470: Mark Malkoff—Love Johnny Carson

My guest today is Mark Malkov, if you don't recognize his name, you're certain to recognize

the name at the center of the terrific book. He is just written as given away by the title of this episode, Love, Johnny Carson. Which just happens to be the title of the book. Of the book. It works, how great.

This kid, Mark. He does love him some Johnny Carson, man. Yeah, he does. And he's not old enough to like have really lived through the heyday of him. Yeah.

And yet, he is written a book that I'm just going to shamelessly recommend right now here in the preamble. I'll do it again in an hour and a half from now when we wrap up our conversation. But I mean it, this book, there are a lot of books out there about Johnny Carson. This one is different.

This guy, Mark, he's a stand-up by trade, but he had an obsession with Johnny Carson. Ever since he was a kid, you know, his dad loved him, his family loved him and like millions of people, it was just a big bowl of warm milk for him every night before he went to bed.

And unlike most normal people, Mark never got over it.

So he decided a couple of years ago that he was going to scratch what itched and went on a series of in-person interviews with over 400 people, most of whom you've heard of, sure,

“to get at the knob of the thing, to answer the question, who was Johnny Carson, right?”

And holy crap, this is interesting. Yeah, and he really nailed it. And he mentions a lot of these names as he talks about it. But the book, like you said, for me, I'm listening to the book and what stuck out to me was that it immediately took me back to when I was like 12 years old sitting in front

of the TV, late at night, up later than maybe I should be watching, you know, people like Flip Wilson and Gerald Reynolds, oh my God, the devil made me do it. You know what? Here's the thing. The book works on its own.

There's so much content in it, and it's also much fun. But under the surface, there is this other thing, and it's the thing you just talked about. It's the shared memories of this show, helmed for 30 years by a guy who I don't know that there's anyone that's ever been more famous, really than Johnny Carson, fair.

And he lived at a time when we only had three or four broadcast choices. Right.

“At a time when, you know, the whole country was watching one of three things, right?”

Every night. And so we're galvanized. Our memories are informed in a universal way by the tonight show. It's interesting about Mark, you know, on I call him a kid, he's not a kid, he's in his 40s, you know, but he just went for it.

And I think mainly to amuse himself, just tried to get this monkey off his back by getting people to answer the question, you know, who was the real Johnny Carson? And what comes out is such an easy to digest honest love letter to a time and a guy and a sensibility and in some ways to the country, you know, because it really touches on a lot of things that as you read, you're going to chuckle and smile and nod and say, I remember

that. Yeah. It's like a time machine. Yeah. Yep.

And look, make no mistake. That's what all good books are. They are time machines. They can transport you, you know, sometimes to a fake world, game of thrones, you know, the Lord of the Rings, they can, they can take you anywhere.

This one takes you to a place that you'll actually remember, you are actually there. You shared a lot of this and maybe some of it you've forgotten about, some of it you've

probably never heard before, but all of it is really fun.

What a great guess. Kudos to you, Mr. Producer for a finding him and convincing him the fly out here to do it. It was super hard.

“Again, I'm to nail him down, yeah, to answer the phone and everything, you know what?”

You take a break while we take a quick break, but when we come back, it's Mark Malkoff. The book is called Love Johnny Carson and like all fine tones. This one lives up to its name. You know how you can tell if a product is a truly great Christmas present, it's when people

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in from New York. Just for this. I did. I'm so honored man. Yeah, I'm going bad.

Are you kidding me? No, I'm not. I'm excited.

“Went down last night to pick up my dog and something in my knee clicked and it really”

hurt. Oh, sorry to hear that. I was about to go out and do a bunch of stuff and I decided to be best to sit still. Chuck had sent me your book. It arrived the night before, so because my knee hurt, I sat down and I read three quarters

of your book. And then I finished it just as you walked in. Yeah, I walked in your office as you were finishing it. Actually, that's my partner's office. I don't have anything here.

I don't work on that. I'm like a carpet beggar. I just like I come down once a month to do this thing. But look, I'm taking the scenic route to say you're not the only guy to write a book on Johnny Carson, but you're the only guy to write one like this.

Thank you. Yes, that's true.

And this is Chuck, you read some, oh, yeah, I'm third of the way through it.

Drinking from a fire hose. Yeah, that's all right. Yeah, yeah. It's like the story is just keep coming at you really quick. So this guy Mark, who's sitting across from me, he's a comedian.

By trade. Yes, a comedian, writer, podcaster. Okay. You did something very savvy because as you know, you're in a very noisy world, you are in a knife fight and a phone booth.

Oh, man, I didn't know that. I know what you're saying now. So what have you done? You have identified the object of your obsession, affection from your youth. And you have interviewed everybody in this town.

It seems. Over 400. 100 interviews. And you've gotten what really amounts to a kind of compendium about who Johnny Carson was. It's an accident though.

But how many great things are accidental? At least in, I follow my curiosity, your curious person, Johnny Carson was curious. I thought I'd sit down with maybe a few people at the most to get my questions answered. And I turned out everybody wanted to talk about him.

Friends, people that never talk publicly all wanted to talk about him.

I don't know why. Well, let's get into it, though, because I have a theory about why I would want to, as a viewer. But I don't think this book works 20 years ago. Yeah.

Probably right. He had to die and he had to be gone for a while. And then the country and the town and the industry had to do some sort of gut check to start to think, really, how do we feel about this guy and really what did he do that to change things?

Yeah, and how much people miss him today? I mean, all the late night hosts still talk about Carson. I mean, over three billion YouTube views on this man, still the goatsgold standard, and everybody's mind. And we're still talking about him.

He hasn't been on the air in three decades. Why you? And before you answer, let me just make sure that this is the last, not the last compliment, but the last point I want to make before we really dive in.

“Your book starts with a simple question, who was Johnny Carson?”

Right. And every page answers it, just some degree or another. So I mean, I don't want to just go through your whole book, but rather than ask you who Johnny Carson was, let me ask you why he's stuck in your crawl to the degree. For somebody that was that famous that dominated American culture for 30 years that was

that iconic. There were very few stories about what went on behind the scenes at the show.

it was like being on the show, who was holding the curtain open for Johnny.

I was with that guy by the way, which is the Irving Davis. And Johnny would be, because you know, I had a day job with Letterman and Letterman before the show. Nobody talks to him before he needs silence. Johnny's back there joking with everybody, smoking a cigarette up until here's Johnny.

So it was just to hear those stories, like what actually went on behind the scenes. See that?

“That's such, I mean, I am so interested in process, right?”

Every now and then I'll go out and impersonate a speaker and I'll be backstage and they'll be somebody queuing me. And like, little moments like that, people don't think about, but it's a very conscious choice to decide, am I going to go away, am I going to sit quietly and really get in my head and collect my thoughts, or am I going to pretend that I'm just walking in a room

to talk to some friends? He would protect his energy, he would only get to the studio, maybe an hour or two before we're Letterman and a lot of people, they're all day only because he knew if he was around people, it would affect his energy. Mike, he was doing an hour and 45 minutes in New York.

And then it went down to 90 minutes, eventually, 60 minutes. The staff said when he would arrive an hour or two before the studio sparks would be flying off of him because he'd be so excited. One of them said when you shook hands with him, it was like shaking hands with the nuclear reactor during the show.

I mean, he completely past himself, like a quarter of backstarting on Sunday, the energy was everything. No lunches, that was his rule on a tape day would take away his energy, so he saved it for the show. Well, it took a toll, I know New York was what, 62 to 72.

That's right. That was a young man. Yeah. He was living as Hemingway said all the way up. Yeah, there were some wives here and there, there were some tough, tough nights that

Ed McMan helped get Johnny home. Yeah.

“But the energy thing is, is so interesting, it's, I think most people can understand why”

it would take so much energy to keep a 90 minute live show on the air. What they don't understand is how he was able to make it so effortless and what a head fake it is for people to go in and oh, I'm just going to guest host. That was it. People thought it was easy and people would call up Johnny and has an Ed no idea.

Carson would watch the show, he said he'd watch it, sometimes. He would study his performance. He'd be home watching Arnold Palmer trying to guess host the tonight to work hard Douglas and just be cracking up that they would think and people, even comedians like Chevy Chase in 1986 called Johnny and said, I had no idea how hard this was.

I'd never done a monologue and then a few years later, I guess Chevy Chase forgot because

he did his own show on Fox all 26 episodes. Johnny actually tried to talk Chevy out of it because they were poker buddies was Steve Martin, Barry Diller, Carl Reiner, a bunch of them and said, Chevy, you really want to do this five nights a week. But it was brutal.

I mean, people wanted his competitors, Carson's competitor said it was more exhausting than shoveling snow for eight hours, doing a 90 minute show.

“I mean, that's what he, that was his, and Shanland, same thing, Carrie Shanland says it's”

a bit murder. Yeah. But, you know, for the audience, the last thing you want to do, I don't care if you're watching your favorite rock band or your favorite comedian or a talk show, you don't want to see the technique.

That's right. You don't want to see the effort. You don't want to see the sweat. Really? I mean, that to me is what stage presence really is.

Your ability, especially through a camera to make the viewer comfortable. Listen, Frank Sinatra is one of the coolest in terms of performers going out there. You don't see him break a sweat and his daughter told me, before he hosted the tonight's shown during his concert, he'd be backstage almost getting sick from nerves. I mean, everybody's different, but again, like so many pros he walks out there and hits

as Mark and his Frank Sinatra, but before that, whatever it takes to get you to that place, I mean, and some people really torture themselves. What did he mean to the country in your estimation when he was at the height of his power? When he was 25% of all of NBC's profits and people were watching every night as they went to sleep with his guy, I think it was stability.

I mean, whatever was going on in America, there were so many tragedies.

The guy was always a steady rock, and 1968 especially, I mean, he was friends with Robert

Kennedy with Bobby Kennedy. They lived in the same building, Bobby Kennedy would go to Carson's office, and suddenly, Bobby Kennedy's assassinated, and Johnny, a couple of nights later, does no monologue, no curtain, and he just has like four or five people, and they just talk about his friend, Bobby Kennedy.

Three months prior to that, Martin Luther King Jr. loses his life, and Carson comes out a couple of days later, and just talks about Martin Luther King shows a clip of he had just been on with Harry Belafonte, his guest house, which was Carson was responsible for that, and they did a trivia with Sammy Davis Jr. and Diana Ross. And during all those times, Beat Nam, Carson was a constant, and how often was NBC up

his ass to, I mean, I know when Belafonte came on, they must have been horrified.

Carson calls up Belafonte and said, "I want you to guess host for a week, and he's like,

do you know what this means?" Carson said, "Oh, I do."

“Because Carson, you wouldn't know, you wouldn't know Carson's politics, but he was very”

much against the Vietnam War, and was more in line with Belafonte than not. And Mr. Belafonte had all these people at NBC who were terrified, they said, "Okay, okay, you're going to have Martin Luther King on Mr. Belafonte, but you're not going to talk about race already," and he said, "No, we're going to talk about opera." And there was all these people that were so scared, but Carson was really good about putting

people in the chair that, with different opinions. I mean, he had everyone from Billy Graham to Madeline Murray, oh, hair, the most famous atheist. He wasn't afraid of really strong ideas, but he really did like to put people that shared his politics.

