They don't make 'em like this anymore.

A classic has moved on to what I only hope is his great reward.

Johnny Carson is dead:

Carson died this morning in Malibu, California, his nephew Jeff Sotzing told the Associated Press, without giving further details. NBC News reported Carson died of emphysema.

I can remember staying up with my Dad on occasion in my teens to watch Jonny Carson.

My dad was pretty crazy about the man and I found myself looking forward to those nights that I could stay up and watch Johnny with him.  He never failed to get us laughing.

And I continued to look forward to those rare times that I could stay up late and watch his show.  I would especially love his Carnac the Magnificent bits and thought that he was most funny when his monologue jokes would fall short or something would go wrong (apparently) with one of his many skits.

Of course, he had his share of marriages that fell short or went wrong as well.  Married 4 times, with each divorce seemingly costing him millions of dollars, Carson frequently made light of his marital problems and the money he spent to support his ex-wives, yet he did it in a way that I thought never belittled them.

He was, as they say, a class act.

Rest in peace Johnny.

UPDATE:  Lileks on Carson, as only Lileks can:

Lost in all the eulogies this week, I think, will be recognition of how unhip the Tonight Show was for a while. Not Lawrence-Welk unhip; it always had enough residual Vegas swank to keep it from becoming a relic from the grandpa demographic. But what had seemed cosmopolitan and urbane to a kid was fossilized and irrelevant to the know-it-all 18 year old. Everything had changed for you, but nothing had changed for them. The drunk jokes. Hi-yo. Doc’s fashion sense. Remarks about the band’s wild ways, or Tommy Newsome’s impassivity. Ed fargin’ Ames throwing the tomahawk – was it funny because he planted it the yarbles, or because it resembled homo erectus? Both? That was still funny, but you had to sit through a lot to get there. Get out of your car, cut off your Slausen – if you smiled at that, it was because you remembered how cool you felt the first time you knew that line was coming. But it wasn’t hip. Saturday Night Live was hip. SNL was now and the Tonight Show was most definitely then. Carson always did that golf swing. No one you knew golfed.

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Comments

[Jeff H]

I agree wholeheartedly.

And being a corn-fed Nebraskan (Iowan by birth), he was exactly the kind of the guy our more left-leaning, elitist brethren and sistern simply cannot understand. Pity.

[Jeff H]

Rick, along these lines, and very much in line with your recent faith struggles, LaShawn Barber has a great post:

http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2005/01/24/all/

[James C. Hess]

He will be missed, and the loss is ours because no one wants to do the gentle comedy he did anymore.