470: Mark Malkoff—Love Johnny Carson

And here we go again. It's me, Mike Rowe. It's The Way I Heard It. My guest today is Mark Malkoff. If you don't recognize his name, you are certain to recognize the name at the center of the terrific book he has 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, right? It works out 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 has 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah. And unlike most normal people, Mark never got over it. And 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 nub of the thing, to answer the question, who is 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 like 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 Charles Reynolds. Oh, my God. The devil made me do it. The devil made me do it. You know what? Here's the thing. The book works on its own. You'll hear me liken it to drinking from a fire hose because there's so much content in it. Yeah. And it's all so 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. Yeah, at a time when 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. Yes. What's interesting about Mark, and I call him a kid. He's not a kid. He's in his 40s, you know, but he 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. I remember that. Yeah, it's like a time machine, right? 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, Lord of the Rings. They can take you anywhere. This one takes you to a place that you'll actually remember. You were 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 guest. Kudos to you, Mr. Producer, for finding him and convincing him to fly out here to do this. It was super hard, super hard to get him, to nail him down. You have to answer the phone and everything. You know what? You take a break. Well, 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 tomes, 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 don't wait for Christmas to give it. That's the deal with Aura digital picture frames. Every December, you'll see them at the top of hundreds of different gift guides, literally hundreds, along with countless five-star reviews from customers who are not merely satisfied, but proud owners of multiple frames and enthusiastic givers of the very same frame. This is the real selling point, I think, the fact that most people who get one wind up giving one. That's what happened to me. I got one as a gift, then I gave half a dozen as gifts, and then I got another one for myself, because I really do love the thing. 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And then I finished it just as you walked in. Yeah, I walked into your office as you were finishing it. Actually, that's my partner's office. I don't have anything here. I'm like a carpetbagger. 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. I'm very fortunate. This is, Chuck, you read some? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm a third of the way through. Drinking from a fire hose. Yeah, totally. Am I right? Yeah, yeah. It's like the stories just keep coming at you really quick. So this guy, Mark, who's sitting across from me, he's a comedian by trade? Yes. Yeah, 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 in a phone booth. Oh, man, I didn't know that. I know what you're saying, yeah. 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. 400 interviews. And you've gotten what really amounts to a kind of compendium about who Johnny Carson was. It was an accident, though. But how many great things are accidental? Listen, I follow my curiosity. You're a 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 it turned out everybody wanted to talk about him. Friends, people that never talked publicly all wanted to talk. I don't know why. Well, let's get into it, though. I mean, look, 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, you're 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 like 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 changed things? Yeah, and how much people miss him today. I mean, all the late night hosts still talk about Carson. I mean, over 3 billion YouTube views on this man, still the gold standard in 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 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 is Johnny Carson? That's right. And every page answers it to 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 he has. 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 of the show. I didn't know I'd get into Johnny's life, but I had all these questions. From what it was like being on the show, who was holding the curtain open for Johnny. I was with that guy, by the way. What's his name? 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's such, I mean, I'm so interested in process. Yeah. Right? you know every now and then I'll go out and impersonate a speaker and I'll be backstage and there'll be somebody cuing 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 like really get in my head and collect my thoughts or am I going to pretend that I'm just walking into 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 where Letterman and a lot of people were there 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 a nuclear reactor during the show. I mean, he completely paced himself like a quarterback started on Sunday. I mean, 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. He 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 McMahon helped get Johnny home. Yeah. But the energy thing 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 say, I had no idea. Carson would watch the show at home. He said he'd watch it sometimes. He would study his performance. He'd be home watching Arnold Palmer trying to guest host the Tonight Show or Kirk 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. It 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, one of 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 Shanling, same thing. Gary Shanling says it's murder. I mean, 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 Show and during his concerts, 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 his mark and he's Frank Sinatra. But before that, whatever it takes to get you to that place. I mean, and some people really tortured themselves. What did he mean to the country in your estimation when he was at the height of his power? When he was 25 percent of all of NBC's profits and people were watching every night as they went to sleep with this 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. In 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 is 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. A few 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 he had just been on with Harry Belafonte, his guest host, which Carson was responsible for that. And they did a tribute with Sammy Davis Jr. and Diana Ross. And during all those times, Vietnam, 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. They were scared. Carson calls up Mr. Belafonte and said, I want you to guest host for a weekend. He's like, do you know what this means? Carson said, oh, I do. because Carson, 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, you're going to have Martin Luther King on, Mr. Belafonte, but you're not going to talk about race, are you? And he said, no, we're going to talk about opera. And it was all these people that were so scared. But Carson was really good about putting people in the chair with different opinions. I mean, he had everyone from Billy Graham to Madeline Murray O'Hare, the most famous atheist. So 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 seat. But again, we didn't know how he voted. Well, he was very careful about that. My memory of it, which is just, you know, 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. You know, 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. And Carson thought these people are going to bed with me at 1130. They want to be entertained. Person before me, Jack Parr, biggest thing in TV. Controversy. Some was real. Some manufactured. 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, I mean, there were rumors he was going to get replaced for two years. And, I mean, the guy couldn't get his own bathroom at NBC in his office. He had no leverage. So once he got leverage and he got ownership of the show in 1980, he let NBC have it, and rightfully so. So go back. I bet most people don't, certainly don't remember because it was a 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 a bunch of years. And then before that, he had a local show on NBC in 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 hosting a show. And, I mean, this is a guy who from the time he was 14 in Nebraska had been performing. I mean, he'd been doing magic, nonstop, ventriloquism. I mean, Dick Cavett 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 easily stay 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, hitchhiked 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 enlisted in the Navy but wasn't officially in the Navy, He goes to the uniform store, dresses as a naval officer, and goes to the USO shows. It's everyone from Orson Welles. He dances with Merlina Dietrich. And then he did get arrested because they asked for his papers, and he did not have them, and his aunt and uncle had to bail him out. But his enthusiasm. Yes, for performing. Right. Yeah. 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. Yeah. I don't think you can pretend to be a curious person for 30 years. It's not the answer that leads to enlightenment. It's the question. I forget who said that. Einstein, maybe? Someone very smart, for sure, because it's the truth. It doesn't matter if you're looking for your soulmate or just trying to hire the right person for the right job. 