While Art gave his spiel, she would enter the stage behind him. Art would react to her attractive body by wincing, loudly shouting "''Ho'' — leeeee!" and turning almost everything she said into a sexual double entendre. After Carol Wayne's death in 1985, Carson kept Art Fern off the air for most of the next year, and finally hired Danuta Wesley and then Teresa Ganzel to play the Matinée Lady. Carson also used these sketches to poke fun at the intricate Los Angeles interstate system, using a pointer and map to give confusing directions to shoppers, often including points where he would unfold the cardboard map to point out, via the appropriate picture, when the shopper would arrive at "the fork in the road". Another freeway routine in the same theme centered on the " Slauson Cutoff", a slang term Carson popularized to describe the truncated Marina Freeway (which ended abruptly at Slauson Avenue in Culver City). Art Fern would advise drivers to take a series of freeways until they reached the Slauson Cutoff, and would then advise them to "Get out of your car, cut off your slauson, get back in your car," often followed by peals of laughter from the audience, led by McMahon.
* Carnac the Magnificent, a turbaned psychic, could answer questions before seeing them. Carnac had a trademark entrance in which he always turned the wrong direction when coming onstage and then tripped on the step up to Carson's desk. (In one episode, technicians rigged Carson's desk to fall apart when Carnac fell into it.) These comedic missteps were an indication of Carnac's true prescient abilities. McMahon would hand Carson a series of envelopes containing questions, said to have been "hermetically sealed and kept in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnalls' porch since noon today." Carson would place each envelope against his forehead and predict the answer, such as "Gatorade". Then, he would read the question: "What does an alligator get on welfare?" Some of the jokes were feeble, and McMahon used pauses after terrible puns and audience groans to make light of Carson's lack of comic success ("Carnac must be used to quiet surroundings"), prompting Carson to return an equal insult. Pat McCormick wrote some of the zaniest Carnac material. The one that had McMahon and Carson nearly rolling on the floor with sustained laughter was "Sis boom bah