Jimmy Kimmel and Jay Leno explain Johnny Carson’s lasting influence

Johnny Carson was so popular at his peak that a late-night joke about a shortage of toilet paper caused a run on the product in grocery stores across the country in 1973, nearly half a century before the widespread pandemic hoarding of this important bathroom product. Such was Carson’s influence on our culture as host of “The Tonight Show” from 1962 to 1992.

“No one else has had this kind of influence,” says Jay Leno, who found himself at the center of succession drama when he became Carson’s successor on “Tonight Show” rather than David Letterman.

Jimmy Kimmel, another of Carson’s showbiz descendants, considers him the Abe Lincoln of late-night television, his stature giving him Mount Rushmore status in the comedy world.

“There are a lot of presidents that we don’t think about much because we always think about Lincoln,” says Kimmel, who has now spent two decades as a late-night host. Props should go to Steve Allen, who “invented the whole thing,” while Letterman gave the format an absurd spin, “but Johnny was the most important,” Kimmel says. “Johnny was so much a part of the fabric of our lives.”

Carson, at his peak, averaged 9 million viewers each night; Stephen Colbert now leads a crowded field with around 3 million. Even people too young to have seen Carson recognize his legacy. “He truly was the monarch and owned the airwaves,” says Eric Andre, 41, who studied the master before launching his eponymous Adult Swim show in 2012.

Today, 32 years ago Carson’s Last Showhere is “Carson the Magnificent” a biography that addresses the actor’s life and legacy. The project took so many years that the lead author, Bill Zehme, died before he could complete it.

“It was Bill’s white whale and I don’t think he was ever going to finish it,” says Kimmel, who let the reporter live at his house for months at one point so he could concentrate on the book instead of interviewing celebrities for payment. the rent.

Zehme, who has written for Rolling Stone and other major magazines, is the author of books on Frank Sinatra and Andy Kaufman, in addition to ghostwriting memoirs for Regis Philbin and Leno. A lifelong Carson fan, he conducted the last major interview with the “Tonight Show” host and originally planned to publish this book in 2007.

But he kept digging and digging in hopes, Kimmel says, of trying to get into Carson’s often inscrutable shoes. Then Zehme got colorectal cancer and spent most of his final years battling the disease while trying to finish the book.

“He survived for almost a decade, but his health was never good enough to really delve into it again,” says Mike Thomas, who completed the book after Zehme’s death. Thomas had worked for Zehme as a research assistant on books by Sinatra, Leno, Philbin and Kaufman before leaving to pursue a career at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Zehme had written and polished about three-quarters of the book; Thomas used Zehme’s research and reports to complete it.

“His daughter gave me the key to ‘Carson Land,’ a storage locker that was filled with binders, photos, records, and even a big pink canceled check from Johnny to (band leader) Doc Severinsen,” Thomas said. “It was about sifting through and figuring out what I needed to complete Johnny’s story.”

This story is neither a hagiography nor a hit-job. “Johnny was a complicated guy, but his genius was undeniable,” says Thomas. “Bill got to Johnny’s heart as much as anyone, but he was in many ways an inscrutable guy.”

Zehme captures the magnificence of Carson, the performer, the showman par excellence, who knew exactly what his audience wanted, where the limits were and how to push them lightly.

“Johnny always had these jokes that were a little risky, but he had a great sense of what mainstream America would tolerate,” Leno says. “He knew how far things had to be pushed.”

“He looked so graceful and effortless in the way he did the show,” Kimmel adds, “but there was so much about Johnny that I don’t think anyone alive knows.”

In Zehme’s portrayal, Carson’s public persona was a deception, a sleight of hand that suited a man who started as a magician and never lost his love for it. In private, he was not only cold and distant, but also a dull father and a womanizer who, under the influence of alcohol, sometimes became physical with his women.

“Sometimes he would wake up the next day to discover that such devastation had bruised the flesh of his sons’ mother,” reads a passage in the book.

“He was always nice to me,” Leno says, “but I know Johnny wasn’t a good drinker and when he was drunk he got a little mean.”

Kimmel says the biography is “not a particularly flattering portrait of Johnny, but it’s an accurate one.” And I think that’s probably a good thing because we tend to caricature people. We think that person you see on TV is that person. We all felt like we knew Johnny Carson, but obviously we didn’t.

At one point in Zehme’s interview with Carson, legend speculates that if they asked younger people about “The Ed Sullivan Show” — once “the Greatest Show in America” ​​— 31 years after it ended, ” they look at you like it never happened. . And why should do they remember it?

A similar interval after Carson’s final show, his ghost lingers, and not just because of YouTube, where the icon’s estate curated his clips.

“There are enough clips of Johnny at his best that people can find what they want,” Leno says, although he notes that the jokes and blatant sexism in many sketches seem dated.

Carson’s influence on all those who followed him remains enormous. On any given Monday, you might hear Jon Stewart briefly slip into an impression of himself; other fans, including Letterman and Conan O’Brien, are still active on television and podcasts, while the current generation of hosts – Kimmel, Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers – are all old enough to have seen Carson grow up.

“They’re all living in Carson’s shadow,” Andre says, although he thinks the book will be aimed primarily at baby boomers and Gen Xers. For his part, Thomas hopes the book can introduce people to Carson’s work to a new generation.

When he got his show, Kimmel went to the Paley Center in Beverly Hills, then called the Museum of Broadcasting, to watch Allen, Jack Paar and Carson.

“The first thing I learned was that I’ll never be as good as Johnny,” Kimmel says.

At his peak, Carson was the biggest star on set, Kimmel points out. “Maybe Frank Sinatra would do his shopping and he and Johnny would be equals, but that’s it. I can assure you that if Taylor Swift is on my show, we don’t feel like we’re equal.