The only things scripted on The Tonight Show were commercials and sketches, so most of the time I too had to ad-lib my part. And as I look back over those wonderful years, I remember with great happiness some of my favorite ad-libs. For example, how could I ever forget, "That was terrific, Johnny." Or, "No kidding?" And, "Yes, I do, all the time." Here's one from the early days of the show: "Really? That's amazing." One that the audience loved was, "Boy, right on this show." Then there are the classics like, "How big was it?" "How high was it?" and "How cold was it?". . .
As we all know, sometimes life isn't fair. While Johnny got to sit and talk with Raquel Welch, I got to hold up a can of Budweiser. No one ever successfully defined my role on the show. Originally I was hired to do announcements and live commercials, but the job expanded quickly. Besides the billboards and commercials, I did the five-spot with Johnny, I was there when he needed someone to play off, I acted in sketches, and for most of our run I worked with our guest hosts when Johnny took the night off. For someone who seemingly had very little to do, I did a lot of it.
As the famous troubadour Steve Martin sang during his first appearance on the show, "We're gonna have a lot of fun. We got laughter, we got surprises. We got forty-seven minutes of commercials . . ." Admittedly, at times The Tonight Show seemed to be one long commercial interrupted occasionally by entertainment, but that's why it's called show business. The importance given our sponsors on the show is probably best exemplified by my greeting to the forty-five million viewers of Tiny Tim's wedding to seventeen-year-old Miss Vicki in 1969. "We cordially request the pleasure of your company at the marriage of Tiny Tim and Miss Vicki right here on The Tonight Show," I told the largest audience we ever had. "But right now, here are some words of wisdom from Pepto-Bismol tablets."
I can't begin to estimate how many commercials I did for how many products on the show. But the most amazing thing is how few of the thousands of demonstrations I did went wrong. When I started doing the show, like every commercial spokesperson, every salesman, I was afraid that something would go wrong on the air. That happened for the first time about three or four years after we started doing the show. And the sponsor's reaction really surprised me. The product was a tape recorder, I think the company was called Voice Magic, and we had to get special permission from the Federal Communications Commission to record my voice on the air, then play it back. In rehearsal it worked perfectly. But on the air something went wrong; the recorder didn't work. So I fumbled around with it, then started doing the spot all over again. It just didn't work. It was supposed to be a sixty-second commercial; by the time I was finished, it probably ran about five minutes. I felt awful. This poor sponsor was paying a lot of money to demonstrate this wonderful product and somehow I had screwed it up. That's the end of that sponsor, I thought.
I was completely wrong. The company loved the attention, they loved the fact that everyone was talking about the commercial that didn't work. They got more name recognition because the spot failed than they ever would have gotten had it worked. Instead of canceling, they extended their commercial commitment.
I don't think we ever lost a sponsor because something went wrong. On those rare occasions when a demonstration failed, I tried to correct it immediately. One night, for example, I was doing a spot for a plastic wrap and to show how this particular wrap sealed so tightly, I was to fill a glass with red wine, stretch the plastic over the mouth of the glass, and then turn it upside down to show that no wine spilled out of the glass. Again, it worked perfectly in rehearsal. But when I did it live on the air, I accidentally overlapped the wrapping, creating a ridge, so that when I turned it upside down, the wine poured out. The audience thought it was hysterical. I was laughing, but only on the outside.
I knew it was my fault and I intended to correct it. So I picked up my plastic wrap, my wine bottle, and my glass and I walked over to Johnny's desk. I poured the wine in the glass and put down the bottle. Then very carefully I took the plastic wrap and stretched it over the mouth of the glass. As I did this, Johnny was watching very closely; he wasn't really sure what I had in mind.
Then I held the glass over Johnny's head and turned it upside down. Not a drop spilled. "Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen," I said. "I think I proved my point." Now, that was a pretty brave thing to do. Suppose the wrap leaked again? Oh sure, when I went to look for my next job I would have had two minutes of great television, but . . .
It wasn't always my fault when something went wrong. One night, for Lipton tea, I believe, I was supposed to show viewers how simple it was to brew a cup of instant tea. Unfortunately, our propman forgot to fill the pitcher with water. When I went to pour the water in the glass, the pitcher was empty. I laughed, the audience laughed, and I explained that if I had water, I would have shown viewers how easy it was to make this delicious drink in their own homes, and then I added, "In fact, it's a drink our propman could be enjoying in his own home tomorrow night, because he certainly won't be here."
Certainly the best-known commercial we ever did was for our wonderful longtime sponsor, Alpo dog food. Whenever possible I liked to test a product before I agreed to do their commercials. That worked just fine in the case of Anheuser-Busch, for example—actually the cases of Anheuser-Busch; however, with Alpo, I took our dog's bark for it. I always had a warm spot in my heart for Alpo. The name came from the fact that it was invented in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It was just being sold locally when I started in Philadelphia and it was one of my early sponsors. I loved the fact that I started doing Alpo commercials when it was a small company and grew with it as it became the largest-selling dog food in America.
Alpo was one of our first sponsors when Johnny and I started doing The Tonight Show. The spots never changed very much; as I read my copy, a very hungry dog would demonstrate just how much dogs loved Alpo by gulping it down. Now, the truth is that we made sure that the dog would love Alpo by giving him only a small taste of it during the afternoon rehearsal. By the time we did the show in the evening, I guarantee you, that dog was hungry. Although we used all kinds of breeds, for a long time our regular was a beautiful English sheepdog named Patrick. One night Patrick must have had other plans, because we were using a beagle named Hernandez. The commercial started normally enough; I was sitting on a chair on a raised platform holding up a can of dog food. "Alpo is the only one of the leading dog foods that has real beef . . . ," I began, and at that point the dog was supposed to run to his bowl and start eating. But Hernandez had stage fright. As I continued, "The real beef could be the reason Hernandez here . . . ," Hernandez walked away. I tried to coax him back, "Com'ere, come on, come here, here it is, come on up, come on . . ." He took one bite, then turned and walked away. The audience started laughing, but I persisted. I took my commercials seriously. "He's a little frightened," I apologized for the dog. "Come on, come on, dog . . . well, Hernandez is a little . . ."