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He didn't want to have dinner with the A-list celebrities afterwards. It was always astronomer Carl Sagan. It was Jim Fowler, zoologist, who went on the show a lot. There was a gentleman for population control, Dr. Paul Ehrlich, and those are the people. Population bomb. Yes. And 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. 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. And Carson said the audience, it was like the audience wanted to attack her. 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 The Tonight Show did as well. You know, it just gave us a little look. It was like the shallow end of the pool. And, 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 aren't up on 50-year-old bestsellers, wrote a book called The Population Bomb. And Carson gave him a lot of press. The book sold like crazy. 18 appearances. People would call in with death threats. People would write in with death threats. And Carson wasn't afraid of it. He kept putting him on because Carson silently agreed with him. 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's license plate. Thought it was ridiculous. Ed 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 never had to use the gun, I have to say. Well, that's good. But Ehrlich, you're talking Ehrlich. So Ehrlich, now, that book had a huge impact on Bill Maher. Bill Maher 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 Johnny, I'm talking about 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. Yeah, I mean, that was Johnny's thing. He put people with, like, theories and a hypothesis. Some were true. Some weren't. But he wasn't afraid to really put the stuff out there. And, I mean, people, the narrative is this guy wasn't political. At the same time, Nancy Reagan called the show twice and demanded jokes stop. Because Ronnie doesn't dye his hair. And then Johnny the next night said somebody very influential called in and phoned me. I'm not going to say who. And I know for a fact now that Ronnie does not dye his hair, but he does bleach his face. That was it. And then the second time was in the 80s, early 80s, when Johnny and Saturday Night Live were doing drug jokes. And Nancy Reagan personally phoned and said, no more drug jokes. I'm going to launch Just Say No. And they stopped doing it. So, I mean, everyone from Jimmy Carter's mom was upset with jokes to the board administration. 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. They weren't being spirited, I didn't think. He doesn't dye 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 Sagan 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 various different types of people and stuff. But, yes, him and Ed or him and Burt Reynolds having a shaving cream battle. This is all impromptu. I mean, an egg fight with Dom DeLuise and Carson. Didn't Burt cut his tie? Yes. One of the first times that he was on. You know, Burt Reynolds, it's always the comedians that get the credit for Johnny making the career. But Burt Reynolds, I think, was the first time he guest hosted, which Johnny, during his first or second appearance, said, how would you like to guest host? And Reynolds was known as a dramatic guy and goes out there and gets deliverance because of it. John Borman. Yes, was watching and said, I want this guy. And Reynolds' life changed. And then he's on with Helen Gurley Brown and Burt 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 playgirl type. For Cosmo. Yes. And Reynolds said at the Academy Award that year he'd be given a household name because of that centerfold because of Johnny Carson. He said he counted like five jokes, and he knew that that's when he arrived, and that was all Carson. But for Burt 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, 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 it in a certain way, it would be okay. Like the Don Rickles thing was so controversial in 1965. You think about insult comedy now. It's so ubiquitous. But 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 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 McMahon and the band leader Skitch Henderson. And 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 booking 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 cares? 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 barbs. I think that 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. I'm trying to think. Tell me if this is – if I'm imagining this. So, like, he didn't want too much shtick 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 authentic get off my set which is like why Tiny Tim was so interesting Because if I remember right, Carson wasn't sure. That was it. He would not put anybody on unless he was sure they were the real deal. Listen, everyone in Carson's show, except for one person who just passed away, Craig 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, his hair was long. Tiptoe through the tulips guy. Yeah, and Carson really wanted to know, is this guy for real? And it wasn't until at the very end that Carson, no, this guy is for real. And then, you know, 45 million people a year or two later tune into the wedding, second to the moon landing, power of Carson, and made this guy a star. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, everybody is a Tiny Tim. Bob Euchre, late 60s. I talked to Bob for an hour, and he told me when he was on, Carson was so skeptical he was a former MLB player. Because he was funny. Exactly. He was funny. You're not allowed to be that funny in that letter. The staff's like he wasn't a player. He had to see baseball cards, Tops cards, and 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 Euchre and certain guests. They would throw out the pre-interview. They'd always have it. But if it was Rickles, if it was Buddy Hackett, it was just a conversation like this. That's why I'm going to ask you about that. Yeah. Because this has been up my butt for many, many years. Whether it's the Today Show or Good Morning America or The Tonight Show or Leno, 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, the writers would give him ad libs for jokes, but he wouldn't. He'd go with it 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. It was just having a conversation with the person, and it would go. I mean, sometimes he would put on – now it's, oh, everyone's so obsessed with A-list celebrity and social media, how many accounts. And he would put on people that weren't even famous. He would put them on with the first guest before the big movie star. I mean, the potato chip lady, this potato chip inspector from 1960. She's 65 years old in Indiana, and she notices as she's inspecting the potato chips that they're in the different shapes. And Carson puts her on the show. What shapes, specifically? Like faces? Bob Hope looks like Bob Hope. Different objects. 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, went overseas. And Carson, in his brilliance, he never made fun of the guests. Merv Griffin made the mistake of making fun of Tiny Tim. and the audience turned on him. Carson, his rule was, I'm going to make my guests 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 it, where Ed McMahon distracted her, and then he bit down on a chip, and she almost had a heart attack. Because she thought he just bit Bob Pope in half. And then he reveals, no, I have my own chips. And it made every anniversary show. But that was Carson. I mean, he was absolutely – for somebody that was doing that show, I mean, 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 these 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 tomahawk. 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 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 pop. Sure. Go ahead. I mean, my dad's the one that got me into Carson. A lot of people bonded with their families over Carson. It was something, the end of 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 then on a show, Daniel Boone, I think on ABC. And in the beginning, he throws a tomahawk, but it's trick photography. It hits a tree perfectly. And he said, Mark, I did not know how to throw a tomahawk. It was decided that Johnny and him were going to take turns throwing at a wooden cutout of a cowboy. And it was right before the show. They try to tell him this is how you throw a tomahawk. So he throws the first one, then it's Johnny. They're going to go back and forth. So Ed Ames throws it. This is 1965, and it hits the crotch area. Of the cowboy. And in Carson, in his brilliance, Ed Ames goes to retrieve it. He's kind of a bit embarrassed. And Carson grabs him by the arm and holds him back. Jack Benny mode kicks in, which is we're going to let the silences play, the laughs build. To this day, it's still considered the longest sustained laugh in the history of television with a studio audience. And Ed Ames told me he went home that night and he said to his wife, the funniest thing happened, but NBC's never going to air this. And Carson, in his brilliance, did two things. One, he told NBC, you are airing this. And the second thing is Carson asked for a copy, and he kept it in his desk, a kinescope. 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 had it in his desk. So that's why that moment. There's the image. Yeah. Look at that. 