He'd like to give this to you. But again, we didn't know how he voted, well, he was very careful about that. My memory of it, which is just one man's memory, but he, like, you knew you weren't going to get a lecture, you knew you weren't going to get a sermon, he wasn't going to shake his finger at you, but you also knew that he had beliefs and ideas and opinions,

but it just felt first and foremost beyond anything else he was there to entertain me.

That's right. He wanted me to laugh, but at the same time, he was living in the same world as I was, and so he kind of knew when to hold a mirror up and to be an avatar for the country. And he knew, like, he just knew where the line was. And I just make that point because it feels to me like his contemporaries today, maybe

don't. It's just a very different time. I mean, Carson thought these people are going to bed with me at 11, 30. They want to be entertained, person before me, jackpard, biggest thing in TV, controversy, someone was real, some man, you factured, we suddenly cry.

Carson said, no, this is entertainment. And in the beginning, people, the critics, Carson's dull, he's bland, and it really took, and the rumors he was going to get replaced for two years. And I mean, the guy didn't have it, couldn't get his own bathroom and NBC in his office. He had no leverage.

So once he got leverage and got ownership of the show in 1980, he led NBC happening, right? fully so. So go back. Yeah. I bet most people don't, certainly don't remember because the long time ago, but he started

on a talk show. Yeah. I mean, he started. He had a game show. Who do you trust for the next few years?

Yeah, that's what he did. And then before that, he had a local show on NBC and Los Angeles. And then Red Skelton, this gentleman of a very popular national show, had a concussion and

“said, you have to get that Johnny Carson boy and Carson, it was his biggest break within two”

hours.

He was in front of a national audience for the first time a host in his show.

And I mean, this is a guy who from the five time he was 14 in Nebraska had been performing. I mean, he'd been doing magic, nonstop, then shrillic was him. I mean, did Kavit told me he met Carson when he was 12 years old. He was a junior magician and met him in a church basement in Nebraska. Carson was in his early 20s, still a star for Nebraska.

He was on the radio. And yeah, this guy could have easily been in Nebraska and had a great career. But his ambitions. I mean, when he graduated, the day he graduated when he was 17, he graduated early. He checked to Los Angeles, first thing he does gets a star map goes to Jack Benny's house

and hangs up Benny's house and he's waiting for Benny to come out, which he didn't. Then he goes to get he listed in the Navy, but wasn't officially in the Navy gets a goes to a uniform store, dresses as a naval officer and goes to the US shows, it's everyone from Orson Wells, he dances with Marlene a detrick and then he did get arrested because they asked for his papers and he did not have them and I don't know how to bail him out.

But his enthusiasm for performing right and his basic curiosity as a human seemed to inform virtually everything he did. I mean, I don't know how I think anybody can fake anything for a while. I don't think you can pretend to be a curious person for 30 years. It's not the answer, the leans to enlightenment.

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He didn't want to have dinner with the A-list celebrities afterwards.

It was always a astronomer Carl Sagan, it was Jim Faller's who I'll just do when I'm

the show a lot. There's a gentleman for population control, Dr. Paul Ehrlich, and those are the people. Population bomb. Yes, in Carson, this was a book that nobody was buying and he went on Carson's show and it sold millions of copies.

I mean, Carson, he would always call it the author slot. He'd be falling asleep in New York and there would be these people that would come on. I mean, it was really revolutionary people like Ellen Peck came on. I think in 1970, maybe the late '60s, and it was a book about how women don't necessarily have to have kids and be married in Carson's of the audience.

It was like the audience wanted to do a tacker. But he wasn't afraid to put new ideas out there. Well, look, this goes back. The thing that I like about it, your book, I mean, is that it functions as a portal into a lot of different lives, which that tonight's show did as well.

It just gave us a little look, who's like the shallow end of the pool.

“Now, of course, today, if you want to get in the deeper end, you can pick up your second”

screen and go deep. Now, you mentioned Ehrlich, and this struck me too when I read it in the book, Paul Ehrlich, for those of you who are not on 50-year-old best sellers, wrote a book called The Population Bomb, and Carson gave him a lot of press. The book sold like crazy.

He and appearance as people would call in with death threats, people would write in with death threats. People were in Carson wasn't afraid of it. He kept putting him on because Carson silently agreed with it. Didn't want a bodyguard, but carried a gun.

Yes, nickel-plated gun. He really tried. I mean, he drove himself, Ed McMahon had the limousine, here's Ed license plate, he thought it was ridiculous. Ed would be, wouldn't have a desk.

He'd have a barca lounge, and he'd be getting the manicures and pedicures, and Carson's just rolling his eyes. I mean, this was a guy from Nebraska who was bringing a brown paper sack lunch, and was just as middle America as you can get, again, didn't want the bodyguard, but did.

Never had to use the gun.

I have to say. Well, that's good. But Ehrlich, you're talking Ehrlich. Well, so Ehrlich, now, that book had a huge impact on Bill Mar. Bill Mar today has been on a tear for years talking about the fact that there are just too

many people on the planet. Now, in the fullness of time, you've got Elon Musk and a long list of other people who are credibly saying that the greatest threat we face as a species is the population collapse. I'm reading this, you know, and all the different things I read, and I'm thinking, what would Carson say today, if he were alive and saw that book, essentially being debunked in real

time. To be that confident, I'm not talking about John and John Paul, but to be that confident,

“and that wrong about a thing that consequential, maybe that's why we die, because you don't”

want to live long enough to see just how wrong you can be. I mean, that was John, his thing. He had put people with theories and hypothesis. Some were true, some weren't, but he wasn't afraid to really put the stuff out there. And I mean, people of the narrative is this guy wasn't political.

At the same time, Nancy Reagan called the show twice and demanded jokes stop. So Johnny doesn't die his hair, and then Johnny the next night said somebody very influential called in a phone, and me, I'm not going to say who, and I know for a fact now that Ronnie does not die as hair, but he does bleach his face.

That was, and then the second time was in the 80s, early 80s when Johnny and Saturn and

at Labor to Inch Rugg jokes and Nancy Reagan personally phone and said no more drug jokes. I'm going to launch just saying now, and they stop doing it. So I mean, I mean, everyone from Jimmy Carter's mom was upset with jokes to the board and minister, whoever was in power, Johnny was going to give it to them. And again, you couldn't tell what side he was on, but at the end of the day, I would like

to think, and it seemed that everyone was laughing with him. Well, he gave it to them, but it was still funny. Yeah, it was still in the context of a joke. There weren't me spared it, I didn't think. He doesn't die his hair, but he does bleach his face.

Yeah, come on. Yeah.

“That's just so, you know, there was an eight year old in him, basically, right?”

As much as he was a fan of big ideas and smart people like Sega and science, he was still a child. I mean, he liked that silly, silly stuff. Absolutely. The sketches would show that and the guests, I mean, he liked a various different types

of people and stuff, but yeah, so him and Ed, or him and Bert Reynolds, having a shaving cream battle, this is all in prompt too.

Did he? His tie.

Yes, one of the first times that he was on, you know, Bert Reynolds, it's always the

“comedians that get the credit for Johnny making the career, but Bert Reynolds, I think”

was the first time he guest host of which Johnny during his first or second appearance said, how would you like to guest host and Reynolds was known as a traumatic guy and goes out there and gets deliverance because of it. He's an unborn man. Yes, was watching and said, I want this guy and Reynolds' life change.

And then he's on with Helen Gurley Brown and Bert Reynolds with Carson, and that's when they come up with this idea, I think Johnny came up with it, that he was going to do this play girl type. For Cosmos. Yes.

And Reynolds said that they Academy Award that year, he'd be given a household name because of that centerfold because of Johnny Carson, he said he kind of like five jokes and he knew that that's when he arrived and that was all Carson. But for Bert Reynolds to lean over with a pair of scissors and cut his tie, like, you don't touch Johnny Carson.

“That's what they would tell them, yeah, don't you don't want to do this.”

This isn't in Reynolds as a rebellious person, it broke every rule. So what does Johnny do when you break a rule? Is there a sliding scale? Does it depend who you are? I think it depends on who you are.

He was having people in his home and he expected people to act a certain way. I think if people were talented enough and did in a certain way, it would be okay. Like the down rickles thing was so controversial in 1965, can you think about insult comedy now? It's so ubiquitous.

Carson had to take three minutes in 1965 and explain, okay, you don't know who this next comedian is. He's going to make fun of me. But it's going to be okay. But it's going to be okay.

We're allowed to laugh. And it was decided behind the scenes that rickles could come out. He would make fun of Ed McMan and the band leader, Schichenderson. They would see Johnny laughing and then it would be okay to insult Johnny. But Johnny, it was the first one that ever put him on late night.

Everyone was way too afraid to risk it. So he definitely went against what traditional book in would be. What other risks did he take that for the time were hugely consequential. But by today's measure might be like, you know, who cared? I think maybe Anita Bryant, the singer, I mean, she was in Florida with anti gay legislation

and Carson. I mean, was just in the monologue, just was like just going after her with bars. I think that might have been the late 70s, that might have been one that maybe went against his audience. But they went with him on that, that might have been one trying to think.

Tell me if this is, if I'm imagining this. So he didn't want too much stick in his guests. If you went too far with an act and it felt even if it was funny, my sense was if it wasn't authentic, got off of my set, which is like why tiny Tim was so interesting. Because if I remember, Carson wasn't sure.

He that was it. He would not put anybody on unless he was sure they were the real deal and he was, it wasn't everyone in Carson show except for one person who just passed away correct tennis, the talent coordinator, no one wanted tiny Tim on, Craig put his job on the line. The conservative crew thought this guy, I mean tiny Tim was so, hair was long, he took

into the pool of skies. Yeah, and Carson really wanted to know is this guy for real and it wasn't until at the very end, the Carson note, this guy is for real.

And then, you know, 45 million people a year or two later tuned into the wedding second

to the moon landing, power of Carson, and made this guy a start of the Beatles, Bob Dylan, everybody is a tiny Tim, Bob Euker late 60s. I talked to Bob for an hour and he told me when he was on Carson was so skeptical, it was a former MLB player because he was so funny, because he was funny, Carson allowed to be that funny and athletic.

The staffs like he wasn't a player, it's like he had to see baseball cards, tops, cards, had to see articles that this guy was really a ball player, but yeah, he could have been a professional comedian and that's another thing with Euker and certain guests, they would throw out the pre-interview, they'd always have it, but if those rickles, if those buddy hack it, it was just a conversation with him.

“See, that's why I'm going to ask you about that because this has been this been up my”

butt for many, many years, whether it's the today's show, we're good morning America, we're this tonight's show, we're line out, all of them, yeah, there's always a producer who calls me the night before to talk about what we're going to talk about, and it's so demoralizing because when you do that, well, I mean it's kind of like take two, take two is another word for a performance and it's not a conversation, how can you call it a conversation

if a producer calls you the night before and you script it out, and yet that's always

informed this format, even Carson, Carson had it, but a lot of times he didn't stick to it, I mean, I can't tell you how many guests he would throw it out, back in New York also,

sometimes, but most of the time on his own and he was usually right, but the best interviews, the most famous things are when he threw everything out and was just having a conversation with the person and it would go, I mean sometimes he would put on now it's everyone's so obsessed with atlas, celebrity, social media, how many accounts and he would put on people that weren't even famous, he would put them on the first guest before the big movie star,

I mean the potato chip lady, this potato chip inspector for 1965 years old in Indiana, and she notices that she's inspecting the potato chips that they're in the different shapes and Carson puts her on the show. What ships specifically, like, like, face-to-face?

