Hollywood's Bygone Era - What Else We Lost When We Lost Johnny Carson
By Lisa Sarrach
February 2, 2005
Johnny Carson has been gone for over a week now and both of his successors Jay Leno and David Letterman have paid proper tribute. A memorial was conducted in Carson's hometown in Nebraska this week. His death was as quiet as his retirement; he left the scene at the top of his game, never becoming a has-been as so many stars do when the spotlight has faded. His one private joke on all of us was recently revealed when it was reported that he was sending jokes to his favorite successor, David Letterman.
However, Johnny Carson's passing has even a greater significance to the country at large than has been reported. With his passing, we have also lost the last remaining Hollywood arbiter of our innocence, class and dignity. The now old-fashioned term, good, clean fun is a thing of the past.
Don't misunderstand; Johnny was just as capable as today's comics to use sex to tell a joke or to razz a guest. As a matter of fact, when you watch his Best of Carson tapes, you're amazed at times with what he was able to get away with in the years before shows like "Seinfeld" and "Friends" arrived on the scene.
The gift that Johnny had was that he didn't hit you over the head with it, or intentionally attempt to be outrageous. He was subtle; he used double entendres and sly wit to entertain the adults without offending the kiddies. It was genius then and it is genius now.
As a baby-boomer, I grew up during the Golden Age of television. In the sixties, we all watched TV, and there was rarely anything on that wasn't appropriate for a kid to see. As a teenager in the seventies, my treat for good behavior was to be able to stay up and watch the Tonight Show. Back then my mother did not have to be concerned with who was going to be on the show or what they were going to say. Today, parents are forced to screen football games and block scores of channels to protect kids from unsavory programming.
Johnny was a ray of sunshine after a rough day at school. He was "Must See TV" long before NBC claimed that moniker for its Thursday night lineup. Over twenty years later, I introduced Johnny Carson to my boys when the "Best of Carson" tapes became available. Rarely have I ever heard them laugh so much and with such glee and appreciation for the talent represented on Johnny's show.
It's an unfortunate fact of life that we fail to appreciate someone until after they are gone. Johnny now joins the likes of Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, George Burns and scores of other entertainers from that bygone Era of entertainment that represented pure talent, presented with class and dignity.
The saddest lesson we learn when someone of Johnny Carson's stature passes on is not only what we have lost in a person, but what we have lost as a nation as embodied by that person.
All the past great entertainers had private lives, some innocent and wholesome, others cloaked in some degree of depravity, just as today. Back then, of course, depravity was not celebrated, it was reviled. Stars were fired when found in violation of their morals clause, or thousands of dollars were spent on protecting wayward stars from bad publicity that would turn off viewers or movie goers.
Today of course, all that depravity is celebrated in Hollywood. The more craven the behavior, the more headlines in the gossip columns and more E! Entertainment specials devoted to the sordid life and times.
Entertainment today has become a very ugly enterprise both in what's reported and what's produced. The recently concluded Sundance film festival appears to epitomize the state of entertainment in today's Hollywood; "mainstream" actors in "independent" films, "stretching the envelope" and engaging in acts that in Johnny's day would be rated X or not permitted to be filmed in the first place.
Outrageous is now the mainstream and that should be troubling to all of us as we continue to try and raise children in an age where we have lost Carson and his brethren, replaced by the likes of Howard Stern and Jerry Springer. Where yesterday's movie stars have been replaced with a bunch of no talents who are more likely to appear on the Smoking Guns' website gallery of mug shots than graciously accepting a lifetime achievement award with the class of a Cary Grant or a Sidney Poitier.
The passing of Johnny Carson signifies much more than the life of one incredible entertainer, it also represents the end of what Hollywood used to be, a place to escape to not escape from, a place that inspired not reviled, that lifted us up not dragged us down.
Today's Hollywood is just as dead as all those we have lost in recent years. Thankfully, yesterday's Hollywood is alive and well on DVD for us and our children to enjoy for years to come.
We'll miss you Johnny, you meant so much to so many of us. The likes of you and your showbiz pals will never be seen again and we're all the worse for it.
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Lisa Sarrach is president of Hollywood-Hero (www.hollywood-hero.us), GOPUSA.COM (www.gopusa.com) national columnist and a freelance writer focusing on cultural and domestic policy issues. You can contact her at lsarrach@hollywood-hero.us
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.