Johhny Carson

On October 23, 1925, John William Carson was born to Kit and Ruth Carson in Corning, Iowa. Johnny was no more than a year old when his parents moved to Red Oak, Iowa. Johnny started school in Red Oak where his father worked as the local superintendent of the Iowa and Nebraska Power Company. He had only been in school for a very short time when his family moved to Avoca, Iowa, about forty -five miles north of Red Oak (Lorence,1975). Johnny was not raised in a poor setting like many famous people claim, but rather to a pretty well off middle class family. Being young during the depression was not a problem for the Carson family, since the electric business at that time seemed immune to the problems that so terrible on many other occupations (Leamer,1989).

Soon after Johnny had gotten settled in to his school ant Avoca, his father was given a rather nice promotion and they moved to Norfolk , Nebraska. It was in Norfolk that Johnny spent his young formative years. At that time Norfolk was a city with a population of a little over ten thousand, which was pretty l

When preparing to take over the Tonight Show, Carson knew that to have a successful show he must put together a dynamic team. This first role to be filled was that of an announcer sidekick. His announcer on the game show was Ed McMahon and he decided to settle for him on the Tonight Show . He also picked his brother Dick as a writer and Perry Cross to run the show. Johnny’s first guest on the show was the legend Groucho Marx. When the show first started it lasted for an hour and forty-five minutes. For this time Johnny listed the services of celebrities and also did many comedic skits(Leamer,1989).

A childhood friend of Johnny’s, James Cochran, remembers a story from their elementary days that shows a certain physical courage and self-assurance that Johnny had. In the story James tells of he and Johnny walking home from school one day and being accosted by a bully who was much bigger than both of them. He said that Johnny told the guy that he wasn’t going to bully them and threatened him to a fight which he refused(Corkery,1987). Another story that shows Johnny’s independence and maybe rambunctious adolescence was when he along with a few of his school mates were at one of his friends house. the friend’s parents were out of town so Johnny and his friends sat in the friend’s living room smoking cigarettes. They were just puffing away when from out of no where they hear a car pulling up the driveway. Johnny and the other friends ran out the back door just as the parents came in the front. The parents told the child that they didn’t want him hanging around with that Johnny Carson anymore because he was a trouble maker(Leamer,1989).

While in College, Johnny met his first wife Joan Morrill Wolcott. She discovered that a date with Johnny Carson was nothing less than a challenge. She said “ I’d never go out with him again, He lit my cigarette and burned my nose. He was so aloof, so superior, and almost mean. He called me for another date. I don’t know, something else came up, and I wasn’t there. he sent me this potty with a cactus in it saying, ‘Sit on this. It will remind you.’ I thought it was clever. He planted it himself. It attracted my attention. I thought maybe he wasn’t the person I went out with the first time. He was not terribly popular in college”(Leamer, 1989).

Johnny Carson was one of televisions greatest heroes. He was a pioneer in television as a whole, but particularly late night. He handled his guests with tender gloves, and yet there was never any doubt who was in control of the situation. He came into television when it was an infant and traveled the road of both success and failures. One quality about Carson that we cannot and will not forget is that of his pride. The phenomenon that Johnny Carson created will probably never be fully understood. As former NBC program executive Jeff Sagansky stated “ The idea that one man, basically unscripted, could last on television for thirty years is a freak of television”(Zoglin,1992).

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