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, it's overdone. We're not going to do it. And then they would get people are outraged. you have to do this every year, and then Carson would do it. But, yeah, that was his parents. But, Mark, why? Here's a question. What if high schools were the first step in career readiness instead of a four-year waiting room that everybody has to sit through? That's what K-12 is doing with their career and college prep program. It's a radical but super simple approach to practical education. I'm talking about tuition-free, online public education that prepares students for lucrative careers in construction, healthcare, cybersecurity, just about any field. With K-12's career and college prep, you get exactly that. Preparation for industry certifications that students need while they earn college credits along the way. They're learning how to work, in other words, while they're still learning how to learn. Whether they want to head to a university or jump straight into a high-demand trade, K-12's career and college prep works. It gives them something a diploma can no longer guarantee, like a head start. It's practical. It's smart. It's long overdue. Give your student the opportunity to explore the right fit for them with K-12's career and college prep. Go to K-12.com slash row. Learn more. That's the letter K, the number 12. dot com slash row. The letter K the number 12 dot com slash row. Like, why every year did people want to see it? I think... Really think about it. I think Carson's being a reactionary comic. I mean, that's what his biggest laughs are by far. Him being a reactionary comic and just letting the laughs build. That's why it was funny the first time. Yeah. But what is it about so many of these images and so much of this tape? Is it nostalgia? Is it vertschmaltz? Is it? 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'm in my 40s as we tape this, as we record this. You're in your 40s? Yeah. What's your secret, man? You look younger than springtime. As we record this. That's a hint. That's a hint. If this is after January 21st or after, it would put me up a decade. Well, I'm only asking because I was born in 62. Yeah. 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 have to rediscover all this. I did. I was 16 when I went off the air, and I 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 the couch necessarily, but I do need to understand. 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. Was it your dad? Yeah, my dad got me into it. My dad went to the show in 1968 and went to tell me who the guests were. They did Carnac the Magnificent and just planted that seed and just got me into the show. It was my introduction to show business. He would do primetime anniversary shows. He'd be with kids. He'd be funny. He'd be funny with the animals. I talked to Joan Embry. I talked to Jim Thaler. I mean, he was with the comedians like Dangerfield. Like Rodney Dangerfield would do 50 jokes. Most comedians did 25 jokes. Rodney did 25 stand-ups, sit down with Johnny, another 25. He loved it. 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 just weren't any answers. So that's why I started just talking to people. But, again, I didn't think it would last eight years doing a podcast about Carson. And 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 Malkoff? And Jimmy Buffett said, Mark, you're the first one to ever ask me about Carson. It was the biggest break of my career. And 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 that would be the case. So when did you know that you had stumbled into, I'm just going to say it, a gold mine? And I don't know how much money you're going to make. Oh, I don't know. You're going to sell a lot of books. I guarantee it. Okay. But it's just a quick sidebar. Yeah. I run this foundation called Microworks. Sure. And we award these scholarships. Yeah. 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. Right. Let me tell you about the time when such and such. So that thing exists in varying degrees with all kinds of subjects in everyone. but for you to find that in Buffett I'm wondering like 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 absorb it it started almost right away I sat down with Peter Jones who did American Masters PBS on John A. Carson and I told him the idea for the podcast I called him the next day and I said I'm going to do this and I said who do you think I should have on and he said do you want Carl Reiner's home phone number I said yeah do you want Doc Severinsen's cell phone number I said, okay, Angie Dickinson's email. I'm like, so everything right away. And I'm with Carl Reiner in Beverly Hills, like within days. And then he's the one that tells his friend Mel Brooks, his Jeopardy friend, you need to talk to this kid. I'm in Culver City the next day with Mel Brooks. To be clear, that's because Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks sit down and watch Jeopardy. Yes, I'm in Carl 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's 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 just get some more information on him. Melvin Kaminsky, right? Yes, that's right. Yeah. Kid from Brooklyn. Yeah. Yeah. He's still doing it. He's 98, still at it. When you were sitting there listening to Mel Brooks, Blazing Saddles, Young Frank, High Anxiety, Love Producers, and 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 comedians 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, a viewer, an icon, both moved to tears by the memory, the shared memory of a moment. It's powerful. That's what I mean by a goldmine. And 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 Carson, in my view. You know, it's about the reader and where the reader was and what the reader can remember and triangulate 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 consequential. That's so nice to hear. I just remember even being 16 in Hershey, Pennsylvania on May 22, 92, when Carson said goodbye. And 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 night history. Is that where you grew up? I did for a lot of my life. Yeah, it smelled like chocolate when it was windy or rainy. Lucky me. Are 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 Kmart and I bought Hershey's underwear, literally. Like they make underwear. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. A dollar's a dollar. With chocolate on the underwear, which really is a poor choice when you think about it. You probably don't want to put chocolate on underwear. No. Was this dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Oh, gosh. Well, it started milk. I never had. Whoa. I worked at Hershey Park. With nuts. I never had to dress up like the Hershey Bar. I had a friend who did that. It's hard to come back from that, 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, Letterman, for people my age and even your age, was the kind of like, at that point, kind of the cooler. Even my age? What the hell does that mean? I don't mean, I mean, that a lot of people when I talked to, because 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 doing all this innovative stuff. And Carson really felt he was being taken for granted, and it really hurt him. Robert Smigel, who's a brilliant Saturday Night Live writer, Triumph of the Unsull Comic Dog, was writing these sketches on Saturday Night Live, and it broke Johnny's heart. They portrayed Dana Carvey playing Carson as really out of touch, senile, and Johnny said, I do not want to be seen like this, and everybody's giving Letterman 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 aloof like the media would make him out to be. He'd joke about the cold and aloof moniker, and then I'd beat that with his friends and the people that spent the most time. And 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 fool the 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 you self-preservation purposes. I mean, the guy couldn't walk five feet down the street without somebody literally grabbing his arm. So, I mean, people might have seen him be cold in a loop, 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've got this weird juxtaposition between sublime confidence. He has enough confidence that when comedians would debut on a show, young comedians, 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's like, afterwards, went to his dressing room, why don't you try on this joke this? And Lopez tried it the next night and crushed. He said Carson knew what he was. But at the same time, He was definitely very, very – he would watch his competition. I mean, in 1971, he was watching for television at 1130. He was watching his show. He was watching the Dick Cavett show, David Frost. And then it was either Joey Bishop or Merv Griffin. And he was so competitive and so insecure that I don't know if you wanted me to talk about it, but he faked hepatitis. Like, that's pretty big that he faked hepatitis and was instead getting cosmetic eye surgery. Right. Yeah, because his wife – So he was all – this is just what people understand. But he's suddenly off the air for two weeks. Joey Bishop is filling in. Joey Bishop's filling in, and the story goes out that he's got Hep B. Yeah, okay, so Cabot is 10 years younger than him. David Frost, the Playboy, is 14 years younger. His mom, Ruth, in Nebraska, said, Johnny, you're looking so old. His girlfriend had just convinced him to stop dyeing his hair. So Carson gets this idea. I'm going to just say I'd have to tie this to go. He didn't realize, and this was really devastating, that over 200 people, 200 people at NBC would have to get shots. painful gamma goblin shots and the NBC nurse is going around giving all these people that worked for him shots not only that but people that were guests the last three weeks Tony