And then I saw Johnny come into my little commercial area. He got down on his hands and knees and came over to me. "Come right up, nice Hernandez," I said as I started to pet Johnny. Nice boss, I was thinking as I pet him on the head, nice boss. By this point the audience was hysterical. Carson wagged his rump to show how much he loved Alpo. I just kept going. I was going to get my commercial done. "The next time you're looking at the canned dog food . . ."—he rubbed his cheek against my leg— ". . . nice Hernandez . . . reach for the can that contains real beef . . ." Johnny got up on his knees and started begging for more. I started petting him again . . . and then he licked my hand. Good boss, good.
And I still managed to conclude, gratefully, "And doesn't your dog deserve Alpo?"
Maybe what surprised me most when I saw Carson was that he was trying to help me. Normally, when I did commercials, he did everything he could to cause me problems, from giving me a hotfoot to setting my script on fire. I did the commercials in a little area backstage. This commercial area was just behind the main set. To get there, I had to walk around the end of the set beyond the couch. Going that way enabled me to leave while Johnny was still on the air without being seen. It was a walk of about fifty feet, so it took only a few seconds to get there. Whenever I had a live spot to do, I'd leave about thirty seconds early to get ready. But one night—as it turns out, it was a live Alpo spot—Johnny wouldn't let me go.
As I quietly got up to leave, he asked, "Where are you going?"
"Nowhere," I said.
Now, he knew exactly where I was going. The entire audience knew where I was going. "I thought you were getting up," he said.
"Oh, no, no, I'm staying right here," I told him. "I wouldn't leave you. You're the boss. You want me to stay here, I'll stay right here. What time do they close this place?"
"Oh, okay, good," he decided, then returned to whatever he was doing. And as soon as he did, I'd start to leave.
He stopped me. "Now where are you going?" he demanded. "Can't you sit still?"
"I'm right here, right where you need me."
Of course, Johnny was making a big deal out of watching me from the corner of his eye, and in that way directing the audience's attention on me. "As I was saying . . ." I got up to leave again. "Now what is your problem tonight?"
I have spent my entire life being on time. Maybe it's my marine training, maybe I learned it from my father. But when I am scheduled to be somewhere at a certain time, I am there. It really bothers me when I'm even a few minutes late. This commercial was scheduled to run at a specific moment; I intended to be there. "Well, John," I admitted, "I'm just going to take a little walk backstage and see, maybe, you know, maybe there's a little dog back there I can talk to. Maybe he's lonely. Maybe he's hungry. Maybe I can find a can of dog food for him . . ."
"Well, why don't you just sit there," he said. Once again he started speaking, then stopped in the middle as if he'd caught me.
I held up my hands. "I'm right here. See. I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Good," he said, then faced the camera, held up a can of dog food, and said quickly, "and now, here's Ed with a message from Alpo."
Carson wasn't the only one on that show trying to cause me problems. He was just the ringleader. One night I was doing a serious spot, I think it was for a life insurance company, and I looked up to see Buddy Hackett standing right next to the camera. And as I looked into that camera and started speaking to viewers in a somber voice, he started taking his clothes off. I mean, all his clothes: his shirt, shoes, pants, shorts. I am here to tell you, my friends, that is not a pretty sight.
Buddy Hackett's body looks like a large lump of silly putty acting really silly. Perhaps for the first time, as I looked at his body, I understood the derivation of the phrase "belly laugh," because it was almost impossible to look at that belly and not laugh. I tried to remain serious, I tried not to laugh, particularly when I had to say phrases like "taking care of your family." And I did it. Everyone has his own definition of professionalism. Mine has something to do with getting through a complete commercial while Buddy Hackett is doing a striptease right next to the camera.
I take great pride in my professionalism. I'm always on time, prepared, and ready to go to work. Very rarely have I allowed anything to distract me while I'm working. But there is one night on The Tonight Show that comes to mind. Again, it was an Alpo spot. By the time this happened, I had been doing Alpo commercials for years. The copy changed a little, but the commercials were all pretty much the same. Because I was busy filming the movie Fun with Dick and Jane with Jane Fonda and George Segal in the afternoon, I didn't have time to rehearse this commercial. I really wasn't the slightest bit concerned, I'd done thousands of commercials, I figured what could go wrong? But because I wasn't at rehearsal, I didn't know they were using a new dog.
That night, at the right time, I slipped around the end of the set and ran toward the commercial set. And as I did, the woman in charge of the commercials said casually, "Watch out for this dog, Ed." I turned and saw this big German shepherd sitting quietly. A big shepherd. I immediately stopped running. I walked very gingerly to my chair and sat down. I didn't want to disturb him. As the commercial started, I had several thoughts in my mind, none of them having anything to do with the commercial: why exactly should I watch out for this dog? What's wrong with him? What's he doing? When it came time to push the bowl of dog food closer to him, I did it very carefully. I mean, I never took my eyes off this dog. I finished the commercial, but it was not one of the more convincing spots I've ever done.
When the commercial ended, I couldn't wait to get off the set. But I didn't rush. Not with Rex the killer dog still eating. I stood up slowly and walked casually away. When I was far enough away, I asked, "What the hell was that all about? Why did I have to watch this dog?"
