Archive for June 23rd, 2009

          This isn’t really a New York story — it’s more of an L.A. story,.  ”The Tonight Show’ with Johnny Carson debuted in New York on October 1, 1962 but moved to Burbank, Calif. in 1972 where it ran until 1992.
       For those of us of a Certain Age, the memory of Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon peering at us through our television screens evokes an entire era . Their witty, civilized banter, underscored by McMahon’s booming baritone every night introducing that master of Understated Comedy and Wit — Johnny Carson — will forever be engraved in our memories and hearts. There was a richness to the laughter, and a sense of safety  — All’s Well With the World Feeling — that the duo seemed to evoke.
       McMahon was always the Second Banana, but it’s a role he seemed to relish. He wrote in his autobiography the label was the ‘highest form of flattery.”
          His chemistry with Carson was legendary.                    
        They were like an old married couple, communicating by  
 ’body language, or tone of voice” where they wanted to go,  Carson once said.
       Ed McMahon , The Tonight Show’s  Sidekick Extraordinaire,  died  on June 23 at the age of 86.