Randall come on in to NBC you need a shot and Carson's horrified that this is happening but then you have people at NBC because Carson it's 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 yeah that was 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 and limit 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 remark jokes. You have to do it from New York. Less guests back then. You can't only have four people in your band, no brass instruments and it was one thing after another uh that johnny oh no fridays which is when the younger people stay up and he gave him five fridays a year um 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 gonna launch snyder after johnny's anniversary show and carson said absolutely not i end the network me and they gave him for cars for snyder's debut they gave him when Joey Bishop was guest hosting to get the ratings down. So Carson had approval over every Letterman guest and every Snyder guest, and he was definitely the most competitive at the same time, yet insecure person. It's just one more juxtaposition. He was generous. He was. But stingy. He was effusive but limiting. Yeah. I'll do this but not to that point. He was constantly looking for something like equilibrium. The Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation exists for one reason, to honor the men and women who serve their country as U.S. Marines by making sure their children get a decent education. I love this program because I've seen it work firsthand. These guys provide more than $10 million in scholarships every year to thousands of kids whose parents wore the Marine Corps uniform. If that's you and you got a GPA of 2.0 or better and you can demonstrate financial need, congratulations. You are 100% eligible to apply. And I hope you will because these scholarships are good for any educational pursuit, including a career in the skilled trades. From health sciences to mechanics, information technology, manufacturing, CNC operating, welding, electricians. These positions, they are in demand like never before. 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I mean, 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, 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 said Carson was more recognizable than the president or as recognizable, and it was just appealed to every demo. I mean, Taylor Swift, huge accomplishment. And she, you know, gave millions of bonuses, did some really great things. My mom couldn't pick her out of a lineup. Yeah, my mom 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 astounded me. In terms of he had competition, but no serious competition for 30 years. Who is good enough at their job that that happens? You know, you mentioned Letterman. Yeah. I remember Letterman killing in a monologue later after, I think, Johnny retired and then telling the audience every single joke. I was there. What? No, I was there. You were in the studio. Yeah, it was 2005. Johnny had just passed away and broke everyone's heart yet again because he had left. And I worked for Dave. I had a day job at Dave Letterman's 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. If they had worked for him. Yes, or if somebody was famous, if they were a public figure and they had tickets, they'd 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 Tribute Show. And they said, Mark, we can't do it. We can get in 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. And, yeah, Dave comes out, does his monologue. And then he says, I just want everybody to know all these jokes were written by Johnny Carson. And it's, like, so emotional. And then Johnny's producer, Peter LaSalle, was a guest. And then Doc Severinsen and Ed Shaughnessy and Tommy Newsome, the band, they play Johnny's favorite song, Here's That Rainy Day. It was Johnny's final year on Earth. He was writing jokes for Letterman, and he was like a little kid, so excited to watch Dave's show. And, 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 kid. That was his last year. I mean, it was two packs a day since he was 14 of unfiltered palm oil. So, I mean, he didn't stop until he left the show, and then the damage 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 winded. I can play two sets of tennis, not winded. He saw what a smoker's lung looked like, and he said, other people, not me. And he found out he had emphysema and had to get quadruple bypass, and the last couple years were really, really tough. You know, it's not really fair to – like I'm pointing out these contradictions, these inconsistencies, and these juxtapositions, 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 said he was overly competitive, the drinking. He said some people get fun-loving when they drink. I go the opposite. But just the fact that he left $180 million, which was the most money ever for an entertainer, to this foundation that no one knew about until a couple years after he passed away, the John Carson Foundation. Still to this day, it pays up millions of dollars every year to all these places. I mean, that was – To what? What does the foundation primarily – It goes everywhere from AIDS to education, just really – I think it's like maybe 80 different groups. You left $180 million. Yeah, it was the biggest foundation ever in the history for an interview. But those were the stories, and I couldn't put them all in 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 are the stories that Johnny did not want us to know. He was just like, he didn't want credit. Like, there's some celebrities, they do something, they have their publicist send out press releases to everyone. and look how great I am, and Johnny wasn't like that. Back to the generous point. 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 is 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 you know talk more than you listen You can let your guests shine, or not. Try to outdo them like certain guests, you know, somebody's being funny, I'm going to be funnier, and no comment. 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 saying or somebody 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 guests as good as they could possibly be. That's right. What a lesson. First half hour was Johnny, monologue, a comedy piece, and then his rule was, I'm going to make my guests look good. They get the first laugh. If they get all the laughs, that is okay with me. It took it from Jack Benny, his mentor, which is Benny was like, it's my show. If somebody laughs and thinks it's funny, it's, you know, my name is on it. Johnny's name was on it. Not 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. And NBC obviously lost so much money with advertising, but they needed this guy. I mean, it was such a reversal. But to get ownership of a late night show, to get that is almost unheard of. I mean, Letterman was able to do a CBS in 93 because they had no infrastructure in place and they really, really wanted him. But the fact Carson was able generosity. I know 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 mentioning this because I know that she 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 and the wonderful things she did, which is heartbreaking. which is what I write about in this book with her and Johnny, what really did happen. But I do want to acknowledge, 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 get 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 and her generosity. It's just. Well, here's the crazy. Yeah. I certainly. And I think a lot of people do. For those of you who don't know the story, you know, 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 Show. And 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 is joan rivers i'm joan rosenberg and she wanted to be a good uh 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 that said there's going to be unforeseen circumstances. And she didn't tell him. And at the same time, Johnny was in negotiations with Carson for her to keep guest hosting The Tonight Show. And she had no intention to do it. She had already signed this deal with Fox. And then the weekend before Johnny found out, it was Johnny's producer, Fred DeCordova, and Johnny were calling Joan at home in California. And they'd say, oh, no, she's in Vegas. They called 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 Tartikoff. Joan was dodging him. Tartikoff, who's running NBC at this point. Yeah, who said, you know, Joan's going against his, has a show on Fox. And Johnny just, he was heartbroken. I mean, he just, he couldn't believe it. And he didn't hang up on her. He just wouldn't take Rivers' call. Rivers went into panic mode and called him. But then she did some other things, which she admits she did, which is number one. She tried to take Johnny's prize producer, Peter LaSalle, over to us. And Johnny 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 go from Johnny. None of them did. They stuck with Johnny. So that was really tough. And then Joan making it out to be some media war. I mean, she said, you know, if you go on my show, you can't do John. Michael J. Fox, Mel Brooks, all these people did Joan's show, and Johnny didn't care. Johnny's cue card person, who Johnny was very close to, Don Schiff, told me. He went to Johnny. He said, I have the opportunity. My company has the opportunity to do a Jones show at Fox through the cue cards. He's like, no, you have to do it. It's a lot of money. You have my blessing. All she needed to do was say that I have this opportunity. But the thing that one of the reasons she didn't do it in Edgar is that this would have happened is that it would have been two months that 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 Cavett. 