Yes, Virginia, There is a Carson, California
Although I don't remember it, I must have stayed up late when I was a young kid in the 1960s. I used to make drawings of TV sets on which the following words displayed on the screen:
MORE
TO
COME
I didn't see this January 19, 2005 CNN article, but it would have led the readers to believe that there WOULD be "more to come":
CBS "Late Show" host David Letterman has a secret joke writer -- and it's none other than the retired king of all late-night television, Johnny Carson.
CBS senior vice president Peter Lassally, a onetime producer for both men, said Tuesday that the 79-year-old former host of NBC's "The Tonight Show" occasionally sends Letterman new jokes he has written and that Letterman sometimes incorporates them into his nightly "Late Show" monologue....
"I think the thing he misses the most is the monologue," Lassally said of his former boss. "He reads the newspaper every day and might think up five good jokes that he wishes he had an outlet for. Once in a while he sends jokes to Letterman and Letterman will use his jokes in the ('Late Show') monologue and he gets a big kick out of that."...
Carson, who has lived in relative seclusion in Malibu, California, for the past decade, has battled emphysema in recent years, but is "still interested in literature and politics and all the worldly things that he was always interested in," Lassally said.
This work for Letterman was done in secret. Sometimes, however, he'd work in public:
Readers opening the pages of the New Yorker last Oct. 30 [2000] found an unexpected tidbit in the midst of the usual Talk of the Town items -- a small humor piece entitled "Proverbs According to Dennis Miller ." Among the short parodies of Miller's reference-heavy style: "A bird in the hand ... is dead or alive, depending on one's will," and "What goes up ... will stay up if it has an escape velocity of 11.3 kilometres per second." The byline was Johnny Carson....
[H]ere was Johnny, right there on the page, spoofing the pseudo-intellectual Miller's new gig as NFL announcer. According to the New York Times, Carson submitted the piece to the editors on the suggestion of humorist Steve Martin, and they printed it. And then, as if to dispel the sophomore slump, he published another two months later, a recently discovered collection of children's letters to Santa, as if written by Bill Buckley, Chuck Heston and Don Rickles.
The doctors have weighed in, effectively calling Johnny Carson's death a suicide:
Johnny Carson, late-night talk show host for 30 years, died from emphysema, a common lung disease.
Carson was diagnosed with emphysema in 2002.
What is emphysema, can it be prevented, and how can it be treated? WebMD turned to The Cleveland Clinic and the American Lung Association for answers....
Emphysema is irreversible destruction of the walls of the air sacs located at the end of the bronchial tubes. The damaged air sacs, called alveoli, are not able to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide between the lungs and the blood. As a result a person develops progressive symptoms of the disease including shortness of breath, cough, and limited ability to exert him- or herself.
The lung tissue loses its elasticity and collapses when the person exhales, trapping air in the lungs. The trapped air keeps fresh air and oxygen from entering the lungs....
Cigarette smoking causes approximately 80% to 90% of deaths due to emphysema. Air pollution and occupational dusts may also contribute to emphysema, especially when the person exposed to these substances is a cigarette smoker. A genetic abnormality called alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency can also cause emphysema.
Cigarette smoke causes emphysema by destroying the tiny air sacs in the lungs. Damage to these air sacs leads to holes in the lung tissue. It typically takes years of smoking before emphysema symptoms develop -- but once the damage is done, it can't be reversed....
Lung damage due to emphysema is irreversible. The single most important treatment is to stop smoking. Quitting smoking helps slow the progression of emphysema. Treatment also improves shortness of breath....
Rumors that Johnny moved to Burbank as a "thank you" to the people of Southern California are unfounded:
After suffering decades of neglect as an unincorporated part of Los Angeles
County, the citizens went to the polls on Tuesday, February 6, 1968 to vote on whether to officially incorporate their community as an independent city....
When the ballots were counted, the vote was 6,301 to 3,834 in favor of incorporation.
The City of Carson was born....
But there was one other issue for the voters to decide. What would be the name
of their new city? Voters were offered two choices: Carson and Dominguez, the two leading family names in the history of Rancho San Pedro. By a narrow vote of just 318 votes, the citizens chose the name Carson.
Carson actually grew up in the town of Norfolk, Nebraska:
Johnny Carson's hometown remembers the longtime "Tonight Show" host for his modesty and generosity more than for his reign as the king of late-night television.
Carson, who died Sunday at age 79, was a revered figure in Norfolk, where he lived from age 8 until he went into the Navy after high school graduation in 1943.
