Monday, January 24, 2005

I STARTED OUT IN A GASEOUS STATE, AND THEN I COOLED: Just about every Johnny Carson obit -- and, really, start with this one -- has made mention of the lengthy profile of Carson that Kenneth Tynan did for the New Yorker in 1978.

It's now online, and if you've got a few minutes, it's well worth your time, starting with this observation made by the late, great writer-director Billy Wilder:
“By the simple law of survival, Carson is the best,” he said. “He enchants the invalids and the insomniacs as well as the people who have to get up at dawn. He is the Valium and the Nembutal of a nation. No matter what kind of dead-asses are on the show, he has to make them funny and exciting. He has to be their nurse and their surgeon. He has no conceit. He does his work and he comes prepared. If he’s talking to an author, he has read the book. Even his rehearsed routines sound improvised. He’s the cream of middle-class elegance, yet he’s not a mannequin. He has captivated the American bourgeoisie without ever offending the highbrows, and he has never said anything that wasn’t liberal or progressive. Every night, in front of millions of people, he has to do the salto mortale”—circus parlance for an aerial somersault performed on the tightrope. “What’s more” and here Wilder leaned forward, tapping my knee for emphasis—”he does it without a net. No rewrites. No retakes. The jokes must work tonight.”

No one will ever dominate the medium the way Carson did, or do so with such wit and grace.

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