"Oh, it was nothing," she replied. "He played an attack dog in some movie yesterday, but they deprogrammed him this morning."
Nothing? A big, hungry attack dog? I asked, "Does the dog know he's been deprogrammed? How do we know that he knows he was acting?" Well, at least that dog ate his Alpo.
Johnny and I did rehearse the sketches we did together, but most of the time what we did on the air was not what we rehearsed. In one sketch, for example, I played a reporter interviewing the world's oldest living man. Johnny was dressed in a zebra-skin loincloth, he was carrying the long staff of life, and his makeup was terrific. In fact, his makeup was the best thing in the sketch. The jokes were awful. The funniest thing about it was that a few jokes into the sketch Johnny and I, as well as the entire audience, realized it wasn't funny, and it wasn't going to be funny. It was filled with bad jokes and single entendres. Finally, Johnny, still in character, said to me, "You know what I'm going to do?"
"Well no," I said, "I don't."
"I'm going to get out of this sketch." And with that he turned around and walked back into his cave, leaving me out there all by myself.
I didn't hesitate. I yelled, "Take me with you!" and followed him as fast as I could.
We always tried to maintain our professionalism during these sketches, but sometimes we'd get so far away from the material that it was just impossible to get back. Often we just ended up giggling like two little kids. One night when things were completely out of control, it might have been the sketch we did about the famous nude bowler who had special bowling ba . . . well, I'll let you finish that joke. Johnny, who was wearing his bowling . . . equipment, looked at me, shook his head, and said in wonder, "Do you believe that two grown men . . ."
To which I added carefully, "Graduates of major universities . . ." From that night on, whenever things got out of control Johnny would look at me and say it again. And again.
I never knew what Aunt Blabby was going to do to me. Oh, sweet, dear Aunt Blabby, the lovable old lady who would happily run me over with her motorcycle if I stood between her and a handsome man. One night while wearing golf shoes, she accidentally stepped on my toes with her spikes, causing me to limp for a week. We've probably all got Aunt Blabbys in our families, particularly those of us who come from really dysfunctional families. I think it is fair of me to say that the team of Blabby and McMahon will take its place among the many wonderful man-and-woman teams in show business history, teams like Burns and Allen and Lucy and Ricky, and that place is way down at the bottom, way, way down. My role with Aunt Blabby can probably best be described as tormentee. One night, for example, Aunt Blabby told me she was seeing an analyst. "Oh really," I said, as if that were a surprise, just as it was written. "I didn't know you were seeing an analyst."
To which she replied, and this was not written, "I just told you I was . . . Why don't you listen to me? Bert Parks"—the perennial host of the Miss America pageant—"is available 364 days a year, you know that? One day a year he works, he can be here every night. You know, I've been depressed lately?"
I recognized my cue. "Depressed?"
"Yessss, depressed. Why do you repeat everything?" she scolded me. "I could go to Taco Bell for that . . ."
Johnny enjoyed putting me on the defensive in our sketches, knowing that the audience enjoyed it too. So when he found something that worked, he never hesitated. We were doing Aunt Blabby one night, I think she had just returned from Club Med—she went accidentally, she thought it was Club Men—and very early in the sketch, either by accident or on purpose—and I have my suspicions—she hit me with her cane in the crotch. I jumped back. That was a mistake on my part; I should have remembered that old show business adage, never show weakness to Carson in an Aunt Blabby sketch. He knew he had something going, so he hit me again. And as I jumped back again, he said, "Where are you going?"
"Nowhere," I said, backing up. The cameraman was shooting this from the waist up, so viewers at home couldn't see what was going on. But the audience in the studio was hysterical.
"Why are you walking away from me," she asked, swinging that cane again. "If you want to do the interview, stay here."
I backed up a few more feet.
"See, there you go again. Do you want to talk to me or don't you?" Boom. Again. I wonder if there is an organization for abused straight men?
I think our most popular sketches were the visits of Carnac the Magnificent. Carnac was a psychic who would give the answers to questions sealed in an envelope. My role in Carnac developed over time; originally all I was supposed to do was introduce him. But I improvised some things and the audience liked them and they became important elements in the sketch. What was supposed to be a brief introduction eventually became "Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time to introduce that wonderful visitor from the East. We have not seen him for many a fortnight and it is now time for his return. And so, I am pleased to introduce the famous sage, seer, soothsayer, the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-omniscient, and former dress designer to Janet Reno—or former tax adviser to Governor Reagan, or former campaign adviser to George McGovern, or former musical director of the Sex Pistols, or whatever—Carnac the Magnificent!"
Johnny would come out dressed in a shawl and turban, take two steps . . . and trip right over the stair. I would try to help him and he would push me away. "Welcome," I began, "welcome, old—"
"Not so old," he would correct me. Eventually he would settle down behind his desk. My job was simply to hand him sealed envelopes, but I began embellishing on that and it too became an important part of the skit. "I hold in my hands the envelopes," I announced seriously. "A child of four can plainly see that these envelopes have been hermetically sealed"—I have no idea where any of this stuff came from—"and they have been kept in a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall's porch since noon today. No one knows the contents of these envelopes, but you, oh great Carnac, in your magical, mystical, and borderline divine way, will ascertain the answer to the question, having never before heard the question. Is that about it?"
I'd hand him the first envelope. He would hold it against his forehead, as if trying to mentally read its contents. And when he did, I would repeat, "Hermetically sealed . . . ," and laugh.
He'd glare at me. "Please, I must have absolute silence."
Which was always my cue to respond, "Carnac has had that many times before . . ."
Then Carnac would reveal the answer. "Hi, diddle diddle."
And I would repeat that answer, seriously, as if it had been carved in stone. "Hi, diddle diddle."
