Monologue for oct 6 1977, the Bronx is burning, Barbara Walters and ...

Monologue for oct 6 1977, the Bronx is burning, Barbara Walters and men in Raincoats

Carson looking tanned fit and in the absolute prime of his life skips out onto the stage with a big smile .

note: Doc is filling in for Ed and Tommy Newsome is leading the band.

Carson; quieting down the audience : " I know what you want but this is the Tonight Show not Soap."

Note: Soup was a sitcom, that was a parody of soap operas and it went pretty far in terms of lewdness.

Carson: ".....you never can tell with an audience, last nights audience was not...intellectually a giant. That thought a filibuster was a guy who busted your fill." very little response from audience, Carson adds a little inside baseball here: " It's a pure rhythm joke folks."

Carson: " we have a series of nightly tips to tourists, just to protect you while you're out here so you don't get ripped off, tonights tip is: if you happen to be up on sunset boulevard and you see a bunch of gentlemen wearing raincoats .....it doesn't mean it's going to rain."


carson: " we have a late report from the newsroom, Ronald Reagan just told the Washington redskins to go back where they came from."


Carson: " President Carter is not in Washington as you probably know, he was in New York and he took time out from the Nations bussiness to go up there and he took a tour of the badly blighted South Bronx, with Mayor Abraham Beame. As they were standing there with Mayor Beame and they were staring at all the burnt out tenements and the slum areas and all, Mayor Beame said proudly: " This used to be all mine."

Carson: " Well, Jimmy Carter took one look around the burnt out destroyed South Bronx and said: " Somebody better stop General Sherman before he destroys the entire country."

Note: it wasn't general Sherman burning down the south bronx in 1977 , instead budget shortfalls, and bad city management, closed many firehouses in the south bronx, and the result was a disaster. the same thing was happening with the police and sanitation, by the late 1970s New York was the poster child of a dystopian future of blighted cities.And if ever there was a year when everything fell apart at once it was 1977, which is why we have Johny Carson talking about New York City in his monologue on this night.


note: Carson makes a series of short jokes involving Mayor Beame--ohh the politically incorrect 1970s

Carson talks about it being the 50th anniversary of the first Talkie movie--" The Jazz singer." starring Al Jolsen in black face.

Carson: " That movie never could have been made today, first off, Richard Pryor would have run him over in the Parking lot for walking around wearing black face."

Carson: " speaking of show business --Barbara Walters, they had a big birthday party for her, celebrating one year as the anchor-person for ABC nightly news, she has a faboulous contract, and i understand that Barbara has been picked up for another 365 hairdos." weak response from audience. .." no , Barbara was so thrilled about everything going so well, she even asked to be introduced to Harry Reasoner.

note: Walters has seldom minced words when describing the visible, on-the-air disdain her co-anchor, Harry Reasoner displayed for her when she was teamed up with him on the ABC Evening News from 1976–78.

Carson:" last night the city of Boston had a blackout for two hours, New York City came to Bostons aid, .......and flew in an emergency supply of looters."

Note: New York City had a major blackout in the summer of 1977, famous for the widespread looting that happened on that night.

personal note i was 11 years old in 1977. i lived in the Bronx, there was and is a commercial strip of stores nearby on white plains rd, i will never forget on the day of the blackout as day turned to night, and word of the looting spread, my father and all the men from my building heading down to white plains rd with baseball bats and tire irons, to protect the stores. And my Father turning to me as he left and saying: " don't worry we'll be back.". Most of the men were world War 2 veterans and not the type of people you would mess with, they never talked too much about that night--but not one store on white plains rd was touched.

Carson:" You've heard all the controversies about aerosol cans and it has fluorocarbons in it , its bad for out atmosphere right. Well, they did a phone survey of a cross section of Americans and they found that one out of three Americans who they phoned had reduced the use of Aerosol sprays. the other two who still use Aerosol sprays didn't come to the phone....because they were dead."

Carson, comments on the joke;" of course it doesn't make sense, who says they have to make sense. If it starts making sense I'm dead."


Carson: " Item in the paper today, Los Angeles, showed a very attractive young women talking to a business man , she was an ex prostitute, and she was speaking in front of a group of los angeles business men pleading for jobs for retired prostitutes, i feel sorry for street walkers who are forced to retire, i mean, they don't get a watch....they don't get a plaque on their lamp post or anything..i mean its sad, their pimp just throws them indoors."

note: how many Carson jokes begin with: 'item in the paper today.'probably the most iconic shot of Carson is him sitting in his office reading the daily newspaper, getting material for the show.