Late Night's Last Stand

The world has changed since Johnny Carson ruled the space. But there's a simple fix for everyone - turn the channel and don't watch Colbert or any of them if you don't want to. What am I missing?

“The King” - Johnny Carson and “The Tonight Show”

Late Night TV isn’t what it used to be, but then - what is?

You can’t compare late-night tv now with what it was like in its early days, though clearly there are lots of people who want to.

Everything is blatantly different. In the Carson era, we didn’t have a 24-hour news cycle, or social media, or a fractured populous. We didn’t have cable or satellite tv for most of it - so we didn’t have choices. In the 1960’s and 70’s, I grew up with five TV stations - CBS, ABC, NBC, the local independent station, and PBS. We didn’t have the internet, Sirius-XM Radio, or smart phones, or game consoles.

In short, it was really hard to change the channel because there wasn’t anything else to watch, and if we wanted to change the channel, we had to physically cross the room to do it. We were stuck.

We’re not stuck now, but for some reason, people have forgotten the remote control can change the channel and they don’t have to move.

In those days, we got our news from the newspaper or Walter Cronkite. We all laughed at lots of the same jokes. In the 1970’s, we weren’t as prudish, we didn’t get bothered or wound up over every comment. We didn’t define hosts, stars, or people we didn’t like as “evil”. We weren’t split in two as a nation as we are now, sitting in wait for every little mistake or worse from those we don’t like, or with whom we don’t agree.

No, in those days, we were just tired at the end of a long day and wanted to laugh and didn’t have options. So, Carson was the guy. Whether you only stayed up for the monologue, or hung around for the rest of it - his slapstick sketches, or his lively interviews, or the comic at the end, you were entertained.

For 30 years, Johnny Carson was late-night television, hosting NBC’s platinum property. perfecting the host model, while defining the genre. Carson was a five-tool player; he could crush monologues, deliver cutting edge sketch comedy and original characters, mix it up with Doc and Ed and Tommy and the band, slip comfortably into dialogues with the audience, and deftly handle all guests in his pithy and conversational interviews.

And when things went to hell - Johnny was at his best. Nobody said more, or got bigger laughs with a quick mug or appropriate deadpan than Carson. For 30 years, (from 1962-1992) “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” shaped late-night television. He had virtually no other late-night talk show competition throughout his reign (all due respect to Arsenio Hall and Alan Thicke…), and very little other counter programming for audiences to find.

For almost the entirety of his time on the air, Johnny Carson didn’t have to deal with hundreds of television channels, thousands of shows and movies on streaming platforms, and myriad entertainment options. And he sure as hell didn’t have the political climate we have now, amplified by social media echo chambers, stone-throwers hiding behind anonymous identities, or powerful hostile forces, including the president of the United States, looking to run him off the air and out of town.

People want to romanticize Carson and those days, and I’ll admit, I do too. But it’s a fools errand to try. And while Johnny Carson avowed to not be “political” - it was different then than now. It was easy to stay out - because there wasn’t any “in”. And - don’t kid yourself - he took plenty shots at all of em, even dressing up as Ronald Reagan in recurring sketches, and regularly firing good-natured barbs at public figures.

But he didn’t have - this - whatever the hell this is.

No, Richard Nixon didn’t tweet insults at him or call for his firing.

What about this current group of talk show hosts and the future then? Not good - but not because the president doesn’t like anyone making jokes about him. The industry is in severe decline because it’s an archaic model amid new audience needs, distractions and consumption patterns. And what about the audience? Now - we got options! Lots of em. We’re not stuck! If I don’t like something or someone - I don’t watch. I turn the channel.

Why isn’t it that simple?