And as I did, Carnac would tear open the envelope, blow into it to puff it open, then withdraw the question to which he'd just given the answer. In this case, "How do you greet your diddle in the morning?"
Those were the jokes, folks, and we still lasted thirty years! I will be honest, sometimes Johnny and I were laughing at the quality of the jokes rather than at the jokes. "Executive action" was a typical answer, to which the question was "What does the president look for in a singles bar?"
" 'Breaking Away' and 'Here's Boomer' " was Carnac's answer to the question "What are two really bad names for a laxative?"
During the multibillion-dollar savings-and-loan scandal, the answer was "A nail, a board, and an S & L customer," to which the question was "Name something that's hammered, something that's sawed, and something that's screwed." And when Richard Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, went to jail, the answer was "A dove, a canary, and John Mitchell," which answered the question "Name a lovebird, a songbird, and a jailbird."
"Sis, boom, bah" was the answer to the all-time favorite question of Carnac's fans, "What is the sound made by an exploding sheep?"
The audience had a role in Carnac too. At the end of the sketch I would hold up the final envelope and announce, "I hold in my hand the last envelope . . . ," and the audience would cheer loudly. "I hold in my hand the last envelope . . . " became another line that people love to hear me say that always gets a laugh and thunderous applause.
Carnac responded to that line with an insult, "May your only son become a Kelly girl," "May the Tunisian army invade your sister's closet," and that would end that visit from Carnac.
My favorite character, who we really didn't do that much, was El Moldo, the mentalist. This was a parody of performers like Dunninger, who supposedly could read minds. I played his accomplice. El Moldo was very different from Carnac. Carnac had to figure out what was in the envelope, whereas El Moldo was blindfolded and had to figure out what I was holding in my hand. Big difference. Admittedly, on occasion I would give slight hints to El Moldo. For example, if I was holding up a watch, I would ask, "El Moldo, what am I holding up this . . . time? " Or, I'd hold up a pencil and urge him, "El Moldo, hurry on this, you know, get the lead out." It didn't matter; he would never get the correct answer.
El Moldo was no less suggestive than Carnac. "El Moldo, I have a woman in the audience . . . ," I began.
"Good, get me one too."
"And she is holding something in her hand that . . ."
He laughed, "El Moldo not touch that one or El Moldo be off the air."
Sometimes though, even the great El Moldo actually did get something right. One night he guessed, "Is there someone in the audience wearing a shirt?"
"Well," I replied sarcastically, "of course there is."
"El Moldo's off to a good start . . ." El Moldo was scripted, but that didn't matter very much. I mean, if I missed a line, who would notice? And who would care? This wasn't like Burns and Allen, where if George missed one of his setup lines, Gracie's punch line would make no sense. This was two guys having fun. We were explorers in search of laughter. We started on a trail, the script was our map, but when we heard a laugh, we turned in that direction. And we followed the laughs, wherever they led us. Believe me, there were many times when we had no idea where we were or where we were going.
We would often do a little bit in which Johnny read a short excerpt from a book or a newspaper item in which there was a list of suggestions or some advice, and then he would add some additional suggestions or advice that had been created by our writers. For example, "Do not marry a girl who's had a fungus named after her." My job was to occasionally shake my head in wonder and amazement and improvise responses like "That's terrific," "No kidding, I didn't know that," and "Wow." Perhaps you'd like to read that last line again, "Wow." Thank you.
Most people don't believe that I took an acting lesson until they read my delivery of those lines. Look, it's tough for a straight man to get laughs, even with big lines like that. But as in everything else Johnny and I did, my little role in this bit grew until it became an integral part of the sketch. People laughed in anticipation of laughing. They knew the setup. For example, Johnny would read a list of things a good driver should know from an auto magazine. When he finished, I would begin, ad-libbing as I went along, my voice growing louder, "Johnny I don't know how you do it. You're as busy as anyone I've ever known. You've got the Oscar telecast coming up, millions of people are going to watch you on that show"—this is known in the straight-man trade as "milking it," or, technically, "sucking up to the boss"—"and yet you have time to go to the library and find this amazing book. Because when I go to the library I don't find them. But you have found a book that clearly delineates all you should know about driving a car. It's amazing, it's not a very big book. It doesn't have a lot of pages. From where I'm sitting it doesn't look like it could be more than ninety pages long. It's not a book that would jump right off the shelf. But you found it. I just don't know how you do it, but somehow you find these things and bring them in to enlighten our audience and it's a wonderful thing . . ." Here comes the big loud finish, ". . . Because when you read that book to our audience, I can say right now that everything you ever want to know about driving a car is listed in that thin little book."
"Wrong!" Mr. Carson would respond immediately, and then follow with an insult, "bumper breath." Or Methuselah breath, manifold breath, mooseface, six-cigarette, three-martini-lunch breath. Thirty years we got away with material like this, thirty years!
"You mean there's more?" I said, shocked, thus proving my acting lessons had not been wasted. "I can't believe it." He would then read the new list. "You know you've done something wrong if a pedestrian is waving to you . . . from the hood of your car." That's where my "Wow!" proved valuable.
Johnny often said, "We started doing this show on October 1, 1962. The second night they ran a Best of Carson." Wrong! Boss breath. I've been waiting a long time to write that. When we started doing the show, we were on five nights a week for an hour and forty-five minutes. But as the show became more successful it was shortened. In 1967 it was reduced to ninety minutes, and in 1980 to sixty minutes. Eventually Johnny began working only four nights a week and we used guest hosts. And then we used more and more guest hosts. And then he worked three nights a week. We were in the enviable position of being paid more money to work less. With that in mind sometimes I wonder why Johnny bothered to retire. If things had kept moving in the same direction, eventually we wouldn't have had to be there at all, for which they would have paid us a fortune.