“Bob Hope, like Bob Hope, a different object puts her on and it was, I think the most”

requested clip, and she made her a star, I mean she started traveling across the United

States when overseas and Carson in his brilliance, you know, he never made fun of the guest,

that web, Murve Griffin made the mistake of making fun of tiny times the audience turned on him, Carson was, his rule was I'm gonna make my guest look good no matter what, if they get the laugh good for them, that was Carson and Carson did script a bit she didn't know where Ed McMan distracted her and then he picked in on a chip and she almost had a hard attack.

And she thought he just bit, yeah, Bob Hope. And then he reveals, no, I have my own chips and it was, it made every anniversary show, but that was Carson, I mean he was absolutely, for somebody that was doing that show, I mean he, I think he did it best and even again today, looking back at him 30 years later, it's still the model on how to do one of the shows.

You know, before there was a VCR or anything, time shifted or DVR or anything like that, I live next door to my grandparents and I remember seeing my granddad cry with laughter as he was describing what he saw on the Carson show the night before and so frustrated that he couldn't show it to us, but it was Ed Ames. Oh, yes.

Throwing the Tom Hall. Yeah, I sat down with him in Beverly Hills. No. Yeah, he was in his 90s. Explain to people who he was and what happened because that, that, I mean, that weird little

moment, I didn't see it live, but my granddad did and then later I saw it on a special. Yeah. And it made me feel closer to my past. Sure. Go.

I mean, my dad's the one that got me into Carson. I had a lot of people bonded with their families over at Carson with something to end at the day. You could all come together. So I'm in Beverly Hills with Ed Ames.

“He was known as a singer and he was on a, then, on a show, Daniel Boone, I think on ABC.”

And he, in the beginning, he threw his a Tom Hall, but it's trick photography, it heads a tree perfectly. And he said, Mark, I did not know how to throw a Tom Hall. It was decided that Johnny and him were going to take turns throwing at a wooden cutout of a cowboy.

Perfect. And it was right before the show. They tried to tell him, this is how you throw a Tom Hall. So he throws the first one then it's Johnny. They're going to go back for, so Ed Ames throws it.

This is 1965 and it heads the crotch area in Carson, in his brilliance, Ed Ames goes to retrieve it. He's kind of a bit embarrassed in Carson grabs him by that arm and holds him back. Jack Benimobe kicks in, which is, we're going to let the silences play the laughs build. To this day, it's still considered the longest, let's sustain laugh in the history of

television with a studio audience. And Ed Ames told me he went home that night and he said, those were the funniest thing

happened, but NBC's never going to enter this.

And Carson, in his brilliance, did two things, one, he told NBC, you are air in this. And the second thing is his Carson asked for a copy and he kept it in his desk a cannescope. And he didn't realize that NBC would erase the first 10 years, almost all of the first 10 years. And that's why he hadn't his desk.

So that's why we, that moment. There's an image. They're an image. Yeah. I mean, it's quintessential Carson.

Not just a cowboy. A sheriff. Every year. That actually takes it to another level. Every year on the anniversary show, they would play this, a couple years Johnny thought, you

know what's overdone. We're not going to do it. And then they would get people are outright. You have to do this every year. And then Carson would do it.

But yeah, that was. But Mark, why? Why? [MUSIC PLAYING] Dumb.

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“I think being in a reactionary comic, I mean, that's what is biggest laughs are by far”

him being in a reactionary comic and just letting the laughs build.

That's why it was funny the first time.

But what is it about so many of these images and so much of this tape? Is it nostalgia? Is it virtual moths? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think for me, looking at this clip, it makes me laugh for all the reasons we

say, but it also reminds me of my granddad with tears coming down his face as he tried to describe it to me when I'm, I don't know, 13 years old or something, which, by the way, how old are you? Oh, I mean, my four days as we take this as we record this. You're your 40s?

Yeah. What's your secret menu? Oh, right. Younger's experience. We record this.

That's it. If this is after January 21st or after I put me up a decade, but yeah, well, I'm only asking because I was born in 62 and I was born when he took October 1st, 1962. Right. So that's when he went on the air in the tonight show in New York.

He was always in my mind as a kid, but he was still a young man himself.

You had to rediscover all this. Right. I was 16 when I went off the air and it was watching thousands and thousands of hours of Carson and just trying to do as much research as I could. I don't want to put you on a cat.

Oh, no. No, no. Not necessarily. But I do need to understand. Sure.

Because whatever you're going to tell me is going to resonate with plenty of people who are listening.

“So I'm going back to that weird kind of why what was it?”

Your dad. Yeah, my dad got me into it. My dad went to the show in 1968 and told me who the guess were they to connect the magnificent and just got planted that seed and just got me into the show as my introduction to show business.

He would do prime time anniversary shows. He'd be with kids. He'd be funny. We'd be funny with the animals. I talked to Joe and Amber.

I talked to Jim Valar. I mean, he talked. He was with, you know, the comedians like Danger feel like running danger field would do 50 jokes. Most comedians went to 25 jokes.

Ron ate a 25 stand-up sit down with Johnny another 25. He loved. Yeah. He was such a powerhouse. So to hear all those behind the scenes stories.

But my dad was the one that got me into it. And again, there was just something this mystery on what is going on behind the scenes. Who is Carson, what is he like behind the scenes? And there's just what? There weren't any, what?

The answer.

“So that's why I started to just talking to people.”

But again, I didn't think it would last eight years doing a podcast about Carson. I didn't realize that everybody, you literally did a Carson podcast for eight years. There were people that I didn't understand why they would want to talk to me. Like for example, Jimmy Buffett's people said he's really excited to talk to him. Like, why would he be excited to talk to Mark Malkov?

And Jimmy Buffett's at Mark.

You're the first one that ever asked me about Carson was the biggest break of my career.

He said in 1981, I couldn't get booked on television. Carson was the one and they just wanted to share the stories. I had no idea that I would be the case. So when did you know that you had stumbled into, I'm just going to say, a gold mine. And I'm not, I don't know how much money you're going to make.

Oh, I definitely know. You're going to sell a lot of books. I guarantee it. But it's just a quick sidebar. I run this foundation called MicroWorks.

So I go out and I tell these stories sometimes. And when I knew that I was doing a thing that was resonating, it's when old men, old men that were typically very successful would pull me aside and say, let me tell you about my first dirty job. Oh, I see.

Let me tell you about the time when such a sudden, so that thing exists in varying degrees with all kinds of subjects in every one. But for you to find that in Buffett, I'm wondering, was that the inciting incident or was there some other interview when you left going, good grief? The world is desperate to tell their Carson story.

And I'm here to apologize. It started almost right away. I sat down with Peter Jones who did American Masters, PBS on Johnny Carson, and I told him that I did for the podcast. I call him the next day.

And I said, I'm going to do this. And I said, who do you think I should have on? He said, do you want Carl Reiner's home phone number? I said, yeah. Do you want Doc Severn's and cell phone number?

I said, OK. And as you Dickinson's email, I'm like, so everything's right away. And with Carl Reiner, and Beverly Hills, like within days, and then he's the one that

I'm in Culver City the next day. To be clear, that's because Carl Reiner, and Mel Brooks, sit down and watch jeopardy. Yes. And in Carl's Reiner's living room in Beverly Hills, he's like, Mel and I, we have dinner every night here. I'm going to tell Mel, and yeah, that's--so it was one thing after another.

But just the fact that all these people would be like little kids talking about Mel was doing routines from the 1960s he did on Carson Show for me in the office.

He was on Johnny's very first show.

When did you interview Mel Brooks? I was 2013. I talked to him a couple years ago for the book to get some more information on it. No, then convince kids. Yes, that's right.

Yeah. Kid from Brooklyn. Yeah. He's still doing that. He's 98.

When you were sitting there listening to Mel Brooks, blazing cells, young friends. Yeah, producers. High anxiety. High producers. Yes.

“And like, did you see him go back in time in his own mind?”

Absolutely.

I mean, that's the gift I'm getting at.

That is. I would see these people reliving it on their faces and tears in their eyes sometimes, especially the comedian telling me and just thanking me for bringing this back. Now we're getting somewhere. The tears in Mel Brooks' eyes, the tears in my granddad's eyes of viewer and icon both

moved tears by the memory, the shared memory of a moment. It's powerful. That's what I mean by a gold mine. It's not your book if I can be so bold because I just finished it and I haven't really had a time to properly absorb it, but it's not really about cars in my view.

It's about the reader and where the reader was and what the reader can remember and try and regulate and share. It's a chance like all those celebs you mentioned, they mean something to me. I have a shared memory of them. And when they talk about a memory that I also recall, you've stumbled into something

culturally. That's so nice to hear. I just remember, even being 16 and her cheap Pennsylvania on October on May 22nd, 92 and Carson said goodbye.

“I remember, even just feeling the weight that this guy is going away and what that would”

mean to America and television history and late. Is that where you wrote? I did for a lot of my life. I was like chocolate when it was windy or rainy or the street lamps still shaped like Hershey's kisses.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was in Hershey once for a gig. My suitcase was lost and I needed underwear and I went to a Kmart and I bought Hershey's underwear, literally.

Like they make underwear. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. It was a dollar. With chocolate on the underwear, which really is a poor choice when you think about

you don't want to play with chocolate on it, where it's so was this dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Oh, gosh. Well, started milk. I never know.

I worked at Hershey Park. With nuts.

I never had to dress up like the Hershey bar.

I had a friend who did that and it's hard to become that hard dude. Yes. But Hershey, go Hershey. But I remember watching Johnny's last show and just devastated that this guy was going away. I mean, well, that would mean for people, my edge and even your edge was the kind of like

at that point. I didn't like it. What the hell is that? I don't mean, I mean, that a lot of people, when I talk to 'cause I was 16 at the time and you would have been 30.

A lot of people, even 30, years old, early 30s, Dave was the cooler choice. He's been in all this innovative stuff. In Carson, really felt he was being taken for granted and it really hurt him. Robert Smigle, who's a brilliant Saturday night library at our triumph for the Insolcomic Dog was writing these sketches on Saturday night, live in a broke Johnny's heart.

They portrayed Dana Carvey playing Carson as really out of touch, seeing a aisle and Johnny said, "I do not want to be seen like this and everybody's giving lettermen the accolades." And it was just a matter of time. I mean, those sketches were the biggest reason by far that Johnny walked away. What do you make of the fact that your book is filled with examples of courage and confidence

“on Carson's behalf, but insecurity and sensitivity at the same time?”

Definitely the sensitivity shocked me. I thought the cult was cold and eloofly. The media would make him out to be, he'd joke about the cold and eloof moniker and then I'd be with his friends and the people that spent the most time consistently. They told me the same thing.

He was almost the same person on and off camera and you could not be out there for 30 years and fully American public and not be yourself. Now at the same time, it was a small group of people that saw him like that that he felt comfortable with. But if he didn't know the person, he would be very, very shy and self-preservation purposes.

I mean, the guy couldn't walk 5 feet down the street with that somebody literally grabbed in his arm. So, I mean, people might have seen him be cold and eloof, but it was self-preservation. So, that was one thing. What was the other thing you asked?

Well, I mean, it's just sometimes on the same page in your book.

You're right.

He has enough confidence that when comedians would debut on a show, young comedians, he would

during commercials. He would give them ideas for their jokes and punch up their material. Like George Lopez told me afterwards, when he debuted on Carson Carson, like what afterwards went to his dressing? Why don't you try on this joke this and Lopez tried at the next night and crush.

