What lingers in the minds of those who watch Johnny Carson is the comfort: the half-smile, the half-beat, the sense that there is nothing that will shake the man in the desk. Things are different at the backstage, as Mark Malkoff writes in Love Johnny Carson: the serene was carefully arranged- and guarded.
Gradually an off-book code became solidified into what will be referred to here as an insider rulebook: the list of those who would not be re-engaged should Carson be handed a book. The producer Peter Lassally insisted there was no written list, and the actors Burt Reynolds and Rich Little testified that they had been shown a list, physical, one with over 30 names. Other visitors might have come on board had there been another host, however the gist was always the same: Carson had chosen who was on his stage.
1. The initial unsuccessful reception of Jay Leno
The original 1977 appearance on the program went well but the fifth appearance by Leno in 1978 was said to have hit an icy slump. Talent scout, Jim McCawley, insisted on a second shot; Lassally closed the shot by flatly saying, Johnny simply does not like him. He doesn’t like his jokes. When he does not like a person, he does not begin to like him in the future. Leno does make a comeback many years later–but the narrative remains as the power of Carson is less in industry and more instinct.
2. Ellen DeGeneres and the joke she was advised not to make
In 1986, DeGeneres was the first woman comedian sent to the couch of Carson, and that should have been a coronation. When she appeared again, on her third occasion, she was wearing material which Carson had specifically requested her not to wear. Publicist Charlie Barrett remembered McCawley attacking her in the green room: I did not tell you not to do that stuff. The wording following was not very difficult, she was not coming back soon, and next time I saw her was when a guest host and not Carson was scheduled to be in charge.
3. The three unwritten-rule violations by William Shatner
During a single visit, Shatner succeeded in doing what Carson disliked the most, getting control of the room. The complaints were definite: speaking too long and not letting Carson speak, facing his back to Buddy Hackett and saying his show was on ABC. The disrespect was still in the air, in the studio, despite a low tone broadcast. Shatner later referred to Carson as a man capable of making a decision, and making it on the spot and never looking back, that somebody was no longer in that orbit.
4. The cost of correcting the host and Carl Sagan
Sagan was not a guest fringe, he was a part of the institution and he appeared at least 24 times. He publicly corrected Carson twice in 1986, when he was on discussing the Halley Comet. Carson grinned at it, like a papist, yet what Malkoff tells us makes it seem like a social misunderstanding, not a scientific one. It proved quite damaging: Sagan ceased to be invited, and a TV friendship based on common comfort was over with a silent decision to book.
5. Dana Carvey’s impression that stopped feeling flattering
The Carson impression by Carvey started out as a tribute, the type that establishes the extent of a legend. Then an illustration of 1990 re-invented Carson as being out of touch and the tone shifted. The voice and phrasing Carson protests were recalled by producer Jeff Sotzing:– I do not speak that way. I don’t use those expressions. The ban intended by Carvey was a reminder that in the world of Carson, parody was only tolerated as long as it remained within a limit that Carson did not have to declare.
6. Orson Welles and the issue of the planted audience members
It was even more dramatic that Carson idolized Welles. Having guest-hosted, Welles tried a routine of a mentalist that depended on two audience members being planted, and when the gimmick failed, the problem was not embarrassment but morals. According to Malkoff, the usage of crossed plants broke the line which Carson viewed as unacceptable. The show might be spared a botched stunt; it would not in the opinion of Carson be the reward of a corrupt one.
7. Jerry Lewis and a crew meltdown
Lewis was well-established in the show, as he has appeared or guest-hosted over 80 times. It would eventually take a break when a cue card man, Don Schiff, declined a last-minute request, and Lewis went hysterical and verbally abusive. Schiff informed Carson that he would not collaborate with Lewis again and Carson supported his employees. In the retelling of the story, the lesson of Malkoff is the same: there is no way celebrity would rank higher than the crew dignity in the Carson set.
8. Steve Allen and the joke about the injury that miscarried
The first host of the Tonight show brought with him some sort of entitlement in the building and the evening of 1982 was not smooth sailing. Allen also joked about a previous injury that Carson had sustained and was said to have been offensive towards employees regarding alterations involving his own personnel. What followed the monologue was as important as the monologue: Allen went on to call a crewmember and yell at him, and when Carson overheard, he assures the staffer that Allen would not come on during his time as host.
9. Uri Geller and controlled experiment on television live
Carson was not fascinated by magic as an ornament; he thought seriously of the mechanics and never believed anyone who sold and marketed the so-called psychic power as true. In the case of Geller, 1973, Carson made sure that the performer was not able to rehearse with the props, a scenario closely linked with skepticist James Randi. Geller said, on air, that he did not feel strong. Later he said, I was humiliated… I said to myself, Uri Geller, you are dead. This ban, here, acted as a house policy: this show would not ratify assertions that were made to be supernatural evidence.
10. Barbra Streisand and the unforgivable cancellation
At other times the crime was not a matter of performance or character, but stingy logistics. In 1975, Streisand canceled a planned appearance at the last minute, which Carson considered disrespectful toward the production machine. What makes the story endure is its banal nature, the use of calendars and commitments and control, and the way that one scheduling decision might turn into a permanent booking decision.
In these stories, the “banlist” is no longer a drama of the celebrities, rather a roadmap to what is important to Carson: timing, deference and the almost religious awe of the people who made the hour work. The couch was legendary, but the rules were not a subject of discussion.
In Malkoff’s portrait, the lasting fascination is not that Carson held grudges; it is that the most powerful weapon in late-night was silence no rebooking, no explanation, just a name that stopped appearing.