We used so many guest hosts that in my warm-up I would ask the audience for volunteers to be the guest host. And then I'd give them a date. It seems as if at one time or another just about every major star in show business hosted the show. The record for serving as guest host most often belongs to Joey Bishop, who filled in for Johnny 206 times, far more than anyone else, at least until NBC started using permanent substitutes. Sometimes viewers forget how many major stars sat in Johnny's chair: my friend Frank Sinatra did it twice; Harry Belafonte, Rickles, and Newhart; Jerry Lewis filled in for a week; Flip Wilson, Groucho, David Brenner; Joan Rivers became a permanent guest host until she . . . left; Roger Moore; Sammy Davis hosted for a wonderful week; Leno and Letterman; Dick Cavett; Bob Hope had a young singer named Barbra Streisand as his guest; Alan Sherman had a young comedian named Bill Cosby; even Kermit the Frog hosted the show.
For many years I worked with every guest host. NBC wanted me there to provide continuity when Johnny wasn't working. In later years that became a problem, because Johnny wanted me there when he was there and the network wanted me there when he wasn't there. And I wanted to start taking a little more time off. NBC finally decided I would continue to work with guest hosts. Fine with me, I said cooperatively, then I'll take my time off when Johnny's there. But just one thing, I added, please, you tell that to Mr. Carson. So they told Johnny and it worked out fine: for the last few years of the show I worked only with Johnny.
Working with so many different guest hosts served to remind me how brilliant Carson was. Night after night Johnny made it look so easy; he made it look as if anyone could do it. But it wasn't easy; it was a job with extraordinary pressure. Hosting a program being watched by ten million people without a script is a very difficult thing to do. My friend Don Rickles, for example, hosted several times. There are few people in show business with more courage than Rickles. Rickles once told Frank Sinatra, "Frank, be yourself. Stand up and hit somebody." But whenever he hosted the show, he got so nervous that he would perspire more than anyone I've ever seen. Buckets of sweat poured off him. By the time he got to "Good evening," he was soaking wet. He used to kid about it himself, saying, "Don't mind me, I'm working on Guam." And at every break during the show he would ask me, "Was that good? Was that funny?"
Naturally I was as reassuring as I could be to my good friend. "Excuse me," I'd say supportively, "did you say something?" Or, "That was great, Don, much better than anything Kermit the Frog did."
To some degree every guest host was nervous. Most of them expected to be nervous and knew how to inject that nervous energy into their performance. Bob Newhart used to say that the only time he really got nervous was when he wasn't nervous. But usually movie actors, people who were not used to performing live, got the most nervous. The most nervous of them all was Roger Moore. Roger Moore was at the height of his success as James Bond when he hosted the show. I mean, he was the epitome of sophistication. James Bond personified. Before we went on the air, he grabbed me by the arm, dug his fingers into my skin, and asked, "Ed, please, don't leave me alone out there. Please stay with me." He was absolutely frantic. But on the air, his professionalism took control and he was wonderful.
When working with a guest host, I did feel more responsible for the show than I did when Johnny was there. The guest hosts looked to me for security, for direction, and I had to provide it. They thought of me as the guy who knew where all the bathrooms were. Just as when I was working with Carson, I tried to be there when needed and be quiet when I was not needed. It's just that the guest hosts needed me more. One night, for example, when Newhart was hosting, his good friend Robert Morse from How to Succeed in Business was his guest. Both of them are very talented, very funny men, but together nothing happened. They were having a wonderful time, they were breaking each other up, but the audience was just staring at them. It was about as exciting as the narration for home videos. They did two segments, about ten minutes, without getting a laugh. Finally, mercifully, the segments ended and we went to a commercial. Coming out of the commercial Bob Newhart was supposed to introduce the musical act, an organ player.
Unfortunately, and sometimes things like this happen, the organ caught fire. I don't mean the organist was great; I mean smoke started rising out of it. Freddy de Cordova told Newhart, "The organ's on fire. Do two more segments with Morse." This was a real problem. The two of them had already done their best material and that hadn't worked at all. Now it really got bad. They were just filling time. Newhart had this forlorn look on his face; he knew how bad it was going. Finally, I had to step in. After one of them finished another long uninteresting story, I laughed, but only politely, and suggested, "Gee, have you two ever considered putting out a book of these stories?"
I think when Johnny took a night off he knew he was leaving the show in good hands with me and Doc and Tommy and Freddy. I mean, the man took an occasional night off once or twice a week, what could really happen? I mean, what was the guest host going to do, insult the pope? Well, actually, there was that one night when the host David Frost and his guest Robert Shaw were discussing Pope Paul VI's position on abortion. "Well," Frost said, "there's supposed to have been an occasion in the nineteenth century when [the Pope] said in the afternoon, 'I'm not infallible.'
And then at seven o'clock he said, 'I'm sorry. I made a mistake. I am infallible.' "
As the only graduate of Catholic University on the show that evening, I declined gracefully to get involved in that one. I just did my job, knowing for sure that no one could debate the virtues of Alpo. But I did wonder exactly how Johnny must have reacted when someone told him that everything on the show had been fine, except for that little comment that alienated the entire Catholic Church.
Sometimes the guest hosts did use the show to discuss serious social topics. When Harry Belafonte hosted the show for a week in 1968 he invited many of the greatest black entertainers to be his guests, but also people like Senator Robert Kennedy and the Smothers Brothers. Tommy Smothers, whose criticism of President Johnson and the Vietnam War was well publicized, admitted that he believed President Johnson was indisputably the best president that the country had at that moment. Later in the show Belafonte mentioned that he'd enjoy appearing on the Smothers Brothers' controversial show, to which Tommy Smothers replied, "I'm sorry, but we don't allow any of that interracial stuff."