She said Carson knew what it was. But at the same time, he was definitely very, very, he would watch his competition. I mean, in 1971, he was watching Fort Television at 1130s, watching his show, he's watching the Dick Habit Show, David Frost, and then I was either Joey Bishop or Merve Griffin.

“And he was so competitive and so insecure that I don't know if you want to me to talk”

about it. But he faked hepatitis. That's pretty big. But he faked hepatitis and was instead getting cosmetic eye surgery. Right.

Yeah. Because his wife. So, he was all of this. He was suddenly off the air for two weeks. Yes.

Joey Bishop is filling in. Joey Bishop's filling in, and the story goes out, that he's got happy. Yeah. Cabit is 10 years younger than him, David Frost, the playboy's 14 years younger. His mom, Ruth, in Nebraska said, Johnny, you're looking so old.

“His girlfriend had just convinced him to stop dying his hair.”

So Carson gets this idea, I'm going to say I've hepatitis go. He didn't realize, and this was really devastating that over 200 people, 200 people, and B.C. would have to get shots, painful, gamma, goblins shots, and the NBC nurse is going around, giving all these people that worked for him shots. Not only that, but people that were guessed the last three weeks.

Tony Randall, come on in to NBC, and you need a shot. Carson's horrified that this is happening, but then you have people at NBC, because Carson is the equivalent to someone on Taylor Swift, that famous. There were people that weren't even around Carson that wanted the shot to brag to their friends.

Right. So they're like NBC nurse, give me the shot so I can tell my friends. So, yeah. That really shows his competition. Letterman was another person.

He loved Letterman, but his biggest fear was going against Letterman, and the best solution possible was for Carson to put Letterman after him. Give him as many limitations as possible in Johnny's eyes. One, no monologue, Johnny thought that that was a key. Dave could only do four opening remarks jokes.

“You have to do it from New York, less guests back then though.”

You can't only have four people in your band, no brass instruments, and it was one thing after another that Johnny, oh, no Fridays, which is when the younger people stay up, and

you get them five Fridays a year for the first couple years.

So, Dave loved Johnny, Johnny loved Dave, but at the same time, if he was competitive, like Tom Snyder when he launched NBC said, okay, we're going to launch Snyder after Johnny's anniversary shown Carson's absolutely not. I end the network me, and they gave him, for Carson for Snyder's debut, they gave him when Joey Bishop was guest host, and he got the ratings down.

So, Carson had approval over every Letterman guest in every Snyder guest, and that was, he was definitely, he was the most competitive at the same time, yet insecure person. It's just one more juxtaposition, he was generous, he was. But stingy, yeah, he was, if you said, but limiting, yeah, I'll do this, but not to that point. He was like, constantly looking for something like equilibrium, dumb, the Marine Corps

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He would, and he would take people that were considered too outrageous for TV like bet, mittler, and launched her, and took her to Vegas when he was broke Jodi Jodi Garland's record at the Sahara Hotel, I mean he was a powerhouse in Vegas, he had an unknown bet, mittler, that audiences were just shaking their heads, who is this, but Carson knew her

I mean, after four months, Dave Letterman was guest host in the show as an unknown, I mean,

Shanley and Garen Shanley and him were the only unknowns to have her guest host the show, and that was the power, and then they become housemen. Well, you can't, you can't be on the show, and still be unknown. Evied, has anybody ever occupied that much gray matter in the public's mind for that period of time?

I mean, you mentioned Taylor Swift before, and I'm like, okay, you know, that's a cultural touchstone, but really, I mean, five, six years of, not even that, like the intensity of

“that last tour was a thing, but like, how do you think about her notoriety compared?”

I mean, it's so different, I mean, Steve Martin's at Carson was more recognizable than the president or as recognizable, and it was just appealed to every demo, I mean, Taylor Swift, huge accomplishment with, and she, you know, gave billions of bonuses, did some really great things. My mom couldn't pick her out of the lineup.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm too probably, but it was one of those things, Carson really played everyone, everyone knew who this guy was, and as a recognized, yeah, for 30 years, that

was what it sounded to me, in terms of, he had competition with no serious competition for

30 years. Who is good enough if they're job that that happens? You know, you mentioned Letterman, I remember Letterman killing in a monologue later, after I think Johnny retired, and then telling the audience, every single joke. That was there.

What? No, I was there. You were in the studio. Yeah, it was 2005. It was, I'm genuine, Johnny had just passed away and broke everyone's heart yet again, because

he had left this, and I worked for Dave, I had a day jump at Dave Letterman show, and if you worked for Dave, there was a rule that you are not allowed to be in the audience ever, because it would throw Dave off if he recognized somebody, and if somebody had worked for him. The famous, if they were a public figure and they had tickets, they would go up to the balcony,

because it would throw Dave off. So I'm a very persistent person. Some of these guests that took four or five years to convince them to do it. A lot of people said, yes, right away, and I called up my friends at the show, and I'm like, I have to be there for the Johnny Trippie show, and they said, "Mart, we can't do it.

We can get so much trouble." And I said, I just kept calling. They said, "Fine, they smuggled me in." So I'm in the balcony where Dave can't see me, and they put me in a folding chair, so I'm not technically sitting in the audience.

Yeah, Dave comes out, does his monologue, and then he says, I just want everybody to know that all these jokes were written by Johnny Carson, and it was like, "So emotional." And then Johnny's producer, Peter Lassale, was a guest, and then Doc Severnson, and Ed Seanus and Tommy knew some of the band. They played Johnny's favorite song.

Here's that rainy day. It was Johnny's final year, in on earth, he was writing jokes for Letterman, and he was, like, a little kid. So excited to watch Dave show, and see, you know, Dave would do a golf swing, and only Johnny would know why he was doing that after he did one of Johnny's jokes, and he was a little

clip. That was his last year. I mean, it was two packs a day since he was 14 of unfolds, unfolds, and pull them all. So he didn't stop until he left the show, and then it was the damage it was done. I mean, he was such a smart guy, but at the same time, Tony Randall would lecture him about

smoking and said, I'm fine. I'm not windy. I can play two sets of tennis, not winded.

“He saw what a smokeer's lung looked like, and he said, I think the other people not me.”

He found out he had Emphezima, and had to get quadruple bypass, and the last couple years were really, really tough. You know, it's not really fair to, I'm like, I'm pointing out these contradictions, these inconsistencies, and these juxtaposition, stingy, but generous, and so forth, denial, all these things.

It's only the most human thing there is. It's only all of us doing that. All the time, we just don't imagine somebody who lives at that heightened level of existence would be subject to those same foibles. I think he tried to do the right thing.

There were definitely times, I mean, he would talk about his struggles on air. He wasn't perfect. He was said he was overly competitive, the drinking. He said some people get fun loving when they drink.

I go to the opposite, but just the fact that he left $180 million, which was the most

money ever for an entertainer to this foundation, no one knew about until a couple years after he passed away, the Janet John Carson Foundation, still to this day that it has up millions of dollars every year to all these places. I mean, that was, to what? What does the foundation work?

“It goes everywhere from AIDS to education, just really, I think it's like maybe 80 different”

groups. You left $180 million. Yes. It was the biggest foundation ever in the history for an internet. But those were the stories.

I couldn't put them all on the book that I was shocked about where people would tell me mark. Johnny did this for me. A comedian told me he saved my life from drugs. It was one thing after another.

One of the Carson writers said I was going through a painful divorce Johnny said, "Can I take you out to dinner." I mean, these were the stories that Johnny did not want us to know.

There's some celebrities, they do something, they have their publicists sent out, press releases, everyone look how great I am and Johnny was on like that. Back to the generous one. He was so, look, every nice thing I've gotten credit for doing in dirty jobs I stole from Carson.

“He was curious, just like, "You are curious, curiosity is the key and everything I've ever”

done that I've been successful with that I'm proud of as curious as curiosity." Yeah, and more so, because it's a conscious choice, it's like work ethic. You're not born curious. You can exercise that muscle, you can choose, or you can let it atrophy. You can also choose as a host of a show to talk more than you listen.

You can let your guest shine, or not. Try to outdo them like certain guests that somebody's being fun to be funnier and no comments. Well, all my life, all my life, I did that until dirty jobs, when I saw the quote, "I don't know if it was Johnny's saying or somebody's saying it about him," but he was like, "Johnny

Carson knew he was going to be back the next day." His guests were not. There would be a new one, and his job in that role was to make the guest as good as they could possibly be.

That's right, first half hour was Johnny in monologue, a comedy piece, and then his

rule was, "I'm going to make my guest look good. They get the first laugh, if they get all the laughs, that is okay with me. It took from Jack Benny his mentor, which is Benny who's like, "It's my show, if somebody laughs and thinks it's fun, it's, you know, my name is on at Johnny's name was on it." I'm just that.

He owned it. He did.

“In 1980, he got ownership of his show, which was unheard of, but they needed him.”

And he said, "I'm going to go down to 60 minutes instead of 90." NBC obviously lost so much money with advertising, but they needed this guy. It was such a reversal, but to get ownership of a late night show, to get that is almost unheard of. He was able to do a CBS in '93, because they had no infrastructure in place, and they

really, really wanted him. But the bad Carson was able. Generosity. I'm only going to bring this up. I know this is, I don't know how awkward this was with the book, but I'm only mentioned

in this, because I know that she's saved her job, and we talked about it before the show was Joan Rivers. Joan to me, I could have done a podcast about Joan being generous to people in the wonderful thing. She did, which is heartbreaking, which what I write about in this book with her and Johnny,

what really did happen, but I do want to acknowledge, you know, I met her a couple of times she wouldn't talk to me for the podcast, and she was gone when I was writing the book, but I do want to say I could do a whole podcast on how wonderful she was to people. Well, if you ever do that, and you want to be from another country call me, because she literally saved my career.

“Oh, I know, and that's why I'm bringing it up, and there's so many people that I've”

read these stories and talked to people that she was there for them, and did these things in her generosity. She's just, well, here's the crazy thing, and I certainly, and I think a lot of people do, for those of you who don't know the story, Joan Rivers was a very popular guest host. Yeah, permanent guest host in 83, and she broke Sinatra's record in either Vegas or Atlantic

City.

I mean, Johnny gave her that real estate for the first time in the history of the tonight's show

when Joan's career soared, even higher. And she, who knows what would have happened, but I think it was Fox that made her an offer, that I was going to say that she couldn't refuse, but really, it was kind of Edgar. This is what happened. She wanted to be a good wife.

When she would meet people in private at a party, it wasn't, "Hi, my name's Joan Rivers. I'm Joan Rose in Bergen. She wanted to be a good wife." And Barry Diller told me, who's the head of Fox. He told me in New York.

He's like, "I told Joan, you need to tell Johnny." She was for two and a half months. Signed this deal with Fox, and was still going on with Johnny was guest host, and Barry said, "I'm friends with Johnny. I'm playing a poker game with him.

You need to tell him." And Edgar was the one. She was just going to be unforeseen circumstances. And she didn't tell him. At the same time, Johnny was in negotiations with Carson for her to keep guest host in the

tonight show. And she had no intention to do. She had already signed this deal with Fox. And then the weekend before Johnny found out, it was Johnny's producer Frederick Court of a Johnny recalling Joan at home in California, and they say, "Oh, no, she's in Vegas.

They call Vegas." Oh, no, she's in. They couldn't get her on the phone.

