This column was published March 7-8, 2025 in the Manhattan Mercury.
I’m about halfway through what was pitched as “a long-awaited” biography of Johnny Carson.
I wouldn’t go so far as to describe him as forbidden or dangerous, but when I was a kid, there was something illicitly appealing about Johnny Carson. I’ve seen the word “naughty” used in describing him. I like that word, because my inner 1960s child interpretation cuts both ways. I was naughty if I stayed up past my bedtime to watch the naughty man on TV.
My mother’s parents were quintessential 1960s Carsonophiles. Vic and Libby Ordway were party people. Whiskey sours at the cocktail hour, served in the basement wet bar. Shirley Temples for us kids.
When it was the height of glamour, with Sinatra ringing in their ears to ‘come fly with me,’ they would board Pan Am flights to places like Honolulu and Acapulco. Back home in Rooks County, they traded furniture and cars like other people change their underwear.
During the holidays, an aluminum Christmas tree, illuminated, not by multi-colored lights affixed to its branches, but by an electric color wheel alternating blue, red, yellow and green.
Bona fide mid-century, decades before it became retro throwback.
I remember a massive sunken living room, an RCA three-way console (high fidelity record player with “LP’s” from Sinatra, Como, Funny Girl-era Streisand) AM/FM terrestrial radio and a television, tuned to KCKT, Channel 2 out of Great Bend. At precisely 10:30 p.m. on weeknights – bright, animated peacock plumes.
“The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC.”
On nights when my folks left town, I would bunk in with them, and because they were grandparents, they let me stay up and watch Carson. Bob Hope, Buddy Hackett, the Hollywood starlet du jour and divined answers to questions kept in a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnalls' porch since noon today.
Later, as I grew older, I became a regular as soon as I could, when I left home, six months before by 18th birthday. Carson would serve as the prelude to all-nighters. Richard Pryor, Steve Martin and A Star is Born-era Streisand.
Doc Severinsen and the NBC Orchestra playing us in and out of commercial breaks over artfully-designed still bumper cards promising “More to Come.”
“Long awaited,” since for those of a certain generation, Carson’s 1992 retirement was a cultural jolt. He was more than just a host; he was a national institution. His cool, subtly mischievous demeanor, his mastery of the opening monologue, and his knack for nurturing comedic talent defined the era when we trailing edge boomers came of age.
He gathered millions for a collective nightly experience. His final episode, watched by 50 million, underscored his enduring power. None who have followed in the coveted broadcast network late night talk show slots could ever hope to fill his shoes, though Letterman came close.
Different era, different mores, different culture.
I don’t watch late night talk shows these days, but I see enough on social media to draw some conclusions: The once glossy Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson has turned into an hour of Fallon trying desperately to make it all about Fallon. Kimmel strikes me as a serviceable comedian, while Colbert is a layer or two deeper, genuinely intellectually curious.
None of them are priority enough for me to make a purposeful plan to watch them the way I would Johnny Carson. But the most important reason brings me full circle to retro throwback.
It’s past my bedtime.
Mike Matson’s column appears every other weekend in The Mercury, and he hosts ‘Within Reason,’ weekdays at 9 a.m. on NewsRadio KMAN. Follow his writings at mikematson.com