Carson: Great TV on a snow day

If you never saw it – a great hour of television: the second-to-last Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, with Robin Williams and Bette Midler.

Carson is classy, genial, quick-witted and always the gracious host so pleased to see his own guests shine. What made Carson great was that he had real conversations with his guests – it wasn’t just one “look-at-me” set-up after another as late-night talk shows have become. Carson was the best – he was courtly; it didn’t matter whether he was talking to a politician, a writer, a film legend, an opera singer (he regularly treated America to great singers as well as pop-artists), an animal trainer or an average American with an eccentric hobby, he was always interested, always courteous – but with a keen ability to ad lib.

There is a point where Midler tells Carson he is getting out “at the right time,” because of the increasing crassness “and the crotch-grabbing.” It certainly is true that things have changed for the worse since his generation has passed on

No one has come close to his ideal – and this episode starts great and then gets better. Bette Midler is phenomenal – in part 6 when she sings “You Made Me Watch You,”, in part 7 where she and Carson ease into a spontaneous duet of “Here’s that Rainy Day” to her moving and very personal “One More for the Road,” in part 8, she’s just dynamite…I suspect that she and Carson shine so well together because their affection and respect for each other is utterly genuine.

The stuff that’s going on in the world will still be going on in an hour or two. Grab a cup of coffee and watch something remarkable.

Part 1 – Monologue
Part 2 – Ed Ames/Tomahawk
Part 3 – Robin Williams
Part 4 – Robin Williams (Watch Carson crack him up)
Part 5 – Bette Midler
Part 6 – Bette Midler (“You Made Me Watch You”)
Part 7 – Bette Midler (“Rainy Day”)
Part 8 – Bette Midler (Get out your handkerchief)

Tom Shales’ appreciation of Carson, on Johnny’s death in 2005