{"id":4442,"date":"2015-02-13T11:55:22","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T11:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4442"},"modified":"2015-04-15T13:25:24","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T13:25:24","slug":"why-jon-stewart-should-listen-to-johnny-carson-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4442","title":{"rendered":"Why Jon Stewart should listen to Johnny Carson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Carson<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

Count me among those who will hate to see Jon Stewart walk away from \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d and I wish he could have heard what Johnny Carson told me about his own temptations to quit “The Tonight Show”.<\/p>\n

Carson was the king of American late-night comedy when I interviewed him in his Burbank dressing room in 1981. \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d on NBC was starting its 20th year and it had made him, in his fifties, one of the biggest stars in entertainment. There were rumours, however, that he was restless and would pack it in, so I asked him about it.<\/p>\n

Carson said, \u201cI was thinking of quitting but I got a wonderful letter from the late Kenneth Tynan, who was a big fan of mine. It was very flattering. He said, \u2018You know, Picasso didn\u2019t do much besides paint. Yehudi Menuhin stuck with the violin and Fred Astaire was content to dance pretty much all of his life.\u2019 What he was saying in effect was, \u2018Stay on The Tonight Show, you really are fine at that and don\u2019t figure that you must do these other things to prove something. There’s a certain validity in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carson remained on the show for another 10 years and finished his 30-year \u201cTonight Show\u201d career on top, where he remains 10 years after his death despite a raft of imitators who challenged him then and have come along since.<\/p>\n

Like Carson, Stewart is the best in the business, a beacon of comic sanity in a media landscape that is fragmented, impoverished, ignorant and often plain stupid. Now in his fifties, no doubt he looks at what Steve Carell, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert have achieved thanks to \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d and he has become restless as he ponders what else might be out there. He made a creditable feature film directing debut last year with \u201cRosewater\u201d and there\u2019s no question that with his talents there could be much he would do well.<\/p>\n

But the similarities with Carson go deeper. Like the late comedian, Stewart has built a fan base that relies on him for laughter, comfort and the occasional shock. When Jane Pauley was on NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d show from the 1970s through the 1980s, I was one of many who went to bed with Johnny and woke up with Jane.<\/p>\n

Carson\u2019s inimitable ability to connect with audiences is a gift that Stewart shares and it happens not only with viewers at home but also with the studio audience.<\/p>\n

Carson told me: \u201cI\u2019ve never looked at \u2018The Tonight Show\u2019 as a talk show. I hate that appellation. To me, a talk show is William Buckley, Phil Donahue, Dick Cavett \u2013 they sit down and they talk. We do a variety show. The monologue, the sketches are an integral part of it. I\u2019m an entertainer. I\u2019m basically a comedian. I go out and I entertain. That\u2019s what I like to do. Put me in front of an audience, I\u2019m fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carson (pictured with sidekick Ed McMahon below) understood that he was a product of television and he knew that filmmaking was not for him: \u201cIt\u2019s very boring to make motion pictures. I\u2019m so used to the immediate feedback. I walk out in front of an audience tonight, I get the feedback. I like the live immediacy of television and concert work.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it was faulty logic, anyway, to assume that performers skilled in one area would therefore be successful in another: \u201cPeople say, \u2018Why don’t you make a motion picture?\u2019 Well, that\u2019s like asking, \u2018Why doesn\u2019t Paul Newman work Las Vegas?\u2019 First of all, he couldn\u2019t work Las Vegas. Because you\u2019re talented maybe in one medium doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you can transfer that to another medium.<\/p>\n

“There are a lot people who say, well, you haven’t really lived until you\u2019ve played the Broadway stage. Bullshit! There are a lot of actors who didn\u2019t do Broadway who are very successful motion picture actors. There are a lot of actors on Broadway who have been very successful in the theatre who never made it in motion pictures because it didn\u2019t transfer well, it didn’t come across the screen right. So there are all areas: motion pictures, radio, television, concerts. It depends what you really like.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always said, and I don\u2019t mean to sound egotistical about this: anybody can make a motion picture if you have some talent. You can make a motion picture. That doesn\u2019t mean you’ll be successful. There have been a lot of people in television who have made a motion picture, not to any great critical acclaim, and to say, \u2018Hey, I made a motion picture!\u2019 So what?\u201d<\/p>\n

Carson recognized, too, that at that stage in his career, he was too well-known to play other characters. \u201cSee, I have played myself all these years. Jack Lemmon, in the early days of television, did a situation comedy and he went into motion pictures. He\u2019s a superb actor but Jack didn\u2019t play himself on television. He played a guy; he played a character. I have played Johnny Carson for so long that for me to walk on a major motion picture screen and have the audience accept me in a role is a very difficult thing to do. People say, \u2018Oh, you can act\u2019, and I\u2019m sure I could do an adequate, maybe even a good job of acting. I haven\u2019t seen anything yet that appeals to me that much that I want to say, \u2018Oh, I must do this picture and become internationally known\u2019. I might have 20 years ago, when I was younger, said, \u2018Gee, that\u2019s wonderful\u2019. At my age now, I don\u2019t have that drive for it.”<\/p>\n

Carson\u2019s farewell after 30 years was sad but inevitable. Stewart\u2019s farewell, even as we wish him every success in whatever ventures he chooses, will seem sad and premature. Let\u2019s hope he doesn\u2019t miss the immediacy of \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d the way Carson would have missed \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d because we will certainly miss him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett Count me among those who will hate to see Jon Stewart walk away from \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d and I wish he could have heard what Johnny Carson told me about his own temptations to quit “The Tonight … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,15],"tags":[2116,2343,2342,2347,2346,2341,2115,2344],"class_list":["post-4442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-interviews","category-television","tag-rosewater","tag-the-daily-show","tag-the-tonight-show","tag-today","tag-jane-pauley","tag-johnny-carson","tag-jon-stewart","tag-nbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4442"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7162,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4442\/revisions\/7162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}