The all-time greatest late-night host had a legendary ability to hold a grudge, even when it came to his own protégés.
Today’s younger comedy fans may find it hard to believe that, just a few decades ago, the most powerful man in comedy ran a nightly talk show on broadcast television. Johnny Carson was, in every sense of the phrase, comedy’s greatest kingmaker during his time hosting The Tonight Show, and every ambitious stand-up comic in the country desperately wanted to play a spot on the NBC powerhouse show, and, maybe, even land a seat on the couch to talk to Johnny himself.
Don’t Miss
As such, getting on Johnny’s bad side could be a career-altering catastrophe for a comedian. Johnny’s infamous Tonight Show naughty list was not a desirable honor for anyone in entertainment, so we were surprised to learn from Mark Malkoff’s recent biography, Love Johnny Carson, that none other than Jay Leno was once temporarily on the show’s blacklist.
Upon Leno’s Tonight Show debut in March, 1977, the up-and-comer from Andover, Massachusetts was an immediate hit, and Johnny invited his future successor to return to the show four more times over the following year. However, that fifth Tonight Show set in February, 1978 proved to be Leno’s most disappointing performance, and according to a Tonight Show insider, it nearly ended Leno’s professional relationship with his idol.
Malkoff spoke to former Tonight Show stand-up talent scout Jim McCawley for Love Johnny Carson, and McCawley recalled a conversation with producer Peter Lassally about Leno’s future on the show following the bomb. Apparently, Lassally made it clear that, after the uninspiring performance, Johnny had zero interest in ever giving Leno his sixth spot. “‘Johnny just doesn’t like him. He doesn’t like his jokes,’ said Peter,” Malkoff wrote in his book. “‘That’s not going to change… Once he doesn’t like someone, he doesn’t start liking them later.”
Thankfully for Leno, Johnny proved to be much more pliable over the following years than his producers anticipated, and, by 1986, Leno was one of The Tonight Show‘s go-to guest hosts. Then, when Johnny abdicated as the king of late-night in 1992, Leno beat out David Letterman for the role of Johnny’s heir, and he would spend the next couple of decades clinging onto the Tonight Show gig with such jealousy that you’d think Johnny came back from the dead in the body of Conan O’Brien.
