For Laughing Out Loud

by Ed McMahon

  Yeah, yeah, I know. If anybody knows the line that goes here, it's me.

  I was so nervous that when we showed a brief clip from the movie, the palms of my hands were sweating. I was so nervous that I could feel beads of perspiration rolling down my spine. I was so nervous that when my good friend Johnny Carson, who was treating this very seriously, stood up at the end of my interview to say good-bye, I didn't even notice that he wasn't wearing any pants. I didn't even notice that my good friend Johnny Carson who was treating my film debut very seriously was wearing boxer shorts with little hearts on them. I didn't even know it until someone commented on it after the show. That's how nervous I was.

  Anyone would have loved to be there the nights we had the legendary stars on the show, performers like Hope, Groucho, Dean Martin, George Burns, Red Skelton, Sinatra, Ethel Merman, Pearl Bailey—I'll never forget the night Pearl Bailey practically dragged Johnny out of his chair and they improvised a song and dance number—Jack Benny, John Wayne, Lucille Ball . . . We had so many great stars on the show that at times I understood completely what George Gobel meant the night he came out following Hope and Martin and said, "Did you ever get the feeling the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?"

  But the nights I remember much more than these appearances were the nights when stars were born. Particularly the young comedians.

  Bill Cosby had been turned down three times before he made his first appearance on the show. He was so good that right after the show I called my manager and told him that we'd had this kid on that night who was going to be a big star, and suggested he find out if he had a manager. When he was on again two days later, Sheldon Leonard saw him and the following morning offered him the starring role in I Spy.

  Joan Rivers had been turned down six times before she made her debut on the show. The next day she was overwhelmed with offers.

  Rodney Dangerfield wasn't young, Rodney was always old for his age, and he had been around for a while before he came on the show. "If it wasn't for pickpockets," he said, "I'd have no sex life at all." I loved those nights when someone like Rodney, who had been working at it for a long time, finally made it into the major leagues.

  When I heard Steven Wright wonder, "If you were in a vehicle traveling at the speed of light, and then you turned your lights on, would they do anything?" there was no question in my mind that he was going to make it.

  Leno, Letterman, Garry Shandling, Seinfeld—The Tonight Show gave so many of the great comedians the stamp of approval. It was thrilling for me to be there to see this young talent come of age. I remember the night Bill Maher explained that his mother was Jewish and his father was Catholic, so when he went into confession he would bring a lawyer with him. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I think you know Mr. Cohen."

  No one who was there the night Dr. Heimlich demonstrated his maneuver on Loni Anderson will ever forget it. Or the night Carson threw Rickles into a tub of water, or the night actor Oliver Reed was pontificating about the role of women and Shelley Winters came from backstage and poured a glass of water over his head. But I also enjoyed the eccentrics we had on the show, maybe because they were precisely the same people who would have been contestants on Who Do You Trust? decades earlier. In a world becoming more and more homogeneous, it's comforting to know there are still people out there who collect sheep manure. One night, I remember, a lovely woman who found faces and designs in potato chips brought her collection on the show. "Don't they break?" Johnny asked her.

  Of course they broke; they were potato chips. "Oh yes," she admitted. "Look at this one. It's Yogi Bear. I broke his neck." She glued this potato chip back together.

  As I picked up a chip, I said, "Look at this one."

  As she turned toward me, Johnny reached down under his desk, grabbed a potato chip, and chomped down as loudly as he could. There is no mistaking the sound of a potato chip being eaten. A look of complete horror crossed the woman's face. She was stunned. Johnny just sat there smiling, once again the innocent young man from Nebraska.

  Now, I suspect the nut lady knew exactly what she was saying. A lovely elderly woman, she was curator of a nut museum in Florida. After reminding the audience how many streets in America are named after nuts, Walnut, for example, she pointed out that we often refer to nuts in conversation; or, as she said so endearingly, "You'll find that during intercourse, they are valuable."

