gswetsky

I feel like I've lost a personal friend.

I thought Leno's Tonight Show last night was a fitting tribute. Anyone watch Lettermen?



Gerry

tomcatt

Letterman's show is all repeats this week, he's supposed to be back next Monday.

I watched most of Leno last night, but what I enjoyed more were the two Larry King retrospectives. Sunday night he had Don Rickles, Carl Reiner, Joan Rivers, and Mike Douglas, and last night he had Ed McMahan, Doc Severinson and a few others on. There were some wonderful stories told by these people, all of whom were long-time friends of Johnny.

Did you know Johnny was very fluent in Russian? It was a hobby for him. He also spoke and wrote Swahili very well, as a result of his interest in Africa and his many trips there.

He was also a well-respected, serious amateur astronomer.

I remember first watching him around 67-68 or so, and I continued watching him more or less continuously until he retired. To me he was one of _the_ great comediens, and he was a master at making the most of a failed bit. His self-deprecating style worked to great effect; some of his best bits were where someone was doing something but the camera focused on Johnny's reactions, and the expressions on his face.

I feel like I lost an old friend, or an uncle...

Matt_in_VA

He was at his BEST when his material was "bombing".

I also respected him because there where only two things that I ever saw him refuse to do on the show.

1. He refused to feed an ice cream cone to a Jaguar after it mauled it's trainer and Johnny saw blood running down the trainer's arm from the gash.

2. He had a guest on one night that had won an Earth Worm cooking contest with "Quiche Lorraine" made with earth worms and he refused to eat it.

But there where all of the things that he did do. Including one of the all time classics with the Marmasett sitting on the top of his head!

drewchie

I thought I'd post a link to this older thread... Some great Carson memories enclosed.

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=232224

ralper

An Op-Ed piece titled "The Man in Front of the Curtain" written by Steve Martin in today's New York Times


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/opinion/25martin.html

Matt_in_VA

Rob,

I never read any of the articles that you have links too for the NY Times because one has to subscribe. I am curious how much spam you get by being registered, and are you running Spam blocking software on your PC or rely on your ISP to block it? Please advise.

tomcatt

I used to subscribe (free registration, actually) to several newspaper's online editions, including the NY Times and Chicago Tribune, among others. I eventually unsubscribed from all of them, because after 6 months to a year I began to get advertising from them sent to the email address used to subscribe. According to the terms in the emails, those email adverts were a condition of subscribing.

I didn't care to set up an email address just for this purpose, and I felt that their imposition was more than was acceptable to me.

Just my own experience...

ralper

Matt, Tom,

I subscribe to two online newspapers and quite a number of IT journals and accounting journals. I don't think I get a lot of spam from the NY Times, and I don't think I get a lot from the Accounting journals. I get an awful lot from the IT journals expecially the Ziff-Davis stuff. I suspect that I am also getting some spam because of S2KI and S2KCA.

I am running Office 2003 with the popup blocker in IE. I am also running Firefox. I use Outlook 2003. I run Norton AntiVirus and Internet Security. I run Lava-Soft Ad Aware SE at least once a week.

I wouldn't stay away from the Times because of the spam.

drewchie

I'm registered with lots of newspapers. It's free and the occasional spam is a small price to pay IMHO. I've found most of Rob's links to be well worth the time spent reading, but then I'm just a liberal little pinko anyway.

The Steve Martin Op-Ed brought more than one tear to my eye. That "wild and crazy guy" is quite the writer when he wants to be.

Another Johnny remembrance: Joan Embry brought a pair of young Leopards to the show. Johnny explained to the audience that if you stare at them hard, the cat will be intimidated. He then demonstrated. One of the cats wasn't briefed, apparently, and it snarled at a very shocked Johnny. Mr. C then bolted across the studio in terror and leapt into Ed McMahon's arms.

robb

ON 60 minutes tonight they reran an interview of Johnny Carson at his home back in 1977. It was a very rare glimpse at the personal side of Johnny Carson.