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 Diller 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 Miss Rivers finds out she has 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. Did you see her documentary? Yeah, Piece of Work, sure. Jesus. Yeah, no, she's incredible. In terms of somebody being that competitive and loving what they do, yeah, it was definitely a master class. And if you want longevity 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, dude. 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, comedians, all of them, who, in a similar situation, would shrug and go, that's showbiz. 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 friend's 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 showbiz. He was wounded. It's personal. Yeah. 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 wouldn't put Clark on the show for 30 years. Because when Carson was a game show host, Dick Clark was American Bandstand, this phenomenon. And the network wanted to put Carson's game show, which just had started in the middle of Bandstand, and divide the show up. And Clark said, absolutely not. And Carson, if he held a grudge and was hurt, I mean, you just wouldn't have the person on. And it was definitely petty. I mean, Carl Sagan, who we loved, corrected him twice on the air and interrupted him. And Carson said, he's never coming back. I mean, that was how sensitive. But they stayed friends. 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's staff, said, I don't care if he's Jerry Lewis, he's never coming back. He was rude to my staff. So he definitely had people's back, but there are people that went on that a lot of people would look petty. 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 her third appearance, got banned from the show. They told her not to do a specific joke that she did. And, you know, Carson was a humanist. Carson would spend a lot of time with fellow humanists Norman Lear, 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. And 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? You remember? The joke to my recollection was that she was just became a godmother to like a five or a 10 year old. And she's like, I have 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. And, I mean, Jay Leno made a – I mean, he would call the viewers and apologize. I mean, Johnny would do that too. If it was really – if he did a joke that really he felt was fair, 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. And Carson said, absolutely. Come on in. They met each other for the first time before the show. Then 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. Yeah. Gracious. Yeah. Or not. Bury the hatchet. Yeah. Or carry the grudge. And there were people that their careers were not going well. And they said, Johnny, they would write Johnny letters. Robert Goulet, will you please have me on the show? I haven't done the show in 10 or 15 years. Carson said, absolutely. Phyllis Newman. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. Was it Goulet who forgot the words? That was it. That and what's his name? John Davidson. Goulet forgot. 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 Johnny said, no, we're going to keep rolling. The song was Memories? Yes. And John Davidson. It made John Davidson and Goulet look so good because they're human beings to these people. You know, you look at some famous people and they're always perfect. And it gave them extra segments on the show. And it was wonderful that John did that. Yeah, I just want to jump in and say that. That is, that's 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. The mistakes. Right. Right. So the Goulet episode is amazing, but it's also why, obviously, the Ed Ames 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 cap and gowns and it bombed. And he called up the head writer the next day and said, we're going to do the same sketch tonight and said, OK, 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? When? It was in the 80s. It was in the late 80s. So he was in L.A.? Yeah, he was in the late 80s. Word for word, and it kills the second night. And the writer said, so we're going to acknowledge to the audience beforehand we're doing the same sketch. Oh, no. He was fearless. And it killed. That is bananas. And it killed. And then after it killed, he acknowledged, you know, finally we did that piece, the same piece. And Carson, no. He wanted to do the A to B 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, what do you do if you're home? Okay, like you watch it last night and you go, what are you doing, dude? Or is it me? Am I stuck in some weird war? Is it a rerun from the night before? He was brave like that. I mean, it was very rare he would do something like that. But it was just on principle. I mean, it was so hard for him to go out there some nights when the audience was bad. and it would happen. Now everybody claps during a monologue joke. Monologue jokes don't bomb. Back then, Carson, some of the best lines and the best things in the monologue, inevitably a joke wouldn't work. And he'd be funnier. He wouldn't purposely pick bad jokes to do, but once in a while something wouldn't work, and he'd be as funny, if not funnier, with one of those, you know, saving a joke. Well, I mean, is that again, 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 telling the audience when to clap and and like what's the difference between that and a laugh track there there is um 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 and yeah i mean a lot of those shows that's what the audiences do. They either clap or, yeah, it's really. They didn't do that with Carson. That never happened with Carson. Well, and I think viewers are smart. Yeah. And I think Carson, I've never seen anybody who respected the audience more than Carson. Yeah, that was 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. Pee Wee Herman couldn't do the show. But Tiny Tim could. Yes, because he was real. And if it was something obvious, like Super Dave Osborne, Byneson, that was okay. Father Guido Sarducci, Don Novello, this is obviously a bit. But if there was any question, like Emo Phillips, we're not putting him on. Yeah. So, yeah, that was his respect for the audience. And even with magicians, because Carson was an amateur magician, he banned Orson Welles, who was his friend, magician friend for his show, when he guest hosts this night show, had plans in the audience for this mentalist trick. 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. Well, what about like, you know, Penn and Teller? Yeah. Also great. Yeah. Magicians, but their stick is debunking. Yeah. So how's that play? I was just in Vegas with Penn and he asked. Dude, you drop names faster than any. I have never, ever talked to anyone in my life who has known this many famous people. I was with Penn just – and he – 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 were never on Carson, Penn and Teller? I said, oh, you were on with – guess I was Jay Leno at the time, but you didn't do it with Johnny. I was like, I was told that Johnny wouldn't have you on because you were giving away the secrets, and he said, wrong. And he told me the reason that Johnny wouldn't have them on is because at the end of one of the routines, Johnny wanted 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 regrets it. And he became friends with Johnny. I mean, they became friends and talked on the phone. And Penn did this documentary with Paul Provenza called The Aristocrats. And that was one of Johnny's favorite jokes. And Johnny, Penn was going to go, and Paul Provenza were going to go to Johnny's home in Malibu right after the movie was done and premiered, and Johnny passed away. Right then, and it was, they were in Sundance when they found out Johnny passed away, they were going to go to his home. If I were to suggest people Google the Ariscaz, which version of that joke would you suggest that people watch? I mean, maybe Gilbert Gottfried is maybe the most famous. famous. Gilbert, Johnny would reference the joke, but he couldn't talk about it on the show. I think the people that aren't in comedy or show business, it really, there's probably a mystery, might not understand why. If you're not following along, it's like the crudest, dirtiest joke in the history of jokes. And they did a documentary where everybody has their own version of this thing, and it's filthy. I mean, it's absolutely. And the punchline is always the same. The aristocrat. Yes. Right. That's the punchline. Right. And, yeah, Gilbert did it, was one of the first people to do it, I think, on television. And Comedy Central, I think they had to beep it out a lot. Oh, sure. Yeah. But, Johnny, that was one of his favorite jokes. So, wow. Name dropping. Who else can I name drop? Oh, dude. Oh, you know, speaking of name dropping, you know who's the worst name dropper that I've ever been coming? Worse than him? Yeah. Sting. Really? Just the worst, yeah. I thought you were going to say Dick Cavett. Well, you know what? I love Cavett, by the way. I just, the extent of my notes here just says Cavett. I'm only saying Cavett because he'll make fun of himself to talk about Groucho. I mean, he knew Stan Laurel. He knew Groucho. I want to hear those stories. I sat down with Cavett twice for my podcast. Oh, yeah, yeah, 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 worked for Jack Party. He got hired in Carson 64, two years. I love Dick Cavett. Oh, he's the best. No, well, no, no. Carson was the best. Yeah, but Cavett, for what he did. For what no one did what he did better than him. Yeah. You know, like that's like a George Plimpton kind of creature, you know. But I know I just had another thought. I love Cavett. Well, Midwest. That's right. Nebraska. Brando as well. And 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. Cavett, I think, oh, you're talking about Ohio, I think Jack Parr. It seemed that. Steve Allen? Yeah, I forget where Allen's from. He seems so urbane. He seems so. It really was. That was the Midwest. I mean, to succeed with longevity on those shows, it did seem that the Midwest. 