  Now that was the kind of line that only sweet elderly women and comedians named Carson from Nebraska can get away with. "Probably play a major role," Johnny agreed.

  She then confessed, "I guess you know by now that I'm a spokeswoman for nuts."

  "Well," Johnny replied knowingly, "you're certainly right about that."

  Only once while working on the show was I ever really scared, and that is certainly a night I'll never forget. It wasn't really on the show. For the first ten years we did the show from New York, but we usually went out to California for several weeks each year. We were there in early February 1971. At one minute of six in the morning I was asleep in my room on the seventeenth floor of our hotel in Universal City when I was suddenly awakened by a herd of elephants trying to break into the room. At least that's what it felt like. After I became conscious I realized it was an earthquake. The entire hotel was swaying. I ran into the living room, which had floor-to-ceiling glass windows. From those windows I could see the power transformers at Universal Studios falling off their concrete moorings; they were exploding and shooting sparks into the air. For a split second I thought we were under attack; that's what it looked like.

  I had no idea what to do. I know this may be hard to believe, especially from a pilot capable of doing loops in an open-cockpit biplane, but the fact is I'm afraid of heights. I have no idea why, but I have a very difficult time even going near the windows when I'm in a tall building. Even when I start thinking about it, I can feel it in my legs. But not that night. That night I didn't have time to be afraid of heights. Besides, it looked like the ground was getting much closer. At one point the building swayed so much I didn't think it could make it back again, I thought it would tumble over, and I actually considered jumping. I wondered, if I landed in a tree could I survive? Finally, about fifty years later, the quake ended and the building settled down.

  All the power in the building was gone. I didn't know how badly it had been damaged, but it seemed to me the smart thing to do was get to a lower floor. A much, much lower floor. People were gathering in the corridors, many of them were crying. I just took charge. We didn't have a flashlight, so I made torches out of newspapers and started down the emergency stairs. As we reached each floor, we opened the door and shouted that we were walking down to the lobby if people wanted to come with us. Eventually the group swelled to about sixty people. Finally we reached the safety of the lobby.

  For the first time I realized how silly I looked. I was wearing pajamas and socks with big holes in them. But as I got to the lobby one of the first people I saw was Doc, and he was dressed exactly the same way—except he was carrying his trumpet. At that moment I realized there was only one thing to do. I asked the concierge what time the bar opened. "Eleven o'clock," he said.

  "Wanna bet?" I asked. That bar opened early that day, really early.

  About two hours later I went back up to my room. I insisted on moving to a lower floor, and as I was packing my bags the phone rang. It was the hotel operator. "Mr. McMahon," she said, "this is your wake-up call."

  "I'm up," I told her. I don't think it was possible for anyone to be more up than I was at that moment.

  Bob Newhart was on the show that night. Obviously we were all very tense. In the middle of the show, the world started shaking again. Every earthquake, whether it's a big one or a small one, sounds the same at the beginning. The first thing you hear is that sound, a low rumble—to me it sounds like freight trains approaching—and the vibration follows. During the show, Johnny and Newhart were talking about something when the aftershock started. First
the rumble, then the heavy overhead lights started banging together. The sound moved from the top of the studio toward us like a wave. There is no more helpless feeling than being caught in the middle of an earthquake—on national television. The cameras were taping this, so I think we all tried to look as calm as possible. I can't speak for Carson or Newhart, but my heart was pounding. We had a studio full of people there and a lot of heavy equipment hanging from the ceiling. I'll tell you, that was frightening. Johnny and Bob and I were getting ready to leave the set when the aftershock stopped just as suddenly as it had started. Johnny was terrific, he immediately tried to settle everybody down. "Okay," he said, "it's all right, it's an aftershock, there's nothing to worry about." Then he turned to Newhart and said, "Anyway, Bob, you were saying . . ."

  Newhart looked at him for a moment, then said, "Johnny, there is no point in finishing that story. Nobody is paying any attention to what we're saying."