And then finally, that Sunday night, Johnny got a call from Brandon Tardich, called off

the Joan was dodging them. - Joan and they take off, who's running at this point. - Yeah, you know, Joan's going against his, has a show in Fox. And Johnny just, he was heartbroken. I mean, he couldn't believe it.

And he didn't hang up on her, he just wouldn't take River's call. River's wouldn't in a panic mode and called him. But then she did some other things, which she admits she did, which is number one. She trying to take Johnny's prize producer, Peter Lassalli, and he couldn't understand that every talent coordinator, and I've talked to some of them, every five got a call,

and they were offered double their salary from Joan to go over to, yeah, go from Johnny. None of them did. They stuck with Johnny. So, that was really tough, and then Joan making it at to be some media war.

Michael J. Fox, Mel Brooks, all these people did Joan, Joan, Joan, and Johnny didn't care.

“Johnny's cue card person, who Johnny was very close to Don Shiff, told me he went to”

Johnny, he said, "I have the opportunity, my company is the opportunity to Joan's show at Fox through the cue cards." He's like, "No, you have to do it. It's a lot of money. I'm not a big blessing.

All she needed to do," was a couple of times. I have this opportunity, but the thing that one of the reasons she didn't do it in Edgar is that she, this would have happened is that there would have been two months that were Johnny, would have removed her as guest host. But it would have been two months, it would have preserved her relationship with Johnny.

Everyone sat down with Johnny, and said, "I have an opportunity, Joey Bishop, Dick Havitt, and then their shows would get inevitably canceled, and Johnny would have them back instantly, and it was all good." And Rivers after 10 months, Barry Dillers said, "I'm firing your husband," and Rivers said, "If you do that, I'm walking," Rivers thought Diller was bluffing.

He wasn't. And after 10 months, she was out of a job two months later, Edgar Rosenberg takes his own life. It was horrible.

“And then, Ms. Rivers finds out she's millions of dollars in debt.”

Talk about resiliency. Talk about somebody who, I mean, is an icon, somebody in comedy that was able to bounce back at such a level. You see her documentary? Yeah, piece of work.

Sure. Yeah. No, she's incredible. Being that competitive and loving what they do, yeah, it was definitely a master class. And if you went along Jevity in this business, I mean, there was a reason.

It just was really hard. I don't think she ever got over what happened with Johnny.

She tried to, she'd see him around, and you know, try to talk to him, and he just never,

if he was hurt, the relationship was over. It's another thing that makes your book more than a, oh, and then this happened, and then that happened. It's so human to it. It's like, we're sitting right now in Santa Monica and within, say, 10 square miles.

There are many, many, many, many, many, many people, many executives, lots of talent, writers, communities, all of them, who, in a similar situation, would shrug and go, "That's show this." Right?

“Because you know, if you're in this town, you must be this tall to get on the ride, and you're”

going to get stabbed in the back, and your friends are going to let you down, and so forth, and so forth, and so forth, and if you take it personally, you'll go out of your mind. And here, again, is Johnny Carson at the absolute top of the food chain. It's not show-ups. He was wounded.

It's personal. Yeah. There were certain times. There were a few entertainment figures that he just couldn't shake. But it was even people like Dick Clark.

He did business with him on bloopers and practical jokes, but we weren't put Clark on the show for 30 years, because when Carson was a game show host, Dick Clark was American Bandsstand, this phenomenon, and the network wanted to put Carson's game show, which just had started in the middle of Bandsstand, and divide the show up in Clarkson. Absolutely not.

And Carson, if he held a grudge and was hurt, I mean, he just wouldn't have the person on. It was definitely petty. I mean, Carl Sagan, who we love, corrected him twice on the air, interrupted him.

Carson, he's never coming back.

I mean, that was- But they stayed friends. That's it. They did, but it was so, for somebody looking on petty, but at the same time, someone like Jerry Lewis, who was rude to Carson staff, said, "I don't care if he's Jerry Lewis

these icon. He's never coming back. He's rude to my staff." So he definitely had people's back, but there are people that went on that it took a whole lot of people with look patty.

So you had rules, but it was a sliding scale, and your experience might vary. He was not a religious man, but he did not like people doing jokes, mocking religion or God, and Ellen DeGeneres on our third appearance got banned from the show. They told her not to do a specific joke that she did, and Carson was a humanist. Carson would spend a lot of time with fellow humanists, Norman Leare, Carl Sagan.

These are people that their philosophy is, we don't believe in God, but we're here on earth to leave the world in a better place and to be a good person. That was what Carson did. But at the same time, he definitely respected people that had faith, and Ellen, when she did that joke.

What was the joke, remember? The joke to my recollection was that she just became a Godmother to like a five or a ten year old, and she's like, "I happen to call me God for short." Something that really doesn't seem like it's a big deal, but back then especially people would write in letters when they were with religion.

I mean, Jay Leno made a, I mean, he would call the viewers and apologize. I mean, John need to do that too, if it was really, if he did a joke that really he felt was there, he would call the person or write them. I mean, he would get on the phone all the time with people make a wish with kids and stuff, but he definitely, if he thought he was in the wrong, he would apologize.

He would take people that would apologize to him, Chevy Chase sent him an apology letter in 1977, and said, "I'm sorry for the stuff I've said. I'd love to come on if you'll have me in Carson," said, "Absolutely."

Come on in, they met each other for the first time before the show, and they became poker

pals for decades after that, and it was all good. All it took was an apology. Well, there it is again man. Gracious, or not, bury the hatchet, or carry the grudge.

Johnny, they would write Johnny letters, Robert Kooley, will you please have me on the show? I haven't done the show in 10 or 15 years, Carson said, "Absolutely." Fill us new, man. Way, way, way, way. Yeah.

Was it Kooley? Yeah. Who forgot the word? That was it. That was that.

And what's his name? John David. That was it.

“That was the time that he wrote a letter to Johnny, can I come on the show?”

He goes on. And any other late night show would have stopped, because Goulet forgets the words to memories, and John said, "No, we're going to keep rolling." The song was memories. Yeah.

Yeah. And John David made John David's in, and Goulet, look so good, because there are human beings to these people. You look at some famous people, and you think they're all, well, he's perfect. And it gave them extra segments on the show, and it was wonderful that you did that.

Yeah. I just want to jump in and say that. That is the gold. Right. So on the one hand, you're going to have a pre-interview, there's going to be a producer, you're

going to have a plan. But every now and then, you're going to let the viewer know that we're on that part of the map that says, "Right, here be dragons." That is good. That is good.

That is good. That is good. That is good. That is good. Right.

So the new way episode is amazing, but it's also why, obviously, the ed AIMs beat.

But it's why the animals ranked so high, because you can't script those sons of bitches. No, he was somebody that we're going to let all the mistakes get in, and to the point where he would do things on principle sometimes that would shock the writers, and they admired him so much. They did a graduation sketch where he was in capping gowns and it bombed, and he even called

up the head writer the next day and said, "We're going to do the same sketch tonight." And he said, "Okay, so we're going to rewrite it." Oh, no. It was a bad audience. This was funny.

We're going to do the exact thing word for word. What? What? It was amazing. So he's an L.A.

Yeah, he was an L.A. is word for word, and it kills the second night. And the writers said, "So we're going to acknowledge the audience beforehand. We're doing the same sketch." Oh, no. He was fearless.

And it, he is. That is bananas. And it killed.

And then after it killed, he acknowledged, you know, we finally, we did that piece, the same piece in Carson.

No. He wanted it to be the A to be comparison. He was convinced there was a bad audience, and it was.

“But so in his mind, does he think his audience consists only of the people in the studio?”

Like, "No, what do you do if you're home?" Okay. Like, "You watch the last night." And you go, you're like, "What are you doing, dude? Or is it me?"

Yeah, it's in my ear. And some weird. Is there a rerun though? The night before? He was brave like that.

I mean, I was very rare. He would do something like that. But it was just unprincipled. I mean, it was so hard for him to go out there some nights. And the audience was bad, and it would happen.

Now, everybody claps during a monologue joke if they, not a long jokes, don't bomb. Back then, Carson, some of the best lines and the best things were when in the monologue, inevitably a joke wouldn't work, right? And it'd be funnier. Yeah.

I mean, she wouldn't purposely pick bad jokes to do, but once in a while something wouldn't work. And he'd be as funny. It's not funnier with one of those, you know, saving a joke. Well, I mean, is that again, say, maybe I'm not being fair to producers.

But, you know, to, like, the whole notion of an audience warm up is kind of, I get it. But, you know, anybody who's ever been to see live tapings will see the people on the sides, just tell the audience when to clap, and like, what's the difference between that in the left track? There is an audience warm-up person I'm not going to mention who actually tells the audience

how loud I need you with my laugh and has them get to that pitch.

“Yeah, I mean, a lot of those shows, that's what the audience does do, they're clapper.”

Yeah, they didn't do that with cars and they'd never have them with cars.

Well, and I think viewers are smart, and I think Carson, I've never seen anybody who respected the audience more than Carson. Yeah, that was, well, one thing, he wouldn't put certain people on if he thought that the audience, because he respected the audience, he wouldn't put them on if they couldn't tell if the person was in character or not.

So Gilbert Gottfried was never allowed to do the show. P.V. Herman couldn't do the show, but he didn't. He didn't. Yes, because he was real, and if it was something obvious, like Super Dave Osborn finds, and that was okay, father and Guido said, do she don't develop?

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Keep the bugs away. So Pesty, go to Pesty.com/mic and an extra 10% off your order at p-e-s-t-i-e.com/mic. For an extra 10% off. So yeah, that was, is respect for the audience, and even with magicians, because Carson was an amateur magician, he banned horse and wells who was his friend, magician, friend

for a chauffeur. When he guessed so so, the NHL had plants in the audience for this mentalist trek and Carson thought that was a violation of just a magician's code and also the audience as well, not respecting the audience, and he banned him from the show. What about like, you know, a pen and teller, also great magicians, but their stick is

debunking. Yeah. So how's that play with you? I was just with Invagus with Penn, and he asked, "Do you drop names faster than

and I have never ever talked to anyone in my life who has known that's many things."

And he was with Penn just, and he's... This morning. Yeah. I was with him like a week and a half ago in Las Vegas, and he was telling me, because he's like, "Why do you think we are never on Carson?"

Penn and teller. I said, "Oh, you were on with Gates. I was Jay Lano at the time, but you didn't do it with Johnny." I was told that Johnny wouldn't have you on because you were giving away the secrets, and he said, "Rong."

And he told me the reason that they didn't, Johnny wouldn't have them on is because at the end of one of the routines, Johnny wanted to teller to come up to show the audience. It was like... It was in a tank of water to show that he was okay, and they didn't want to do that. So Johnny said, "I respect that artistic integrity, we're just going to put you on with

Jay instead." And Penn told me he would have grasped it, and he became friends with Johnny, I mean, they became friends and talked on the phone, and Penn did this documentary with Paul Pervence called the Aristocrats, and that was one of Johnny's favorites. Favorite joke.

Spuck guys. And Johnny... Penn was going to go and Paul Pervence and we're going to go to Johnny's home in Malibu right after the movie was done and premiered in Johnny passed away. Right then, and it was...

They were in Sundance when Johnny, they found out Johnny passed away, they were going to go to his home, and... If I were to suggest people Google the... a risk at... Cratt.

“Which version of that joke would you suggest the people watch?”