Of all the guest hosts I worked with, the one I most enjoyed was Muppets star Kermit the Frog. That was one of the few times we had an interspecies host. At least Kermit did not break out in flop sweat like some of our other hosts; instead he broke out in warts. That was the night I really had to use everything I'd learned in my acting lessons. I decided to deal with Kermit as if he were a real frog, as if I were talking to a real frog. Not that I would normally discuss anything of importance with a real frog, but I treated Kermit as if he were a real frog who could speak. And it worked very well. But during the show I did hope that one of my old marine drinking buddies would tune in and see me conversing pleasantly with a frog. I knew if they did, one of two things would happen: either they would think I had finally flipped because I was talking to a frog, or it would look to them as if I were speaking to a frog and that hallucination would cause them to quit drinking.
During one segment, Kermit read a few household cleaning tips from a book, enabling me to say, "You know, it's not a fat book, I mean the pages are tiny but . . . by golly, that's a great book for a frog to be reading because everything in the world you'd ever want to know about household hints is in this book."
"You are wrong, dishwater breath," Kermit replied, marking the only time in my life that I have been insulted by a puppet, although admittedly in Philadelphia I was outrated by Howdy Doody.
During his monologue on our twenty-ninth-anniversary show, Johnny, who was suffering from a bad cold, quoted the classic line "The show must go on." Then he turned to me and asked, "Who said that?"
"The man who owns the theater," I suggested. The Tonight Show did go on for almost thirty years, through marriages and divorces and earthquakes and wars, and during that time just about every significant actor or performer appeared on the show, as well as numerous politicians, experts, and ordinary strange people. And when you've done thousands of shows as Johnny and I did, and had thousands of guests, and performed in thousands of bits, the shows begin to run together in my memory. Sometimes, when I watch The Carson Comedy Classics I see myself doing things I have absolutely no memory of ever doing. And sometimes I laugh out loud when I hear myself laughing out loud. So it's very difficult for me to recall favorite moments or favorite shows. But there are days and nights that stand out in my memory.
For example, no matter what some people have said, I really don't claim credit for making Richard Nixon president of the United States. Oh sure, perhaps I helped a little. Politically, I would call myself an American, meaning I've always voted for the candidate rather than by party affiliation. In 1968, when Nixon ran against Hubert Humphrey, a man I greatly admired, I voted for Humphrey. But when a potential candidate for the presidency asked for my help, I was pleased to give it. And believe me, if you're ever in that situation, feel free to call on me.
In 1968, when I was living in Bronxville, New York, one of my neighbors, a delightful man named Clint Wheeler, was working as an adviser to Richard Nixon. This was before Nixon had announced he was going to run; it was even before Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not run. In the first televised presidential debates, in 1960, Nixon looked tired and unshaven compared to the handsome Jack Kennedy, and claimed later that his poor makeup cost him that election. Well, by 1968 politicians understood the importance of looking good on television. So when Nixon was scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show, Wheeler asked me to meet with him and offer some advice.
We met in his Fifth Avenue office. It was the middle of summer, and although the air-conditioning was on, there was a fire burning in the fireplace. "I'm going to be on your show," he explained, "and I just wonder if you have some ideas how I can make sure I come across well."
Today media consultants are paid thousands of dollars to answer that question. But this was a subject on which I was an expert. I'd been in television almost as long as there had been television. "The most important thing to do when you're on television is to include everybody," I advised Nixon. "Make contact with the people who are watching at home as well as those people in the studio. This isn't live theater; you have to play to the camera. Include everybody. Try to find common emotions, things that people watching at home can relate to. If Johnny asks you how you feel about something, you might tell him that you have the same feelings that every person in the audience has felt at one time or another."
Here I was, trying to teach Richard Nixon how to be warm. "And when you do," I continued, "point straight into the camera, because you're pointing to ten million people."
We spent about an hour together. The last thing I told him was that when he walked out from behind the curtain he should shake hands with me. "I'm the announcer, I'm not the boss, I'm the next guy down. A lot of people identify with me. If you ignore me, they think you're ignoring them. When Barry Goldwater was on the show, he didn't bother to shake my hand. Now Barry Goldwater is a nice man, and he certainly didn't mean to slight me, but people noticed and they didn't like it."
The first thing he did on the show was walk straight over to me and shake my hand firmly. When Johnny asked him the question to which everyone wanted the answer—was he going to make another run for the presidency—he replied, "Actually, I think you ought to run for president. Let me tell you a few things. I'm an expert on how to run for president. Not how to win, but how to run . . . First let me tell you your assets. You're young . . . you come over on television like gangbusters. And boy, I'm an expert on how important that is."
"You're not gonna lend me your makeup man, are you?" Johnny asked.
"No," Nixon replied, "I'm going to lend him to Lyndon Johnson." In fact, Nixon hired The Tonight Show's makeup man to work with him during the 1968 campaign. And when he won the election, I was asked to produce the inaugural gala. The inaugural gala was very different in 1968 than it is today. It was much smaller, much less important. I don't believe it was even televised nationally. But I agreed to do it—I mean, this was a request from the president-elect of the United States—and I put together a wonderful show.
I'll also never forget the night that the Reverend Martin Luther King appeared on the show, just a few months before he was assassinated. Because he was such a charismatic world leader, it was sometimes easy to forget that he was also a human being. The Tonight Show format allowed people to show a side of their personality not usually seen in public. Dr. King explained that he had flown home to the United States from Russia that afternoon. "And as soon as we started out, they notified us that the plane had mechanical difficulties and that kept us on the ground . . . Well, finally we took off and landed, and whenever I land after mechanical difficulties, I'm always very happy. Now, I don't want to give you the impression that as a Baptist preacher I don't have faith in God in the air; it's simply that I've had more experience with him on the ground."