  Never in my life have I been happier to leave a studio than I was that night.

  One show I did not remember until I saw the tape was the night the actor Jay Silverheels, who played the Lone Ranger's faithful Indian companion, Tonto, was a guest. But as I listened to him describe his relationship with the Lone Ranger, I couldn't help but think about how much we had in common. "I work thirty years as faithful sidekick for Kemosabe," he began. "Hunt, fish, make food, sew clothes, sweep up, stay awake all night listen for enemies of Kemosabe. Risk life for Kemosabe. Thirty lousy years . . ."

  I'd better make that thirty great years!

  Hi-yoooo, Silver!

  6

  More than any other, the night that I will never forget was May 22, 1992. Our final show. I had been just as surprised as everyone else when Johnny announced almost a year earlier that he was leaving. I had no warning. I don't think he told anyone except his wife, Alex, that he had decided to quit. There had been so many times in the past when it looked as though he might leave that long ago I had stopped thinking about it. In 1979, when after considerable deliberation Johnny decided to continue doing the show, NBC President Fred Silverman took the news calmly. "I got down from the chair," he explained, "and put the rope back in the closet." I don't know why Johnny finally decided that this was the right time, but it was. Johnny Carson has always been a master of timing.

  NBC asked me to continue with the show for six months after Johnny left, but there had never been any question in my mind that I would leave with him. It was time for me too. Years earlier I had given him a statue of Don Quixote with his faithful Sancho Panza, on which I'd had inscribed, "I follow ever in your footsteps, O Master. But you told me it would only be for ten years."

  That last show was incredibly emotional, incredibly. In addition to the show ending, Johnny and I were ending a thirty-four-year professional relationship. We'd been together more than half our lives. "Ed has been a rock for thirty years," he said on that show, "sitting over here next to me . . . We have been friends for thirty-four years. A lot of people who work together on television don't necessarily like each other. This hasn't been true. We've known each other thirty-four years, we have dinner together, we're good friends, you cannot fake that on television. Some of the best things we've done on the show have just been, you start something, I'll start something . . . I got a letter from a guy. It said, 'Now you're gonna find out if Ed McMahon really thinks you're funny.' "

  I responded to those kind words with the nicest gesture I could think of at that moment. I invited him to appear on Star Search. I mean, the guy needed a job. And with his experience he had a real shot at the one-hundred-thousand-dollar first prize.

  It took me a long time to get used to the fact that the show had ended. At one point my assistant had made an appointment for me on a Thursday afternoon. A Thursday afternoon? "I can't do that Thursday," I started to explain. "I have to . . ." And then I realized I didn't have to do anything at all. I called Johnny and asked him if the same thing was happening to him.

  "Every morning when I'm reading the newspaper," he said, "I start writing jokes for the monologue in the margin. And then I realize, who's gonna hear these jokes? The fish?"

  On that final show, Johnny said that when he found something he wanted to do, he would be back. As it has turned out, that was his last professional appearance. He's spent the years since then enjoying his life. I've seen him or spoken to him infrequently; occasionally we've had lunch. But I'm not really surprised by his retirement. Nothing Johnny did surprised me. In a 1967 interview, I told Time, "Johnny is not overly outgoing or affectionate. He doesn't give friendship easily or need it. He packs a tight suitcase."

  About ten years later, after we had been through so much together, Johnny asked me one day, "What did you mean, I pack a tight suitcase?" Ten years later. It had been on his mind for ten years. What I meant by that, I told him, is that he was not a man of great excesses. He takes with him only those things he needs. And that applied to every part of his life. Johnny always traveled light, he carried his own bag, he never had an entourage, no makeup man, no hairdresser. He lived life with a minimum of fuss.

