February 19, 2007
Johnny Carson, as you've never seen him
Paul Mavis praises a just-released rarity: What were thought to be long-lost kinescopes of Johnny Carson's first TV show, broadcast by CBS in 1955, when Carson was a gangly, younger-than-he-looked 30 year old.
Although the series didn't last long -- Mavis notes the network wouldn't let the neophyte have any control -- the qualities that would make him the king of late-night TV were already on display.
The earliest episodes are the best in this particular collection; perhaps the network initially listened to Carson and tried to do it his way before the constant fidgeting with the format began.
On the premiere episode, there's a skit where TV-obsessed Johnny comes home to find his set is in the repair shop. At the beginning of the skit, the actors playing his family are frozen still, while Johnny essentially tells the entire joke to the audience before they see it. And right before he starts the skit, he backs up, and reminds them that the point of the gag is that he doesn't realize the TV set is missing. He pauses for a perfectly timed moment, and with just the faintest twinkle in his eye, deadpans, "Think about that."
It's as modern and funny a moment as any you've seen countless times since the supposedly "new" comedic sensibilities of the post-Firesign Theatre and Saturday Night Live era. And that's the Johnny Carson they should have nurtured in the various sketches of The Johnny Carson Show: the totally aware, self-commenting comedian who's cognizant of the gag and its intended silliness already, and who's willing to let you in on it – if you're hip enough.
If you're a Carson fan -- oh, what has Leno done to your show, Johnny? -- this sounds like a real treat.
Posted by Mike Lief at February 19, 2007 12:07 PM
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