Just about the only movie star who refused every invitation to be on the show was Cary Grant, who told Freddy de Cordova that he wanted to be remembered for his performances. But for many other film stars, just like politicians, the show was an opportunity to reveal aspects of their personality rarely seen by their fans. Burt Reynolds, for instance, claims his appearances on The Tonight Show turned him into a big star by allowing him to show his irreverent, self-deprecating side, which he then displayed in films like The Longest Yard. The movie star whose appearances I most enjoyed was James Stewart. One of the reasons we got along so well was that we both were military pilots who had stayed in the reserves after the wars. I'm sure we must have talked about flying, although I don't really remember that. Everybody knew James Stewart as a brilliant actor, but few people knew that he wrote poetry until he started reading his poems on the show. I mean, these poems were not classic literature; instead they were warm, sometimes funny, and always heartfelt. One of the very few times I saw tears in Johnny's eyes was the night James Stewart read a poem about his dog who had died. Stewart eventually published a collection of his poems, which became a big best-seller. One night, he explained that he and his wife, Gloria, had just returned from a trip to Africa, the one place in the world Johnny had always wanted to visit, and he had written a poem about it. "Lake Berengo is a body of water," he read, "its surface smooth as glass. But getting to Lake Berengo is a genuine pain in the ass."
I also saw tears in Johnny's eyes the night Michael Landon, who was dying of cancer, made his last appearance on the show. That was a tough, tough night. Michael Landon was a wonderful person and he and Johnny had become very good friends. We all knew he was dying, but on the show that night he displayed extraordinary strength and courage. He insisted that he was going to beat the disease; who knows if he really believed that or not. Maybe he was in denial, maybe it was his way of bolstering his confidence, or maybe it was just his way of coping.
Several years later I saw the same kind of courage displayed by my son Michael in the weeks before his death.
One night I will certainly never forget was the night I got nervous. Now, I never got nervous. Maybe I got a little nervous when I was selling pots and pans and a young woman wearing only her robe sat down on the bed next to me and the robe opened a little bit. And maybe I got a little nervous when the North Koreans were aiming at me, but I never got nervous on The Tonight Show. That show was at its best when things went wrong, when the jokes weren't funny or the sketches fell apart, so what was there for me to be nervous about? That the jokes would be funny? That Johnny and I would follow the script? So I never got nervous on the show. Except this one night. I sang on the show once, just before I opened my nightclub act, and I wasn't particularly comfortable that night. But that wasn't the night I was nervous. The only time I got nervous was the night I appeared on the show as a guest. My movie, Fun with Dick and Jane, had been released and I had gotten very nice reviews. One reviewer said I was so good in the picture that he didn't even realize it was me. Now how about that for a good review! But that night Johnny said, "We have a movie star in our midst," and he interviewed me about the picture. Actors got nervous when they came on the show because they had to be themselves, they couldn't hide inside a character. I was always myself on the show; this time I had to be an actor. Johnny was terrific; he treated me very seriously. But you know how nervous I was?
Yeah, yeah, I know. If anybody knows the line that goes here, it's me.
I was so nervous that when we showed a brief clip from the movie, the palms of my hands were sweating. I was so nervous that I could feel beads of perspiration rolling down my spine. I was so nervous that when my good friend Johnny Carson, who was treating this very seriously, stood up at the end of my interview to say good-bye, I didn't even notice that he wasn't wearing any pants. I didn't even notice that my good friend Johnny Carson who was treating my film debut very seriously was wearing boxer shorts with little hearts on them. I didn't even know it until someone commented on it after the show. That's how nervous I was.
Anyone would have loved to be there the nights we had the legendary stars on the show, performers like Hope, Groucho, Dean Martin, George Burns, Red Skelton, Sinatra, Ethel Merman, Pearl Bailey—I'll never forget the night Pearl Bailey practically dragged Johnny out of his chair and they improvised a song and dance number—Jack Benny, John Wayne, Lucille Ball . . . We had so many great stars on the show that at times I understood completely what George Gobel meant the night he came out following Hope and Martin and said, "Did you ever get the feeling the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?"
But the nights I remember much more than these appearances were the nights when stars were born. Particularly the young comedians.
Bill Cosby had been turned down three times before he made his first appearance on the show. He was so good that right after the show I called my manager and told him that we'd had this kid on that night who was going to be a big star, and suggested he find out if he had a manager. When he was on again two days later, Sheldon Leonard saw him and the following morning offered him the starring role in I Spy.
Joan Rivers had been turned down six times before she made her debut on the show. The next day she was overwhelmed with offers.
Rodney Dangerfield wasn't young, Rodney was always old for his age, and he had been around for a while before he came on the show. "If it wasn't for pickpockets," he said, "I'd have no sex life at all." I loved those nights when someone like Rodney, who had been working at it for a long time, finally made it into the major leagues.
When I heard Steven Wright wonder, "If you were in a vehicle traveling at the speed of light, and then you turned your lights on, would they do anything?" there was no question in my mind that he was going to make it.
Leno, Letterman, Garry Shandling, Seinfeld—The Tonight Show gave so many of the great comedians the stamp of approval. It was thrilling for me to be there to see this young talent come of age. I remember the night Bill Maher explained that his mother was Jewish and his father was Catholic, so when he went into confession he would bring a lawyer with him. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I think you know Mr. Cohen."