  Johnny Carson was a paradox. He was far more comfortable in front of millions of people than he ever was with a small group. Even he admitted he didn't particularly enjoy small social gatherings. If he had to be at a party, I'd look over and see him standing in the corner entertaining a small group of people with sleight of hand, card tricks, or coin tricks. He knew that people thought he was cold and aloof but he really didn't care very much what others thought about him. After spending time with Johnny, my daughter Claudia decided, "It was an amazing thing to see. Everybody wanted a little piece of him, they wanted to show him something or ask him something. The only way he could have possibly handled that was to shut down. No one has the time or energy to deal with that pressure and still put on a live TV show every day, the only way to do that is to withdraw. Other people might think he was detached, but I thought that was necessary for survival."

  I understood what Claudia was saying. I couldn't even guess how many times I was with him when a woman told him, "I undress in front of you every night, and my husband doesn't mind," or a man said to him, "You're ruining my sex life." By nature Johnny is very shy, he's a loner; I've always been very gregarious, but I will tell you Johnny always tried to be polite. He used to suggest to those men, "Why don't you put on a better show than I do?" but I know how wearing it was on him. He could be tough, particularly with people who did not do their jobs. There was tremendous pressure on him. When you're responsible for getting a show on the air every night, as he was, you depend on a lot of other people to do their jobs. If the show failed, no one blamed the lighting technician. So Johnny had a short fuse for ineffectual, inefficient people. But the fact is that most members of our technical staff stayed with the show for many years, even when their seniority qualified them for more lucrative jobs, because they were the best people in their fields and The Tonight Show was a wonderful place to work.

  As far as being aloof, when Johnny met someone whose work he respected, he was completely open, and he'd end up telling the most engaging stories. And he is an incredibly loyal friend. After Burt Reynolds's career went into a steep decline, Reynolds became seriously ill. There were all kinds of rumors about his illness and many people with whom he was once close disappeared. As he said, "I found I could save a lot of money on Christmas cards. But not Johnny. Johnny called me every week."

  I have been asked so often what Johnny Carson is really like. There is no easy answer to that question. The best answer is that he is like no one else I've ever known. He's as funny and charming in private life as he was on the air. He didn't turn that wit on and off for the camera. We were sitting at Jilly's bar late one night, well past midnight, when Frank Sinatra walked in. This was still pretty early in The Tonight Show's run, so although Johnny was hot, he certainly wasn't the star he would become. And Frank Sinatra . . . well, he was the biggest and most powerful person in show business, and Jilly's was his hang
out. People went there just because they might see him. So when he walked in, the entire restaurant quieted. Everybody was watching him. The king was in his palace. Believe me, if God had walked in at that moment, the only way He would have gotten any attention was if He had said He was with Mr. Sinatra. No one dared say hello to him until he said something to them first. Until he walked past the bar. As he did, Johnny said loudly, in a voice dripping with irritation, "Frank, I told you 11:30!"

  Once, I remember, we were in California and we wanted Ethel Merman to come on the show. She'd recently ended her very brief marriage to actor Ernest Borgnine and I think she was a little embarrassed about it. So she was reluctant to do the show. Talent coordinator Shelly Schultz set up a dinner for us, hoping Johnny could make her comfortable. When she sat down at the table Johnny looked at her, smiled, and said, "You know, I had a headache that lasted longer than your last marriage."

  "I'll have something to drink," she said, laughing. Fortunately. She made a great guest.

  One of Johnny's few passions is astronomy. It wasn't just a little hobby; he had a powerful telescope and was extremely knowledgeable about outer space. Sometimes during commercial breaks he'd tell me about the things he'd been able to find in the previous night's sky. In fact, when the show ended I thought he might do humorous PBS specials about space. Johnny and I went with Bill Rosenthal of D'Arcy McManus, Budweiser's advertising agency, to the Kennedy Space Center, as it was then known, to watch the launch of Neil Armstrong's flight to the moon. We were seated only a row behind former president Lyndon Johnson and dignitaries from around the world. When the rocket was launched, a shock wave just rolled over us. It was awesome, more than any of us expected, and Carson said softly, "Jesus Christ."