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? Anyone under 45? No, it's younger than that. We have somebody, Logan in the office. Oh, good. He knows Carson. Yeah, asked about you. I have no idea. No, he did not. Oh, dang. He did not know Carson. Logan. Logan. Well, look, Matt, it's like this is back to your book. There's a so much of what storytelling is, is a reliance on a presupposed 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 a night, maybe four. Yeah. And so 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 Rogan, looking at just go down the list of the top podcasts, the way I heard it, for instance? 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 in his retirement years from 92 until 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 disappointed if it wasn't bad enough. But in terms of everybody having a show, I think, yeah, I mean, definitely I feel like the mystique and 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. I mean, now I think for comedians, it seems like social media maybe on Instagram, but it's just – I mean, when was the last time a late-night show gave a comedian a break that really launched them? Maybe Nate Parkazi with Jimmy Fallon, maybe. Letterman launched Ray Romano and Gaffigan, Jim Gaffigan. But even that's different now. 25 years, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what is a hit? You know, you can have 100,000 people watch. And it's way more fun back then with three networks and UHF. I think, you know, to me, the Carson show is the best time capsule for those 30 years to look at where the popular culture was, how people dress, how people carry themselves, where the politics was, what was socially acceptable, who were the famous people of the day. You don't think about Carson in terms of like a Bo Brummel or like a fashionista. But his line of clothing, I'm old enough to remember, that was a big deal. It was. He was this guy who was paying – it was like wasn't – I could be off on this, but in the 60s, he could have been a corporation, but he's like, no, I'm going to pay – it was 90 percent of his taxes. He was like in the top bracket where he was paying so high. And his wife, Joanne, was the one that brought in this guy, Sonny Werblin, who owned the Jets. And Dave – he was the one that got Johnny the men's line, and he started making a gazillion dollars. But that was not what he – 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 paying 70% in taxes. Yes, that was like 70% in taxes. And he wasn't cheating. But he thought, he's like, this is my duty. I'm going to pay 70. And Warblin was the one that we can be a corporation and got him 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 that 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 Nehru jacket or something? People started buying them. He wore turtlenecks. People started buying the terminal lines. But this is one of the best examples I can tell you about Carson just being a comforting presence. 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 service. They're not going to go overseas. Howard Cosell walks into Ali's hotel room and finds Ali under the covers watching Johnny Carson. Oh, my God. And he knows hours he's going to get. And that's what he – I mean, that was his comfort. And I feel like so many Americans, whatever was going on with our day, whatever was politics, it was just a comforting presence. So that doesn't exist today. It just simply doesn't exist. The closest you can come to it is still going to be like maybe a live sporting event in terms of a water cooler moment that might still galvanize. But nothing like a daily dose. nothing like a nocturnal tuck in not that i can think of now unfortunately not i miss him i really do i have to constantly because i watch so much carson i still do um remind myself that yeah his show hasn't been on in 30 years and this guy's been off um for 20 years has not um 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 isn't i mean he's been gone for a while we just miss him well i'll tell you something um and I got to ask you about Bushkin. Don't let me forget. Oh, sure. But I keep missing it. Cavett. Yeah. Here's something I want you guys to Google. Google Dick Cavett, Oscar Peterson. Oscar Peterson, maybe the greatest jazz pianist to ever live. And there's a clip on YouTube of Dick Cavett interviewing him. It is a master class in an interview done in a completely different kind of way. He brings them out and they talk, but then they walk over to the piano and Oscar sits down. And you realize the depth of knowledge Cavett has, not just about Oscar's own repertoire in his past, but about music itself. And back to your earlier thing, Cavett was a curious cat. Cavett and Carson, both curious. He took Jack Parr's advice, which is you throw away any note cards pre-interview. You get prepared, but you're having a conversation. That's what Carson did. That's what Parr did, and that's what Kevitt 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. Yes. And I'm the master of my own domain. We're going to go as long as Jason Alexander's friend, Peter. What's his name? The one that went for? Oh, Peter Tilden. Yes. Peter Tilden. Yeah. It went for two hours. Yeah, it went a while. Well, in fairness, his dog was dying. Yes. Oh, yes, that's right. That was definitely really sad. You actually watched that, so you watched the show. I do. I'm going to sit down with somebody, especially if you get on an airplane and fly out. You did do that. Man, you must really want to sell some books. Oh, come on. No, I mean, you've accomplished so much. I mean, yeah, no, I wanted to meet you. I'm going to turn this down. I emailed Chuck, and Chuck 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 get, look, he, whatever you said to him, I've known him for 46 years. Yes. So obviously he has no, it's like LaSalle plus Cordova. 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 like, I hope I pass this, the test. So I was glad I was here. I do 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 before. Okay. I want to do a good job. You've already done it. Thank you. We're in total bonus fill now. Okay. You crushed it. But the real reason that I wanted to do a podcast face-to-face, I did plenty long distance and stuff. Sure. 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 of some things. You have two words, though. I have two words. Right. What did I write? I wrote Cavett and then I wrote, oh, Pod, which I'm getting to. 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 fundamentally designed to make sure that can't happen. And most of it is a time restraint. Some of it is advertorial. 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. He was getting pitches. 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 Fowler to Africa on safari. And Carson, it wasn't enough for Carson to go on safari. He had to take – on his own took four months of language classes with Swahili 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. I mean, he has curiosity. And the only Oscar host that no teleprompter, no cue cards, all memorized, everything, could edit in his head. All I'm saying is his capability was unlike anybody else. We're surrounded, too, 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 it's just reminders. It was cue cards. It was keywords. It wasn't word by word where some hosts need every single word. And he could edit the jokes in his head and he was on a level I mean there wasn intimacy He would make people that were terrified You know 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 peed their pants? Somebody famous peed their pants. I didn't know that. Robert Smigel wrote a sketch where they had Dom DeLuise played by Chris Barley pee himself. That was SNL. Did something. But I don't know. Maybe somebody did pee them. No, it's in your book, yeah. It's in your book. Did I really have that in my book? I wrote it. I should know that. I don't know that it was somebody you interviewed. It might have been somebody telling an anecdotal third-party story. It could have been. I don't want to say it. It wasn't Michael Douglas. Oh, yeah, it was. It was Michael Douglas. It was Michael Douglas. He did. He wet himself. I can't believe I forgot about this. This was Michael Douglas. I wrote a book. I'm sure he's relieved you remember. I wrote a book. It is in the book, yeah. This was in New York in 1970 when it was his first time on Carson. He was backstage. and he wet himself and they took a hairdryer and he was so nervous. And talk about guest host. Roger Moore is James Bond. He's guest hosting the tonight. He's like, I can do this. He was, he sweat through his suit. And during the commercial, they had to take a hairdryer to try to dry the perspiration. This is James Bond. To your earlier point, man, he made it look so easy. He really did. That even smart people assumed it was easy. Yeah. It was 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 graphic cop. 