No one who was there the night Dr. Heimlich demonstrated his maneuver on Loni Anderson will ever forget it. Or the night Carson threw Rickles into a tub of water, or the night actor Oliver Reed was pontificating about the role of women and Shelley Winters came from backstage and poured a glass of water over his head. But I also enjoyed the eccentrics we had on the show, maybe because they were precisely the same people who would have been contestants on Who Do You Trust? decades earlier. In a world becoming more and more homogeneous, it's comforting to know there are still people out there who collect sheep manure. One night, I remember, a lovely woman who found faces and designs in potato chips brought her collection on the show. "Don't they break?" Johnny asked her.
Of course they broke; they were potato chips. "Oh yes," she admitted. "Look at this one. It's Yogi Bear. I broke his neck." She glued this potato chip back together.
As I picked up a chip, I said, "Look at this one."
As she turned toward me, Johnny reached down under his desk, grabbed a potato chip, and chomped down as loudly as he could. There is no mistaking the sound of a potato chip being eaten. A look of complete horror crossed the woman's face. She was stunned. Johnny just sat there smiling, once again the innocent young man from Nebraska.
Now, I suspect the nut lady knew exactly what she was saying. A lovely elderly woman, she was curator of a nut museum in Florida. After reminding the audience how many streets in America are named after nuts, Walnut, for example, she pointed out that we often refer to nuts in conversation; or, as she said so endearingly, "You'll find that during intercourse, they are valuable."
Now that was the kind of line that only sweet elderly women and comedians named Carson from Nebraska can get away with. "Probably play a major role," Johnny agreed.
She then confessed, "I guess you know by now that I'm a spokeswoman for nuts."
"Well," Johnny replied knowingly, "you're certainly right about that."
Only once while working on the show was I ever really scared, and that is certainly a night I'll never forget. It wasn't really on the show. For the first ten years we did the show from New York, but we usually went out to California for several weeks each year. We were there in early February 1971. At one minute of six in the morning I was asleep in my room on the seventeenth floor of our hotel in Universal City when I was suddenly awakened by a herd of elephants trying to break into the room. At least that's what it felt like. After I became conscious I realized it was an earthquake. The entire hotel was swaying. I ran into the living room, which had floor-to-ceiling glass windows. From those windows I could see the power transformers at Universal Studios falling off their concrete moorings; they were exploding and shooting sparks into the air. For a split second I thought we were under attack; that's what it looked like.
I had no idea what to do. I know this may be hard to believe, especially from a pilot capable of doing loops in an open-cockpit biplane, but the fact is I'm afraid of heights. I have no idea why, but I have a very difficult time even going near the windows when I'm in a tall building. Even when I start thinking about it, I can feel it in my legs. But not that night. That night I didn't have time to be afraid of heights. Besides, it looked like the ground was getting much closer. At one point the building swayed so much I didn't think it could make it back again, I thought it would tumble over, and I actually considered jumping. I wondered, if I landed in a tree could I survive? Finally, about fifty years later, the quake ended and the building settled down.
All the power in the building was gone. I didn't know how badly it had been damaged, but it seemed to me the smart thing to do was get to a lower floor. A much, much lower floor. People were gathering in the corridors, many of them were crying. I just took charge. We didn't have a flashlight, so I made torches out of newspapers and started down the emergency stairs. As we reached each floor, we opened the door and shouted that we were walking down to the lobby if people wanted to come with us. Eventually the group swelled to about sixty people. Finally we reached the safety of the lobby.
For the first time I realized how silly I looked. I was wearing pajamas and socks with big holes in them. But as I got to the lobby one of the first people I saw was Doc, and he was dressed exactly the same way—except he was carrying his trumpet. At that moment I realized there was only one thing to do. I asked the concierge what time the bar opened. "Eleven o'clock," he said.
"Wanna bet?" I asked. That bar opened early that day, really early.
About two hours later I went back up to my room. I insisted on moving to a lower floor, and as I was packing my bags the phone rang. It was the hotel operator. "Mr. McMahon," she said, "this is your wake-up call."
"I'm up," I told her. I don't think it was possible for anyone to be more up than I was at that moment.
Bob Newhart was on the show that night. Obviously we were all very tense. In the middle of the show, the world started shaking again. Every earthquake, whether it's a big one or a small one, sounds the same at the beginning. The first thing you hear is that sound, a low rumble—to me it sounds like freight trains approaching—and the vibration follows. During the show, Johnny and Newhart were talking about something when the aftershock started. First the rumble, then the heavy overhead lights started banging together. The sound moved from the top of the studio toward us like a wave. There is no more helpless feeling than being caught in the middle of an earthquake—on national television. The cameras were taping this, so I think we all tried to look as calm as possible. I can't speak for Carson or Newhart, but my heart was pounding. We had a studio full of people there and a lot of heavy equipment hanging from the ceiling. I'll tell you, that was frightening. Johnny and Bob and I were getting ready to leave the set when the aftershock stopped just as suddenly as it had started. Johnny was terrific, he immediately tried to settle everybody down. "Okay," he said, "it's all right, it's an aftershock, there's nothing to worry about." Then he turned to Newhart and said, "Anyway, Bob, you were saying . . ."
Newhart looked at him for a moment, then said, "Johnny, there is no point in finishing that story. Nobody is paying any attention to what we're saying."
Never in my life have I been happier to leave a studio than I was that night.
One show I did not remember until I saw the tape was the night the actor Jay Silverheels, who played the Lone Ranger's faithful Indian companion, Tonto, was a guest. But as I listened to him describe his relationship with the Lone Ranger, I couldn't help but think about how much we had in common. "I work thirty years as faithful sidekick for Kemosabe," he began. "Hunt, fish, make food, sew clothes, sweep up, stay awake all night listen for enemies of Kemosabe. Risk life for Kemosabe. Thirty lousy years . . ."
I'd better make that thirty great years!
Hi-yoooo, Silver!