the show Jan 17 1973-the price of fame

Note: No Ed

JC: it is raining here, in Los Angeles tonight. The Burbank chamber of commerce is building an Ark, right now, out in the Parking Lot. Normally we have 500 people, we have 300 tonight, and i am surprised we had that many people, it's so terrible out......and you seem like a nice young group. last night, we had a lovely audience, but a little on the elderly side. Any time you get a request to autograph a cemetery deed......I knew we were in trouble. The reason Doc is standing over there, Ed is off tonight. ed is at the Budweiser convention. in Houston Texas, I talked to him today and he is behaving himself. He probably learned from the convention last year, he woke up in Juarrez married to one of the Clydesdales.

i Understand at the start of the convention, they say a short prayer for Ed's Kidneys, Because if they go, Bud goes under.

Did you see this interesting development in the papers today, as you know Los Angeles like New York or any major city has a smog problem, and i don't know who came up with the idea, but they have considered , in the state of California gasoline rationing, are you aware of that? that's going to make it tough for everyone, because everyone owns a car out here. That's not going to bother Tommy. unless they start rationing Skate Keys

But Gas rationing that's kind of strange, the only gas war they'll have out here in California will be between Mcdonalds and Jack-in-the-box.

the Federal trade commission which oversees television advertising , is calling all of the makers of cold remedies, you mitt have seen this in the paper, in front of a committee, they want them to come in and back up their claims. And one of them, ..it's the one with the little tiny time pill, and i think the way that works is it cures your winter cold by keeping it going till summer shows up.

Masters and Johnson came out with an interesting bit of information today, those are the people who have the clinics to teach married couples sexual freedom. According to them, the new generation, has as many relations , as our generation, use to tell our kids that we did....

At the Desk with Doc
Johny is talking about the rain again.
Doc: " How is your new house?"
JC:" I will find out, i just put a new roof on it, if i go back and thats still leaking today, you know that drives me crazy. If it doesn't leak today, it aint ever going to leak again.
Doc;" I drove by your house , you didn't know that, i didn't ring on the door or anything, but i drove by, those new shingles float nice."
JC: " They float nice, down the gutters. They don't expect this type of rain all at once in los Angeles,a nd the drainage facilities are not the best, and it starts building up at the intersections all at once, they must have had at least an inch and a half of rain today.
About two weeks ago on the show a school teacher sent me some charming letters, written by the children of the fourth grade class. She asked them to do composition , and the question was, who is Johhny Carson? We got some hysterical answers and i read them on the air, one thought i was a banjo player, now thought i was a western star, but she didn't want to meet me because she thought i was dumb. i have a follow up letter. The children went on a local station, it was a big thing, and the teacher asked the kids to write up what they thought it was all about.
now this letter here , really is kind of interesting, it's from Elanor, it's got a lot of truth to it.
' I was nervous when i heard that my letter was going to be read on television , then, the next day we were in a newspaper and then a magazine, I feel like a star being born. The way i really deep down feel that i am nervous being famous, isn't what i want to be. i want to be myself. I feel that i am cooped up in a box, It's like everyone is crowding me in. When all this commotion is over i can be myself again, hopefully. if it does keep up, i'll probably never get to my own self, again, it's like a riot starting and never ending. That's how i feel deep inside. '
what a sweet letter, she wants to be herself, she feels boxed in, don't you ever feel like that, like everyone is coming in around you, so thats very sweet.

Doc: " I'd like to see some of your papers from the fourth grade."
JC: " My mother probably has them. She saves everything, my mother saved old mason jars, until we had a basement full of mason jars? with Zinc cps, my Mother saved them, she'll hear me saying this tonight, all mothers and fathers probably put away a certain amount of things when their child is young. "


Note: It's interesting. Nothing happens by just accident. That letter meant something to Carson, bY 1973 he was one of the most famous faces in the country. the days of Johnny Carson heading down to the local supermarket, and shopping without being bothered or hounded. the full court press by the press also moved into his private life, he and no private life, his divorces and the reasons for them were common knowledge. He loved life in a fish bowl. For everything given, something is taken away. It is up to the rich and famous to make the tally in the end, was the loss of the privacy of life worth the fortune and fame. With people like Carson there was no decision to be made, he was compelled to entertain from an early age, the applause of the audience meant everything to him. Still the letter is important to him, he was intelligent enough to realize the trade off that comes with fame.


after commercial break, Carson brings out two cops who dress up as women to catch muggers.not too much here to discuss.

The first celebrity guest is Carson Idol, Jack Benny. Benny has a cold and talks about his London trip. they show a blooper clip from Jack Benny's First farewell special, in which he argues with Bob Hope and call him a son-of a -b**ch, and Johnny comes out in the middle of it, asking if anybody knows where his car is. What comes across is that Hope has a genuine affection for Benny. These living legends have known each other from the time radio was just getting going, and then Movies, and now here they are on television, back when television was king. Hope unknowingly was interfering with Benny's spot, and you can tell that Benny was a stickler for professionalism, Hope, who famously entertained troops in war zones was a little less so, but he was probably the best at reading an audience , his rapport with Benny is pretty interesting and really shows the real people behind the stars.Both men had been two of the biggest stars in American history, but that was back in the 1940s, now in 1973 they were hardly known by younger crowds, a fact they decided to ignore.American culture always wants to turn the spotlight on the hottest thing, it seldom looks back, but Carson loved Benny, and he managed to keep the spotlight on him.

Johnny and Benny talk about George Burns and his well received Record album

Dylana Jensen a 11 year old violin prodigy performs. Interesting enough, Dylana is one of the great Violinist, but her decision to marry, kind of side-tracked her career, as many in that field decided that she wasn't serious enough about her pursuit of excellence in the field of classical music and the pursuit of being known as the worlds greatest violinist , which she did not become. it all kind of ties in to Johnny reading the child's letter from earlier , and the price of fame.

Benny takes the young ladies Violin and does a bit of his act, which is basically he pretends to be a great Violinist but never actually plays, and when he does play he can make the most perfect Violin sound terrible.


Rich Little comes out; he does Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Jack Benny, Johny Carson-with Carson the mannerisms are spot on, he doesn't even have to say a word and everybody knows he is doing Carson. Little ends his routine singing as George Burns kind of tying the show up in a neat little ball.

Nothing happens by accident.

Note: Benny never slides down the catch, Little sits down third from the left.

Little: " the secret to doing a good Johnny Carson...is to make sure the jokes are not too good....no, its the come backs the zingers that make the act." A magic trick.