It's been almost a decade since Carson last visited Norfolk, but he never forgot his roots....
News of his death stunned Fred Egley, 88, who taught physical education at Norfolk High School when Carson was a freshman at the school in 1939.
Egley said he last heard from Carson in November, after he had sent him a newspaper article about whether the city's name should be pronounced "Nor-folk" or "Nor-fork."
"I assumed he was in good health because he sent a note back thanking me for sending him the clipping," Egley said. "So this is quite a shock."
Egley said Carson was fast to respond financially when a worthy cause arose. Three years ago, after the town's Senior Center failed to raise $250,000 for a new roof, Carson got word of the shortfall and sent a check for $100,000....
In Norfolk, Carson's donations helped fund the Carson Regional Cancer Center, the school's Johnny Carson Theater, the Norfolk Public Library, the Norfolk Arts Center, the Elkhorn Valley Museum and Research Center and the Lifelong Learning Center at Northeast Community College....
In a 1982 NBC special titled, "Johnny Goes Home," that documented a return trip to Norfolk, Carson described growing up in the town as "an era that gave you a direction in your life.
"Everyone gets a little homesick especially if you have fond memories of your early years, and I do."
Carson grew up in a modest, two-story off-white home on a busy thoroughfare just west of downtown Norfolk. The house was bought in 2003 by two South Dakota businessmen, who hoped to restore it and sale it at a profit. The house was restored, but has not sold, and was recently rented.
When Carson closed his office in California in 2001, he donated some of his personal items for display at the museum, including his Emmy awards and Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Sheryl Schmeckpeper, president of the Elkhorn Valley Historical Society, which oversees the museum and research center, said the museum likely will stay open late one day this to week for the public to stop by and remember Carson. She also said the city is planning to organize a memorial service....
The last time anyone knows for sure Carson stepped foot in Norfolk was about nine years ago, when he surprised his former penmanship teacher, Fay Gordon, at her 100th birthday party....
One more note - although the Dan Quayle Museum web page didn't have a tribute, Joan Rivers' web page did:
The man who kept America up at night for 30 years with laughter and launched dozens of famous comedic careers—including our own Joan's—has died at the age of 79.
Aspiring comedians knew that being motioned over to the guest couch by Carson after performing their stand-up routine could instantly transform them from virtual unknowns to stars. Joan remembers Johnny Carson as the man she credits for her career.
"You never forget when you've been working as a waitress and an office temporary and you've been working strip joints at night, and then Carson says to you, 'You're going to be a star' on the air, and it happens...He was truly the best straight man ever. He fed you lines ... like nobody else ever did before or since."
"This is the end of an era," Joan told Reuters. "With Carson you went on once. You had his blessing, and the world knew you were funny."...
Aside from Joan, virtually every comic in the business today from Leno, Letterman, and Brenner to Rickles, Romano, and Seinfeld owe a great debt to Johnny Carson....
Obviously Letterman commented, as did others:
"It's a sad day for his family and his country. All of us who came after are pretenders. We will not see the likes of him again. He gave me a shot on his show and in doing so, he gave me a career. A night doesn't go by that I don't ask myself, 'What would Johnny have done?' He has been greatly missed since his retirement. Thank God for videotapes and DVDs. In this regard, he will always be around. He was the best, a star and a gentleman."
—CBS "Late Show" host David Letterman
"Being Johnny's friend was an honor. To hear of his sudden death, a great shock. He was so much more than just the 'King of Late Night,' he was a real intellect with broad interests; thankfully, many of which he was able to enjoy in the last decade. It is a terrible loss to his friends. I am deeply saddened."
—Actor-comedian Chevy Chase
"Johnny Carson was a man I considered like a brother to me. Our 34 years of working together, plus the 12 years since then, created a friendship which was professional, family like and one of respect and great admiration."
—Ed McMahon, Carson's former "Tonight" sidekick
"When you're working with wildlife, you have to be able to react very quickly. So the comedians that work with notes, or that have to think about how they respond find it difficult working with animals. But he was at his best when he was totally spontaneous ... He was one person that you knew when you walked out from behind that curtain, you could just toss those notes."
—Joan Embery, former goodwill ambassador for the Zoological Society of San Diego and frequent guest on "Tonight"
Even JayLeno, who usually does not display his feelings in public, made a statement:
Johnny Carson was "the gold standard."
That praise from Jay Leno, who succeeded Carson as host of "The Tonight Show."...
Leno said "no single individual has had as great an impact on television as Johnny."
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