I mean, maybe Gilbert, God, for his maybe the most famous... Gilbert. Great. Johnny would reference the joke, but he couldn't talk about it on the show. I think to people that aren't in comedy or show business, it really...

There's probably a mystery, it's like, might not understand why. If you're not following along, it's like the crudest dirtiest joke in the history of joke. They did a documentary where everybody has their own version of this thing, and it's filthy.

Absolutely.

And the punchline is always the same.

The aristocrats. That's the punchline. Right. And, yeah, Gilbert did it. Was one of the first people to do what I think on television, and comedy central had to be...

I think they had to be bit out a lot. Sure. Yeah. But Johnny, that was one of his favorite jokes. So...

Name dropping, who else can I name drop? Oh, dude. Oh, you know, speaking of the name dropping.

“You know who's the worst name droper that I've ever been talking about?”

I've ever been talking about him? Yeah. No, it's a sting. Just the worst. Yeah.

That's the worst. That's the worst, yeah. I think I've had... Well, you know what? I love Catholic as well.

I just try. Yeah. The extent of my notes here, just says Catholic. I'm only saying Catholic, because he'll like make fun of himself to talk about Groucho, and he, I mean, he knew Stan Laurel, he knew Groucho.

I want to hear those stories. I sat down with Kavit twice for my podcast. Oh, yeah. I sat down with him for the podcast. I mean, he...

Yeah. You're absolutely killing me. He was a writer for Carson. He was a work for Jack party. He got hired in Carson, 64, 2 years.

I love Dick Kavit. Oh, he's the best. No, well, no, no. Yeah. Carson was the best.

Yeah. Bekavit for what he did. For what no one did, what he did better than him. Yeah. Yeah.

Which plimped in kind of creature, you know. But I know, I just had another thought. I love that. I love that. Well, Midwest.

That's right. Nebraska. Brando as well. Carson and Brando were friends for decades. What is with, like, how many famous talk show hosts came out of the Midwest?

A decent amount of people were Midwestern, Dave Letterman for sure, Kavit.

I think Jack par. It seemed. Steve Allen?

Yeah, forget we're Allen.

That seems so or bad. But it seems so. It really was. That was them. They've been west.

I mean, to succeed with longevity on those shows, it did seem that it's like the central time zone. Yes. You need to be all central. Carson was really good though at playing to Nebraska, but then he would be really sophisticated

enough to play to the cities. I mean, he, yeah, I really do wish, especially for younger people. I don't, how old do you think people, what is the age that you think maybe people don't know who Carson is? I hope the younger people listening go to YouTube and watch his clips.

I mean, again, millions and millions, billions of views. Yeah. I mean, look 45 maybe, and anyone under 45? No, it's younger though.

“I believe we have somebody Logan in the office.”

Oh, good. He knows. Yeah. Asked about you. No, he did not.

Oh, did not. No, Carson. Logan. Well, look, Matt, it's like this is back to your book. There's so much of what storytelling is.

There's a reliance on a pre-supposed, shared experience.

Like, you can't tell a joke if your audience doesn't understand, never mind the punchline,

but just the whole premise, the whole underlying thing. So, and when Carson was at his peak, the country basically had three choices tonight, maybe four. Yeah. We were living in a time when the assumption was the fat part of the bat was going

to be up to speed with your references, because people were more or less watching the same thing. What would Johnny say today, looking at Logan, looking at just go down the list of the top podcasts, the way I heard it for instance, okay?

“Like, how do you think about such a fractured, bifurcated ecosystem?”

I think he, I don't know, I mean, he would love podcasts because he was curious. I think he would really succeed at something like what you're doing. I know when his retirement year's from 92 till he passed away in 2005, he was just obsessed with watching the worst things on TV. He couldn't believe there were all those reality shows, and he was only like disappointed

if it wasn't bad enough, but in terms of everybody having a show, I think, yeah, I mean, it's definitely, I feel like the mystique and the, it just lost its magic a little bit, it's just different. I mean, there was just something about everybody tuning in for one person and somebody's career being made where the dust, I mean, now I think for comedians, it seemed like social

media may be an Instagram, but it's just, I mean, what was last time a late night show gave a comedian a break that really launched the, maybe Nate Parkaz with Jimmy Fallon, maybe Letterman, launch Ray Romano and Gathigan, Jim Gathigan, but even that's different. 25 years. What is a hit?

You know, you can have 100,000 people, and it's way more fun back then with three networks and, oh, you know, to me, the Carson show is the best time capsule for those 30 years to look at where the culture was, how people dressed, how people carried themselves, where the politics was, what was socially acceptable, who were the famous people of the day.

Think about Carson in terms of like a bow brummel or like a fashion Easter, but his line of clothing, I'm old enough to remember, that was a big deal. It was, he was this guy who was pain, it was like, it wasn't, I could be off on this, been in the 60s, he could have been a corporation, but he's like, no, I'm going to pay, it was 90% of his taxes, he was like in the top bracket where he was playing pain, so high,

and his wife, Joanne, was the one that brought in this guy, Sonny Wurblin, who owned the jets, and he was the one that got Johnny, the men's line, and he started making a gazillion dollars.

But that was not what he didn't, that's not what his goal, he never was chasing the money,

but it did follow. But it did catch up. I mean, he was playing 70% in-tash. Yes. That was like 70% in-tash.

And he wasn't cheating. But he thought he's like, this is my duty, I'm going to pay 70 and Wurblin was the one now, you can, you can be a corporation and God, I'm all these opportunities, and then, in 1980, he got ownership of the show, he definitely had that, but at the same time, I don't think the people were watching at home, I mean, he'd wear his suits, they weren't

the designer suits, no, but didn't he like wear like a neighborhood jacket or something? Yes, people started buying on the board, turtle, next people started buying the turtle last. But this is one of the best examples I can tell you about Carson just being a comforting president. I think it was 67 or 68, Muhammad Ali is in Texas, he's about to get arrested, he knows

he's going to be arrested for the next day, for not joining the military, he's refusing to be a service, I'm not going to go overseas, Howard Kossel walks in at Ali's hotel room and finds Ali under the covers, watching Johnny Carson, and he knows ours, he's going to

“and that's what he, you know what I mean, that was his comfort and I feel like so many Americans”

whatever was going on with our day, whatever was politics, he was just a comforting president. So that doesn't exist today, it just simply doesn't exist, the closest you can come to

that might still galvanize, but nothing like a daily dose, nothing like a nocturnal talk in. Not that I can think of now, unfortunately not, I miss him, I really do, I have to constantly because I watched so much Carson, I still do remind myself that, yeah, his show hasn't been on in 30 years and this guy's been off for 20 years, he's not, yeah, he's been deceased,

it doesn't, he seems, from when I watch him, he just, it's, it just seems so fresh and it is, I mean, he's been gone for a while and we just miss him.

Well, I'll tell you something, and Doug, I gotta ask you about Bush, can't tell me first.

Oh, sure, yeah. But, but I just, I keep missing it, cavit, yeah. Here's something I want you guys to, to Google, Google, Dick Cavit, Oscar Peterson, maybe the greatest jazz pianist to ever live and there's a clip on YouTube of Dick Cavit interviewing him, it is a master class in an interview done in a completely different kind

of way, he brings him out and they talk, but then they walk over to the piano and Oscar sits down and you realize the depth of knowledge cavit has, not just about Oscar's own repertoire in his past, but about music itself, and back to your earlier thing. Cavit was a curious cat, cavit and Carson, both curious. Took Jack Pars advice, which is you throw away any no-cards pre-interview, you get prepared,

“but do you have an conversation, that's what, the Carson did, that's what part of it,”

and that's what Cavit did so well. Well, that's what I'm trying to do here, and you know what, it is a challenge, actually, it's not a challenge because we have unlimited time, and I'm the master of my own domain.

I'm going to go as long as Jason Alexander's friend Peter, what's his name, the one that went

for Peter Tilden. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I went for two hours, well, in fairness, his dog was dying, so yeah, that's right. That was definitely, really. You actually watch that, so you watch his show.

I do, if I'm going to sit down with somebody, especially if you get on an airplane and fly out, you did do that too, man, you must really want to sell some books. Come on, no, I mean, I mean, you've accomplished so much, I mean, yeah, no, I wanted to meet you, but I wasn't going to turn this down. I emailed Chuck and Chuck was like, was so intrigued that it wasn't a book publicist.

It was a guy who wrote a book that was just like, I would love to come on. And he called me, and he'd get, look, he, whatever you said to him, I've known him for 46 years. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Obviously, he has no up. It's like the Sally plus Cordoba. Yes. Right. And so I'll take his recommendation, but I'll also question everything because, you know, he's got his own ideas.

Chuck did get me on the telephone, and I'm like, I hope I don't blow this. Or we did a zoom, and I'm just hoping I passed this, the test. So, well, I was glad I was here. I don't feel like this is almost like a Carson thing where it's like, I'm coming on with

“something, and I'm like, so nervous, but what do you want to do a good job?”

You've already done it. And we're, we're in total bonus fill now. Okay. You crush it. But the real reason that I wanted to do a podcast face-to-face, I did plenty long

distance and stuff, but it's everything that you just talked about. It's the opposite of production. There are no. I got a pad here so I can remind myself. If it's yours, though.

I have two words right, what did I write? I wrote "Cavit," and then I wrote "Oh, pod." Which I'm getting to. Yeah. Well, actually, I'm talking about right now.

People always talk about, let's have a conversation.

The problem is, all of the existing formats in morning and late night are still fundamental to lead, designed to make sure that can't happen. And most of it is a time restraint. Some of it is adversarial. Some of it is people producers fall in love with a plan, so then the whole thing becomes execution

instead of, you know, a little adventure.

“I think Carson would love the podcast world because it would let him do even more of what”

he was so good at doing that. He was getting pictures. I mean, his office was less than two miles from here in Santa Monica and he was getting pitched, things, and I mean, he definitely considered doing things with the Titanic and certain things he was curious about.

I mean, he took Jim Faller to Africa on Safari, and Carson wasn't enough for Carson to go on Safari. He had to take, on his own, took four months of language classes with what he easily so he could communicate with the Africans. When he went to Russia, it wasn't enough he went to Russia in the late '80s.

He took four months. He had somebody come to his home in Malibu and taught him enough Russian, where he could communicate with the people in Miniev's curiosity. The only Oscar host that no teleprompter, no cue cards, all memorized everything can edit in his head.

All I'm saying is capability was unlike anybody else. We're surrounded to by crutches. Everything from a teleprompter to a cue card, which I know he used. But I've seen the cue cards that he uses, and there's just reminders.

It was key words. It wasn't word by word. We're some host need every single word, and he could edit the jokes in his head. He was on a level. I mean, there was an intimacy.

He would make people that were terrified. Elizabeth Taylor avoided the show for 29 years, because she was terrified moment like this, comfortable with Johnny. He had that aura. Very much like this.

Just, I mean, all the fear. Who paid their pants? Somebody famous paid their pants. I didn't know that. Robert Smigel wrote a sketch where they had Dom Dello's play by Chris Barley P. himself, and

that was an SNL did something, but I don't know. They'd be somebody did pizza, so I'm not saying you're book, yeah, it's in your book. It's in your book. It's in really had that. In my book, I wrote it.

I should know that. I don't know that it was somebody you interviewed, but it might have been somebody

telling an anecdotal third party story about it.

Could have been. I don't want to say it. It wasn't Michael Douglas. Oh. Oh, yeah.