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 am 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. And the person is like going back and forth. And there is 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 Carson had that with us. I mean, he was able to do that. You're able to do it. What surprised you? I mean, you must have gone into this project with a certain expectation. What really took you aback? I didn't think the guy had any friends, and I thought he was cold in the loop. You mentioned Henry Bushkin's book. I mean, they tried to imply he had no friends. He said Bushkin said that 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 a nasty man. Somebody gave me Mr. Bushkin's 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. The generosity, I mean, people like Lonnie Anderson telling me, no, 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 your mom whenever you want. Jeez. He didn't want the stories. But, like, Burt Reynolds, there was a 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 Burt's career wasn't going well. Johnny, this is what consistently they said. If Johnny was your friend, he was your friend, and the loyalty that existed was like no other. But if he was hurt, it was over. God, this is so amazing, man. 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. confidant 1972 i think it was like 1987 it was his um yeah it was the person he spent the most time with and they've um judy bushkin who's not alive anymore the wife said that i mean henry and uh carson were closer that as close as anybody can possibly be bushkin in his book later said you know we were never friends but she said everyone else i talked to said that yeah they were friends and bushkin in an interview said we were friends and he's book called johnny carson I can't believe I'm selling books for him, but I've never met him. I've never asked to talk to him. I have no desire to talk to somebody. I talked to an attorney about their former client. I mean, it's legal what he did. I believe when he wrote the book, even though Carson was gone, he had to not practice an attorney anymore. I don't think he could be. But that and Miss Rivers 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. I mean, I talked to over 400 people. And I mean, other than he was a bad drinker, none of those stories came. I mean, Miss Rivers wouldn't 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 him, real problems with him. And in this case with Miss Rivers or 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 could you be Johnny Carson and interview that many people and not run afoul 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 surprised. Was that gratifying? Because you loved the guy. Yeah. 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 like, I'm going to be disappointed. I don't even know if I'm going to release this. And then I talked to the people that knew him, the staff, and it was just like one thing after another. Dude, this is – I didn't quite connect these dots. You did how many episodes of this Carson podcast? Carson podcast was like almost 400. They're still up. Carsonpodcast.com, and they're still up. And, yeah, I talked to a lot. I mean, 50 people at least are not with us anymore. It's heartbreaking. But, like, everyone from Regis to younger people like Bob Saget, I mean, I wanted to get all their stories with Carson. So you got them for the pod. Yeah. 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 of people being like, you have to write a book. And I'm like, I can't write a book. I don't know how to write a book. I've never done a book. And then the stories just kept pouring in. But I would meet people at parties that were a lot of times comedy entertainment people. They said, what do you do? And I'm like, I'm doing a podcast 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 need to – 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'd go into the drinking stories in there. I mean, he would say some people get fun-loving. He said he would turn into Attila the Hun. It was one drink too many, and he would want to fight everybody. So crazy. Yeah. And he was a bit of a daredevil, really. He was. I mean, he was a daredevil in the fact that he, I mean, early Tonight Show, he was jumping out of airplanes. He was pitching to Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris at Yankee Stadium. That was in his first week of the show. And then he was playing with the Jets at the polo grounds, racing cars at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Parnelli Jones and Mario Andretti. Oh, I remember. And he had a great line to Andretti after he, I mean, he was driving full on. Yes. Oh, he was going. I mean, I talked to Andretti about it. He was really nice to tell me the story. Of course you did. So I'm talking. Oh, gosh. 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 it. Oh, thank you. But the wealth of experience. I mean, to grow up as a fan. Yeah. Right? Sure. And then to take the object of your fandom and make it the subject of a pod and then the subject of a book. And then in order to do both those things, to come back here to L.A. to interview only the biggest names in the entertainment industry. People were nice to talk to me. Like 400 of them. Yeah. I mean, at Doc Severnson, I mean, the people, yeah, the people that were there, the power players all 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 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 Hope's 90th birthday, The Simpsons, Presidential Medal of Honor. George Herbert Walker Bush at the White House, and then Letterman in 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 Hope. 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's show that Hope could not go on very well. He just was not where he was before. 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 Ball coming in the 1980s was a mistake. I don't want to be remembered for doing the best I could do. I don't want to stay at the party too long. He broke his heart going to see Frank Sinatra, who he loved. And Sinatra was getting lyrics wrong. I mean, they were up on the Jumbo Tron, the lyrics, and he still was having trouble. And it's like, why is Frank doing this? That was what Hope is. But when Hope called Johnny and said, will you do my 90th? And even though Johnny's retired, he said, I'm there. But that was – Loyalty. It was. It was. And then Johnny was in Santa Monica by here just taking pitches and really thought about it. Every time he'd say, you know what, I did it. And one other reason I think that he did disappear is he quit smoking and gained weight. And I think it was a cosmetic issue probably as well. Well, he did get his eyes done. Yes. He got all those people jacked up on, gobbling. That was one of the low points. The only point in your book, there was only one section where I slammed it shut and said, this can't be true. Okay, let's do it. Well, you already mentioned him 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. I mean, Clark was known for being very frugal, very generous in terms of advice and gave a lot of people work. But, yeah, I was surprised about the Dick Clark thing. I was, too. Yeah, they did business, but, yeah, Johnny was hurt. Didn't he say something? He must have been, oh, I remember. Yeah. 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. He doesn't like that. And he's like, get this thing out of the middle of my show. What am I doing? Carson gets wind of that. Yeah. Got a memory like an elephant. Exactly. And then the relationship's over. Done. Yeah. I mean, they did business decades later, but you're not coming on my show. Yeah. You know what Dick Clark said to me once? Tell me. You'll love this. I was hosting a game show called No Relation up at CBS, Farmer's Market. Oh, wow. I love Television City. Jack Benny's old studio. Are you kidding me? I shared a dressing room with Bob Barker. Oh, wow. So Bob's doing the prices right. during the week, and I'm doing No Relation on the weekends. He gets hosted for Johnny once, but keep talking. So Dick Clark is the EP on the thing, and he hired me. And, you know, I'm doing the show, and, you know, I walk out, and I'm like, hi, everybody, I'm Mike Rowe. This is No Relation, the only show, blah, blah, blah, going to 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. Like, I'm listening. He says, when you walk out there and you say hi, everybody, well, there are people at home sitting by themselves. They're not an everybody. They're just home watching you. It's just you and them. Don't break the spell. Just say hi. 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 probably never would have gotten The Tonight Show, and certainly who do you trust if it wasn't for Dick Clark? He did a lot of great stuff. Amazing. Yeah, yeah, and McMahon, 30 years of employment, and boy, did he milk it. Star search. Over 100 endorsements, Broadway, movies. Wasn't Ed hawking stuff on the boardwalk? Yeah, he was a huckster. His dad owned a bingo hall, and Ed is a teenager. He was selling, was it Morris Metric Slicers? And Jack Klugman and Charles Bronson are roommates. They're not famous. They're acting students, and they're working for Ed's dad in the bingo hall. And 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, shrewdest 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 relocate, and Johnny, or Ed took Johnny out to dinner at Danny's Hideaway. Ed got on his hands and knees, tears, begging, Johnny, you have to take me. I just got a new home, King of Prussia. Please, Johnny is embarrassed. Fine, I'll take you. 30 years of employment. Those shows only lasted five years. I mean, but Ed McMahon, smartest thing he ever did. Incredible. Yeah. Chuck, who was the guy, Publishers Clearinghouse, who came in here? Oh, he was great. I did. Yeah, yeah. No, I watched that. Good Lord, dude. Because 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's show. The guy brought me a phallus carved out of wood that he was presented with at 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? Oh, I did. I listened to it about New York. Yes. There was a lot of the stuff that was true, but there were definitely details, and I can debunk what wasn't true, if you would like me to. Well, that's what this podcast used to be. I used to write these short stories. You did a good job. And thank you, but it was based on Bushkin's book. 