12 Competitors against Johnny Carson
1. Les Crane. Novemeber 1964 – February 1965. ABC. *
“The Bad Boy of Late Night Television“, Les Crane had a rollicking time in the wee hours of 1 am, where he would take in phone calls and berate the callers. There is a shcok formula in his act, and plopped at 11:15 against Johnny Carson, ABC wanted it both ways with him: tone down his act as he did an ordinary talk show, and provide moments of controversy. Perhaps he was not going to last and his “shock” would get old and wear out its welcome, and perhaps it’s a feeble effort to have a 1 am gig moved to 11. The difference wasn’t adequately split. He appears to have had a solid and good career — claims to have given us Top 40 Radio but there’s a long line for such claims, and more regretfully voiced a spoken voice one hit in the 1970s which was refashioned in 1999 and re-popularized into email spam fame mistakenly under Kurt Vonnegut’s name. Anyways, his career highlights, commercially or artistically, apparently doesn’t include this 14 week effort at late night talk variety.
2. Joey Bishop. April 1967 – December 1969. ABC. **
I have no good feeler for the cultural context or reads on Joey Bishop. He was Carson’s regular guest host, than he was his competitor for a few years. The youtube clips available are heavy on one of lasting gifts to us all — Regis Philbin, his sidekick. Jack Paar clearly favored him over Carson. I guess he slumped back to Carson’s guest host role, did some game shows, hung out with the “Rat Pack”. Somebody tell me what I’m looking at when I’m looking at Joey Bishop.
3. Merv Griffin. August 1969 – February 1972. CBS. **
He had done his show in syndication and locally before CBS signed him up. He did so again after CBS dropped him. I gather stations slotted him in late night less often the second time through, and he found his rhthym in the morning. Years later, Cosmo Kramer made use of his show’s trappings and kept the Merv Griffin Show alive.
4. Dick Cavett. December 1969 – December 1972. ABC ***
I think he should have been allowed to roll through most of the decade of the 1970s with his talk show effort. He developed a cultural cachet and relevance for the times quite apart from Carson, and the list of his notable shows on youtube is telling. His big fault was that he made less money for ABC shareholders than Carson made for NBC shareholders. But he’s one of the few on this list that you can sell on dvd.
5. Alan Thicke. 1983 – 1984. Syndication, Metromedia. *
Was there any point in launching with an ad campaign about taking on Johnny Carson? Maybe Alan Thicke could have had something good working here, but his set up sounds rather counter-productive. Apparently the show was filmed twice in week in sets of three, and then aired as late as ten days after filming. Metromedia’s lunges at fourth television network sure were Mickey Mouse efforts.
6. Joan Rivers. Fox. 1986-1987. **
I’ve already tapped this one, defended it feigntly. Fox needed to make a splash to clear affiliates. She did. If her ratings weren’t all that good, it could be pointed out she was on a programming island on the best non-network television station in each market. As for the show itself — a lot of show business glitz, I suppose.
7. David Brenner. 1986 – 1987. Syndicated. *
The low point apparently came when his guests didn’t show up for a program, so he extended his monolouge for an entire program and post-hoc labeled it a Daring New Experiment in Television. Brenner went on with a good relationship with Cason, who didn’t take his shot against him personally.
8. Ross Shafer. Fox. 1988. *
Slot him into this mix because he was settled on at the end of this run as host. Falling low in the ratings, he filled his show out with gimmicks — all kind of interesting enough. Though why would I want to watch a Reunion of the Gilligan’s Island cast when I could just go ahead and watch Gilligan’s Island?
9. Pat Sajak. CBS. * 1989-1990.
I both see what CBS thought it was doing, and appreciate the Mediocrity of the purpose. Carson had been a game show host who could provide a breezy late night format. Sajak? He’s a game show host with some of the same skill! Why, once Carson retires, he’ll be right there for people to turn over toward. And so with his promise to “not looking to raise the level of TV”, he delivered the lack of interesting programming that he promised to deliver.
10. Arsenio Hall. Syndication. 1989 – 1994. ***
Too obsequitious to his guests, too preening to female guests, and for the life of me I don’t remember any skit he did. But for a moment he filled this vacuum, a vacuum excentered by his spot in syndication. He moved into his host of Fox affiliates, buffered by a good selection of ABC and CBS. The schedulinig advantage fell apart when the vacuum became glut — CBS signed Letterman, Fox screwed things up with Chevy Chase, but before then Hall threw out a lot of academic scholars, forcing his audience to think a tad. He provided ample peiod pieces for VH1 reminisces: it is Milli Vanilli for the first time singing and not lip-syncing the song their name was attached to. And Bill Clinton on the saxophone.
11. Rick Dees. 1991. ABC. *
My brother used to tape various interviews with Star Trek actors, mixed in or at the end of his taped Star Trek collection. So I have one image of Rick Dees interviewing — probably William Shatner, and doing a riff on how his show is “No Budget!” (Similarly, a Jonathan Frazen appearance on Chevy Chase in recorded — where Commander Riker appears to be high, but I imagine all of Chase’s guests ended up that way.) I kind of don’t know what ABC thought they had with Rick Dees. Maybe they threw him up with the “Just Because” school of thought — fill time.
12. Dennis Miller. Jan – July 1992. syndication. *
Dennis Miller has certainly had a long and varied career. He rejuveniated a Saturday Night Live staple — “Weekend Update” — with a large supply of obscure pop cultural references. He took his supply of obscure pop cultural references to his dreamed about late night talk show (supposedly a more eclectic guest line up — at the time he sold that idea by offering up that he had as a guest the pre-veep selection Al Gore) — and since there is apparently only a limited audience for that, it took him onto cable. Then Monday Night Football saw good use for his obscure pop cultural references and hired him for a year in service for football play. Since about 9/11, he has used his supply of obscure pop cultural references in service to the Republican Party, which I guess badly needs them.