It was Michael Douglas. It was Michael Douglas. He did. He went himself. I can't believe I forgot about this.

This was Michael Douglas. I wrote a book. I'm sure he's relieved. I remember. This was in New York in 1970 when it was first time on Carson.

He was backstage, and he wet himself, and they took a hair dryer, and he was so nervous. And talk about guest host, Roger Moore is James Bond. He's guest host in the tonight. He's like, I can do this. He was, he's wet through his suit and during the commercial, they had to take a hair dryer

to try to dry the perspiration. This is James Bond to your earlier point, man. He made it look so easy. You really did. Even smart people, but assumed it was easy.

Yeah. The hardest gig in show business. That's why it's the ultimate magic trick.

“That's why so many people turn the thing down, so I'm like, why would I do this?”

No, it's the hardest gig. I don't know how somebody does it. You can be a great stand-up, but be able to sit down and be interesting and funny consistently five nights a week. And a traffic up.

Yes. It's a very, very codified set of muscles. The one thing about this that I really like is back then when I was doing the podcast and talked to almost 400 people, and then ultimately for the book more than 400, is that Zoom did not exist.

I couldn't do the podcast remotely, so I'm in people's homes, I'm in their offices, and I'm so bad with tech. I don't know how to set up two microphones, so I have one microphone handheld in the person. She'll be next to me.

She'll be next to me. That's crazy. Going back and forth. And there's this thing where we're really close. I don't mean it for it to be like that, and it was just this connection.

And I Carson had that with this. I mean, he was able to do that. You're able to do it and what surprised you.

“I mean, you must have gone into this project with a certain expectation.”

What really took you back? I didn't think that guy had any friends, and I thought he was cold in a live. You mentioned Henry Bushkins book, I mean, they tried to imply I had no friends, he said Bushkins said he picked Carson died alone, which isn't true, Carson died with his family. His wife was there, his two kids at the time, his other family, they had a memorial for him,

a family memorial that was private on a boat. It was extremely emotional. But I did listen to what Miss Rivers would say about Carson being an nasty man, and it did somebody gave me Mr. Bushkins book, and I just was convinced that Carson didn't have friends.

And then I'm sitting down talking to the friends, and it was, I had no idea. At the generosity, I mean, people like Lonnie Anderson telling me, no, my Johnny finds out my mom is dying of cancer, and I'm in San Francisco shooting a show, and Johnny said, here's my plane. You'll fly to see her mom whenever you want, and she did not want the stories, but like

Bert Reynolds, when he, that was rumor he had AIDS, and Lonnie Anderson told me so many of their friends abandoned them.

Johnny was in their living room with them, and Johnny never, and this is when Bert's

career wasn't going well. Johnny, if this is what consistently they said, if Johnny was your friend, he was your friend, and their loyalty that existed was like no other, but if he was hurt, it was over. That was amazing.

So amazing.

“Isn't it the fragility and the loyalty, again, two sides, same coin?”

Yeah. Just amazing. Bushkin was his attorney. That's right. And a real trusted confidant.

In 1970, I think it was like 1987, it was his, yeah, it was the person he spent the most time with, and Judy Bushkin is not alive anymore, the wife said that Henry and Carson were closer, that is closest to anybody can possibly be. Bushkin and his book later said, you know, we were never friends, but she said, everyone also I talked to said that, yeah, they were friends, and Bushkin and interview said we

were friends, and he was a book called Charlie Carson, and I can't believe I'm selling

books for him, but I've never met him.

I've never asked a talk, and I've no desire to talk to somebody, I talked to one attorney about their former client, I mean, it's legal when he did he had a, I believe when he broke the book he, even though Carson was gone, he had to not practice in attorney anymore. I don't think he could be, but that, in misrivers were the things that I'm like, this guy doesn't have friends, not a good guy, and I was shocked when I started talking to people.

none of those stories came.

I mean, misrivers wanted to talk to me, Wayne Newton, who has problems, wouldn't talk to me. But I can count on one hand, the number of people that had problems with them, real problems with them, and in this case with misrivers are Wayne Newton, I can go into what actually did happen, at least according to Carson and people that knew him.

But how in the world, who do you be, Johnny Carson, and interview that many people, and not run a foul of our couple? I thought that I was going to get just horror stories, and they did not come to my, I mean, yeah, it was very the process gratifying, because you loved the guy. Yeah, you know.

I thought I was going to do seven episodes, and it was going to be almost all negative, and I didn't want to put something out in the universe. I'm going to be disappointed. I don't even know if I'm in a release this. And then I talked to the people that knew him, the staff, and it was just like one thing

after another. So that's the thing. I didn't quite connect these dots. You did, how many episodes of this Carson, Carson? My podcast was almost 400, they're still up, Carson podcast.com, and they're still up, and

yeah, I talked to a lot of, I mean, 50 people at least are not with us anymore. It's heartbreaking, but like everyone from readjust a younger, people like Bob Sagitt. I mean, I wanted to get all their stories with Carson. So you got him, you're a pod, but you also got all the data for the book. I didn't realize that when I did that, that that would happen.

I promise you, I did not think I was going to do a book.

“It was eight years that people blame like you have to write a book, and I'm like, I can't”

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get good ranchers now. But I would meet people at parties that were a lot of times comedy entertainment people they're like, "What do you do?" and I'm like, "Do I have to talk about Johnny Carson?" Oh, I heard he was a terrible person. I said name three people that have problems with him and they can't do it.

That was, I was like, I felt like I had to write a book to refute at least from Carson's friends who this guy was. I'm not saying he was perfect, he wasn't, and he would talk about the drinking and we go into the drinking stories in there. I mean, he would say some people get fond love and he said he would turn into a teller

of the hunt. He wouldn't turn into too many and he would want to fight everybody. So crazy. Yeah. And he wasn't a bit of a dare devil.

Really? Why? I mean, he was a dare devil in the fact that he, I mean, early tonight show, he was jumping out of airplanes, he was on plate pitching a Mickey Manlon Roger Maris at Yankees Stadium. That was in his first week of the show and then he was on plane with the jets at the

Polo grounds, racing cars at Indianapolis Motors Speedway with a Parnelly Jones and Mario and Schraddy. Yeah, I remember and we hit a great line to end, Dreddy, after he, I mean, he was driving full on. Yes.

Oh, he was going, I mean, I talked to Andretty about it. He was really nice to tell him. Of course she does. Of course she did. So I'm talking.

I'm very on Dreddy. Unbelievable.

I've never, yeah, for the book, I just needed to get the story.

So I mean, I felt like I wanted to get the inside for people. I'm going back to the gold mine and not just not the money. And I hope you make a bunch of them. Oh, thank you.

“But the wealth of experience, I mean, to grow up as a fan, right?”

And then to take the object of your fandom and make it the subject of a pod and then the

to interview only the biggest names in the entertainment industry. People were nice to talk to me. Like 400 of that.

“Yeah, I mean, at Doc Severnson, I mean, the people that were there, the power players”

I wanted to talk to me and they would thank me and I didn't understand for a long time. Why they were thanking me and then I realized it was the best time for a lot of these people was like their college experience. Like someone that had a great college experience, the best part of their life and they

never get to talk about it in detail.

And that was the Carson and that was the tonight show and that was the man for 30 years entertained us and then in 1992 broke our hearts and for two years, he did people say, you know, he disappeared. But for two years, we got to see him in the American teacher awards. Bob hopes 90th birthday, the Simpsons, Presidential Medal of Honor, George Herbert Walker

Bush at the White House, and then Letterman and May of 94, he did a walk on and that was the last time we saw the guy. He loved hope, but he didn't want to be hope. He loved how people think that Johnny did not like hope. He liked him as a person, but it was the last maybe five or six years of Johnny show that

hope could not go on very well. He wasn't. He just was not where he was, but he couldn't hear. He was reading lips and sometimes what Johnny would ask him wouldn't sync up. And Johnny had so much reverence that he would put hope on.

But he would think, why is this guy degrading himself? Why is he performing and he just thought that this guy was so good and so talented and

so much respect for him, why would he do this?

“That's why Carson, when he was 66, said I did it, I don't want to be hope.”

He thought Lucille Bob coming in the 1980s was a mistake. I don't want to be, I want to be a member for doing the best I could do. I don't want to stay at the party too long. Broke is hard going to see Frank Sinatra, who we love, and Sinatra was getting lyrics wrong.

I mean, they were up on the jutbotron, the lyrics, and he's still, was having trouble and it's like, why is Frank doing this, where that was what hope is, but when hope called Johnny said, well, you do my 90th, and even though Johnny's a retired said, I'm there. But that was loyalty. It was.

It was. And then Johnny was in Santa Monica for by here, just taking pictures and really thought about it, but every time he'd say, you know, what I did it. And one other reason I think that he did disappear is he's quit smoking and gained weight. And I think it was a cosmetic issue probably as well.

Well, he did get his eyes done. Yes. I got all those people. Jack the one. Get out.

God. It's the one of the low points. The only point in your back, there was only one section where I slammed it shot and said, this can't be true. Okay.

Let's do it. Well, you already mentioned it twice. It's Dick Clark. Yeah. You would have no way of knowing this, but two famous people gave me advice and took me

by the scruff of the neck and kind of resuscitated my career.

The first was Joan Rivers, the second was Dick Clark, and both of them got on his naughty

list and basically stayed there. They did business. Clark and him did business. Clark was known for being very frugal, very generous in terms of advice and gave people a lot of people work, but yeah, I was surprised about the Dick Clark thing.

I was, too. Yeah.

“They did business, but yeah, if it didn't say something, he must have been, oh, I remember.”

So Carson is hosting, who do you trust, ironically, and the network wants to goose its ratings, so they put it on in the middle of bandstand. Yes. Dick Clark is hosting bandstand. It doesn't like that.

He's like, get this thing out of the middle of my show. What am I doing? Carson gets wind at that. Yeah. Got a memory like an elephant.

Exactly. And then at the relationship's over. Done. Yeah. I mean, they did business decades later, but you're not coming on my show.

Yeah. You don't want to Clark send to me once. Tell me. You'll love this. I was hosting a game show called No Relations.

But CBS, farmer's market fair. Oh, wow. I love television. Say that. Oh, the jack band, he's old student.

How are you kidding me? I was. I shared a dressing room with Bob Barker. So Bob's doing the prices right during the week, and I'm doing no relation on the weekend.

He gets hosted for Johnny once, but keep talking. So Dick Clark is the EP on the thing. He hired me, and you know, I'm doing the show, and you know, I walk out, and I'm like, uh, hi, everybody on my pro. This is no relation, the only show, Bob, I'm on the thing.

And the only time Dick ever stopped me, the only time. He didn't even tell me to do it again. He just said, I'm going to make a suggestion. That's classic. And you're a smart guy, so like I'm listening.

Yeah. He says, when you walk out there, and you say, hi, everybody, well, there are people at home sitting by themselves, they're not in everybody. They're just home watching you, it's just you and them, you know, don't break the spell.

Hi. That's a really good note.

I've never think about something like that.

From a broadcaster, but just the fact that he was so generous, the way he said it, and so gentle. You know, Ed McMahon would probably never would have gotten the tonight show, and certainly who do you trust about wasn't for Dick Clark. He did a lot of great stuff.

Amazing. And McMahon, 30 years of employment, and did he, boy, did he milk it? Star Search. Two hundred endorsements, Broadway, movies. What's it?