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. And so that's the way I wrote it. 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 and what's wrong and what's verifiable about the night that Johnny Carson ultimately invoked the wrath of the mafia. The thing that was wrong and some of the details that were 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. I want to make it very clear, said that he got this from Joyce DeWitt, who started on Three's Company. She heard it from Jilly Rizzo. So this is remote. He said that. Jilly's, by the way. Famous watering hole. Yeah. Carson won that place. And everybody loved it. So, apparently, yeah, Carson hit on a mafia house to his girlfriend. There was a hit that was placed, and Mr. Bushkin in his 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. It 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? Yeah. It was really easy. Is there any disputing the basic story that Carson goes in, hits a few of his vodka sours, sees a beautiful girl? There's a lot more to it. Okay. Okay. So it's 1971. Joey Gallo, crazy Joe Gallo on Mafia just got out of jail. He was there for 10 years. This is in the spring. This is at Jilly's. And he went to use the restroom. And Carson was there with Ed McMahon and Robert Coe. as manager and johnny when he drank you did not want to be around him he did something inappropriate to um gallo's then girlfriend uh galley rose to mcmahon get carson the blank out of here got him out and gallo put it came out and put a hit on carson that 100 did happen two things um happened right then and there um sinatra and carson were friends they met in st louis and um 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 leave him alone. And Gallo said, you tell Carson he only lives and breathes because he knows Frank Sinatra. Another thing that happened that NBC had to do is that the acting boss at the time was Joe Colombo. And Colombo and Gallo hated each other, but they wanted to just NBC wanted to just make sure that everything was good. So Colombo was the top boss. So what NBC had to do, and I watched this with my own eyes, But NBC, in prime time, not even NBC News, in prime time, they did a favorable story on Joe Colombo. I watched it. There was no reason for them to do this. I watched it, too. I was like, I have to watch this with my own eyes. And those were the two things, Sinatra and 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-Defamation League. He was getting an award. He was getting an award, and he was basically trying to make the point that, hey, you know what? We're suffering from stigmas and stereotypes. We're hardworking Italians, and there's a bunch of nonsense about the mob. So NBC does a fluff piece. They did. There was 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 downstairs didn't, to my knowledge, didn't happen. I heard he was in his penthouse. No, that didn't happen. And recuperating for a couple days. To my knowledge, that did not happen. I mean, he might have been holed up for a few days at the U.N. plaza. But to my knowledge, he wasn't roughed up or anything. I know Mr. Bushkin 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. Bushkin said that Carson was doing jokes about this guy, and he was mafia-related, and that somebody roughed up Carson. I don't know if that happened or not. But, you know, it's easy to wait until somebody's gone before, you know, I mean, stories. Like Frank Gifford, like that whole thing with Bushkin claimed about Carson's wife, it wasn't Frank Gifford. What was it? It was a race car driver named Peter Revson, who the media made out to be the heir to the Revlon throne. So it was Bushkin that said that Frank Gifford was having an affair with – yeah, yeah. It was Johnny's second wife. She was going on the weekends to car races. She didn't like New York. She wasn't feeling well, and she would go to car races and fell in love with this race car driver. And 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, got a private investigator, and they went over to – they found where they thought it would be her secret apartment. And it was very obvious to everybody that, yeah, she was in a relationship with this guy Peter Revson. And then there might have been a framed photo of her and Gifford. They dated – they definitely did date pre-Johnny Carson, but it wasn't Gifford. It was Revson. Mark, you're – is anybody still – everyone still with us? I hope so. Your curiosity really is, I won't say insatiable, because I think anything can be satiated, but it certainly is profound. I try. And it certainly is targeted. I try. Are you going to continue to be a comedian, or are you going to dine out on this? Am I going to die? I hope not. No, no, dine out. Oh, dine out. 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. Well, I'm glad you did it because you flew out here. I did. I did. Yeah, I said I'd get this world record at the time. No, I'm bad. All the pilots wanted to meet me, and they would say, Mark, all turbulence is just being in the ocean, going over a wave. It's driving over gravel. So, yeah, I think if you follow your curiosity in a positive way, you can't go wrong. It'll take you some. Well, maybe you can. I guess. But at least you come by it honest. Yes. Try it to. Let's land the plane then. OK. I'll try, but you can answer in whatever way you want. You've got I mean, I said kind of glibly and I'm going to stick by it. This book is amazing. Thank you, sir. It's called Love, Johnny Carson. But I'm still not 100 percent 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 you interviewed. And 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 insight, questions, and a whole lot of stories you can share with your friends that are 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. I mean, I got the tears from people and people thanking me to write 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 really a testament to Carson and everybody that went through that show. Top three interviews. Your top three favorites. Oh, gosh. Howard Smith, who was Johnny's friend, who was just not in entertainment at all. And just talk about John. I mean, I talk about the John Club. It was a small group of people. He was John. Here's John. Yeah, I thought he was Peter LaSalle. Johnny's producer. That was amazing to hear the stories. The host whisperer. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Arthur Godfrey, Dave Letterman, Tom Snyder, Craig Ferguson. Yeah, so I think those two are maybe Melvin Kaminsky, Mel Brooks, maybe. I mean, he was on Johnny's first show. It's like, Mark, I was 29, and I'm with Groucho Marx. Groucho was the surprise guest to introduce Johnny. I got Groucho's autograph, kid from Brooklyn. And I'm on the desk mocking Tony Bennett, who was also on the show. and Tony was upset. And so, yeah, just hearing 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, sir. For a comedian. It means a lot. Well, look, man, I call him as I see him. And it's very, very difficult to find a way through. To our earlier point, it's a cluttered, noisy landscape. It's a great book. Oh, thank you, sir. I really appreciate that. It's a Mr. Sir, by the way. Yeah, it was one of those things where I just wanted to deal with the book justice and just tell the truth and my knowledge and the people that I talk to. All right, it's available now wherever fine books are sold and so forth. Amazon, I did the Audible over five days. Oh, yeah? I did my best. I did my best. No, you did great. That's what I'm listening to. Oh, you really? Yeah, yeah. Chuck never learned to read. So this whole audio thing is just like God's hand. No, that, boy, we could talk about that, too. 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. Oh, the compliment I wanted to pay in the beginning 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. You're 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 was so much fun. I'm glad we got to do this. It was an honor. Were we rolling on any of this, Taylor? That's how it was. Is this longer than Peter's episode? Because Peter's episode was... Could be. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Mark Malkoff is his name. Love, Johnny Carson is his book. You'd be a fool not to get one and read it. Thanks again. Thank you. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long. But if it made you smile, Then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go online and leave us a review. I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge. But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Not four. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. And not three. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Definitely not three. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. We need five. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Especially if you hate it. Live your food! Thank you. Thank you. No.