"People will pay more to be entertained than to be educated."
Johnny Carson, 1925-2005, comedian
We saw Johnny Carson in action a couple of times through some public relations duties. We brought a stuntman to the show and rigged up a harness that would drop Carson from the ceiling. He came out to look at it, but refused to test it. He wanted his reaction to be spontaneous on the show. After looking the contraption over, he sat down behind his desk and told a story about how he parachuted a few years back.
I watched Carson that afternoon with awe. He looked like a mafia don and was given the respect of one. We made friends with one of his bookers and were given reserved tickets to his show anytime we wanted to go. Carson had a certain elegance and class about him, something neither Jay Leno nor David Letterman have.
The following is from the New York Times obituary, which is rightfully extremely lengthy:
...NBC was purchased by General Electric toward the end of Mr. Carson’s tenure and he showed his new bosses no more mercy than he had the old ones. He did not like General Electric very much because, he felt, the company was did not treat his show very well.
On the occasion of the Christmas season of 1991, he did a monologue in which he announced that GE had sent him a holiday card which announced that “in lieu of a gift, a GE employee has been laid off in your name.”
Asked why the NBC logo was a peacock, Mr. Carson said he did not know but speculated that it might be because GE “couldn’t find a multicolored weasel.” He liked to call GE “the conglomerate with a heart.” ...
Mr. Carson, we wish you a heartfelt good night.
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