Ed Hawkins stuff on the boardwalk. Yeah. He was a huckster. Yeah. His dad owned a bingo haul and Ed is a teenager.

He was selling, was it Morris, metrics, slicers, and Jack Clegman and Charles Bronson are roommates. They're not famous. They're acting students and they're working for Ed's dad and the bingo haul. Ed is teaching Bronson and Klugman on how to sell and how to really pitch.

I mean, Ed was born to do that.

“I mean, the best thing that Ed ever did, the smartest, shortest thing is Johnny was not”

going to bring Ed to the tonight show, because Johnny did not want to remind people he was a game show host and Ed McMahon was his announcer on this, and he wanted somebody from the West Coast. Johnny's friend Hank Sims. Hank didn't want to reload.

Okay, and Johnny, Ed took Johnny out to dinner at Danny's highway, Ed got on his hands and his tears, bacon, Johnny, you have to take me. I just got a new home king of Prussia, please. Johnny was embarrassed by it. I'll take you 30 years of employment.

Those shows only lasted five years. I mean, but Ed McMahon's smartest thing he ever did. Incredible. Yeah. Chuck, who was the guy, publishers clearing house who came in here?

Oh, he was great. I did. Yeah, yeah. I'm looking. No, I watched that.

Good Lord, dude. Yeah. Everything was going well until they changed it up a little bit. And then they started getting the lawsuits, right? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. See, I do watch. Yeah, I try to. Yeah, I'm doing somebody show. I brought me a foulest carved out of wood that he was presented with.

It's some sort of retreat. Anyway, full disclosure. Full disclosure. Let's do it.

When Chuck told me about your book, my first thought was, I want to talk to this

guy because, and this is why I keep bringing up Bushkin. Before this podcast was conversations, I was writing these short stories. Did Chuck send you one? I didn't listen to it. I didn't do that in New York.

Yes. There was a lot of the stuff that was true, but there were definitely details. And I can't debunk what wasn't true. Oh, it would like me to.

“Well, that's what this podcast used to be.”

Yeah. I used to write these short stories. You did a good job. And thank you. But it was based on Bushkin's book.

Mm-hmm. Now, you've got a problem with Bushkin's book. So the way Bushkin heard it, or at least the way he told it, was the way I read it. You did. So that's the way I wrote it.

Yeah. And so I thought, you know what? I take a lot of liberties with the stories, and I make up dialogue and stuff.

But tell me what I basically got right in what's wrong and what's verifiable about the

night that Johnny Carson ultimately invoked the wrath of the mafia. The thing I was wrong in some of the details that we're left out. First of all, it was 1971. It wasn't 1970. And he said, I can live with that.

Damn it. But no, he said that this is Mr. Bushkin. And I want to make it very clear said that he got this from Joyce to Witt who started on the Reese Company. She heard it from Jillie Rizzo.

So this is remote. He said that. Jillie's by the way. Famous water in the pool. Yeah.

Cars in Europe. And everybody loved it.

“So apparently, yeah, Carson hit on a mafia, so it was girlfriend.”

There was a hit that was placed. And Mr. Bushkin in this book said that the way he heard it, George Wood, who was a William Morris agent, smoothed over things in 1970. George Wood died in 1963. Took me two minutes on Google to find out that that wasn't true.

So there you go. That's one thing that I'm just like, why just not take the time to see it was really easy. Is there any disputing the basic story that Carson goes in. It's a few of his vodka sowers.

See it's a beautiful girl. There's a lot more to it. OK. So it's in 1971, Joey Gallo, Crazy Joe Gallo, Mafia just got out of jail. He was there for 10 years.

This is in the spring. This is at Jillie's. And he went to use the restroom. And Carson was there with Ed McMan and Robert Coge, Ed's manager. And Johnny when he drank, you did not want to be around him.

He did something in appropriate to Gallo's then girlfriend, and Jillie Rizzo took to McMan, get Carson the blank out of here, got him out and Gallo put it, it came out and put it on Carson, that 100% did happen. Two things happened right then and there, Sinatra and Carson were friends. They met in St. Louis and Sinatra sat down with Gallo.

Sinatra knew a lot of these types. He knew Gallo. He said, I need a favor. Gallo said name it, Johnny Carson, you'd leave him alone. And Gallo said, you tell Carson he only lives and breathes because he knows Frank Sinatra.

Joe Colombo and Colombo and Gallo hated each other, but they wanted to just, NBC wanted

“to just make sure that everything was good.”

Colombo was the top boss, so what NBC had to do. And I watched this with my own eyes NBC in prime time, not even NBC news in prime time. They did a favorable story on Joe Colombo. I watched, there was no reason for that to do this. I watched.

I was like, I have to watch this with my own eyes and that was those were the two things. Sinatra and the NBC doing a positive story on Colombo. It was positive and the shred of plausibility that justified it was that Colombo had formed the Italian American anti-deformation. He was getting no reward.

He was getting a reward and he was basically trying to make the point that, hey, you

know what? We're suffering from stigmas and stereotypes. We are working Italians and there's a bunch of nonsense about them, so NBC does a fluff piece. They did.

There's no point for them to do it. And then all is forgiven.

“It was, and they didn't even put that on NBC news.”

They put it in prime time to have more millions of viewers. It was a prime time news show. Was Carson roughed up. To my knowledge, no, I mean, the whole invention of him being thrown down stairs didn't to my knowledge didn't.

I have that. I have that. No, that didn't happen. That didn't happen. That didn't happen.

That didn't happen. That didn't happen.

I mean, he might have been hold up for a few days that the UN plaza, but to my knowledge, he

wasn't roughed up or anything. I know Mr. Bush can also said, and this is true. There was somebody that had mob ties. His name was Keith. What's his name?

I forget his name. But there was a gentleman that Mr. Bush can said that Carson was doing jokes about this guy and he was mafia related and that somebody roughed up cars and I don't know if that happened or not. It's easy to wait till somebody's gone before, you know, I mean, stories like Frank

Gaffer, like that whole thing with Bush can claim to about Carson's wife, it wasn't Frank Gaffer. What was it? It was a race car driver named Peter Refts and who the media made out to be the heir to the Revlon throne.

It's a slum.

It was Bushkin that said that Frank Gaffer was having a affair with Johnny's second wife.

She was going on the weekends to Car Race. She didn't like New York. She wasn't feeling well and she would go to Car Race and fell in love with this race car driver. The New Year's Eve or Christmas before she walked in and Johnny was with a woman and she knew

that Johnny was not being faithful and so she, yeah, Johnny was very suspicious. She's got a private investigator and they went over to, they found where they thought that would be her secret apartment and it was very obvious to everybody that yes, she was in a relationship with this guy, Peter Reftsend, and then there might have been a framed photo of her and Gaffer, they dated, they definitely did date, pre-Johnny Carson,

but it wasn't Gaffer. It was Reftsend. Mark, is everybody still with us? I hope so.

“Your curiosity really is, I want to say it's sensible, because I think anything could”

be associated, but it certainly is profound and it certainly is targeted. Are you going to continue to be a comedian or is this, are you going to die now on this? I'm going to die, oh, not, no, die now, I like to just follow my curiosity, I mean, I did these social experiments for the longest time where it's like, is this possible?

I had a fear of flying, a real genuine fear of flying, and I said, I want to stay on a commercial airplane for a whole month to get over my fear of flying, I can't get on and off, and I have to force myself to fly and I did it. So it's a lot of things like that where I'll get the idea and I'll just subject myself to it.

Because you flew out here, I did, I did, yeah, I said, I didn't run under at the time. No, I'm that could, all the pilots wanted to meet me, and they would say Mark, I'll Turbulence is just being in the ocean, going over a way that's driving over gravel, so, yeah, I just, if you follow your curiosity, I'm in a positive way, you can't go wrong. It'll take you some, well, maybe you can, but at least you come by an honest.

Yes, try it too. Let's land a plane then. Okay, I'll try, but you can answer in whatever way you want. I've got, I mean, I said kind of glibbly, and I'm going to stick by it. This book is amazing.

So thank you, sir. It's called Love Johnny Carson, but I'm still not 100% convinced it's really about Johnny Carson. And now, especially having talked to you, I feel like it has a lot to do with you, and a lot to do with the 400 individuals. That's fair.

You interviewed. And there's something, there's something about this thing that, what's the expression, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It's a fairly simple book with a very comforting format, but it is drinking from a fire hose.

And if you drink from it and get through the whole thing, you're going to wind up with

going to create the illusion of heightened interest, which let's face it, Mark.

That's what we all aspire to, really. I think so. Sure. You'll buy all that? Sure.

Yes. I like it. No.

“I mean, definitely those people, I mean, just want to, I got the tears from people and people”

thanking me to write it at this book, the people that were there that were in the trenches with Johnny that worked for him, the people that were on the show. Yeah. It's a really attestimate to Carson and everybody that went through the story interviews. Your top three favorites.

Oh, Josh. Howard Smith, who was Johnny's friend, who was just not an entertainment at all, and just to talk about John. I mean, I talked about the John club. It was a small group of people.

He was John. Here. John. Yeah. I thought he was a Peterless Sally.

Johnny's producer. That was amazing. Yeah. The stories. The host whisperer.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. He Arthur Godfrey, Dave Letterman, Tom Snyder, Craig Ferguson. Yeah.

“So I think those two maybe Melvin commenced game, Mel Brooks.”

Maybe.

I mean, he was on Johnny's first show.

It's like Mark. I was 29. Brown show marks, because his graduate was the surprise guest, entered his Johnny. Like I grabbed his autograph, hit from Brooklyn, and I'm on the desk. Mocking Tony Bennett, who was also on the show, and Tony was upset, and so you had to

share in those stories was great. Well, your book is like a bowl of warm milk. It's just filled with familiarity and fun, and you've done a savvy, maybe even a cunning thing. Oh, thank you, Sarah. For a comedian.

It means a lot. Well, look, man. I call him as I see him. It's very, very difficult to find a way through, to our earlier point. It's a cluttered, noisy landscape.

Yeah. It's great book. Oh, thank you, Sarah. I really appreciate that. It's a Mr. Sir, by the way.

Yeah, it was one of those things where I just wanted to do with the book Justice and just tell the truth and my knowledge and the people that I talked to. All right.

“It's available now, wherever fine books are sold.”

Yeah. So fourth. Amazon. I did out the audible over five days. Oh, yeah.

I did my best. I did my best. Oh, you really? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chuck never learned to read.

So this whole audio thing is a good stuff. Yeah. No, that boy, we could talk about that too. What a different-- talk about a different set of muscles, to sit there for six hours and read.

I try to say, yes, to things that scare me, that scared me. But I was like, this might be the only time I ever have this opportunity to say so. Oh, the compliment I wanted to pay in the getting, but forgot that we'll end it with now is, you really are a great example of why I wanted to do this podcast. Oh, wow.

You're with respect, you're not a celebrity. No. Not even close. You have a white, hot, burning category interest that's unique, your credible, and your knowledge on your subject is encyclopedic.

But there's something beyond that too, which makes you more than interesting in a passing way. So that's my way of saying thank you for flying across the country to do this. This is so much fun. I'm glad we got to do this.

It was an honor. Were we rolling on any of this, tell me. Fantastic. It's longer than Peter's episodes, Peter's episode was. Could be.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Mark Malkoff. This is name. Love, Johnny Carson.

This is book. You'd be a fool. Not to get one and read it. Thanks, God. Thank you.

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