Word: carsons
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America began its life by throwing off a king and has been crowning them ever since. We have a King of Pop, a King of All Media, a King of Beers. That Johnny Carson was dubbed the King of Late Night, at first blush, says less about him than about our national case of regis envy...
...Carson's case the title may for once have been apt. What we lost when we became a republic was a sense of the slow sweep of history. Our Presidents serve for four to eight years--even F.D.R. went just over 12. Carson ruled the Tonight Show for nearly 30: enough time for a baby to be born, grow up and have babies of her own; enough time to span a real historical era. He took to the air in 1962, weeks before the Cuban missile crisis. He departed in 1992, just months after the breakup of the Soviet Union...
...steer the mass of viewers to advertisers. Helmsman may not be the word. Say, instead, salesman. The more people who watched - rather, who tuned in and didn't tune out because something affronted them or sailed over their heads - the more money the show, the network and Carson made...
...cultural weathervane, Carson straddled two eras: the 50s and 60s, when all arbiters of popular taste, from a magazine editor to a comedian-host, were expected to pretend some interest in high culture; and the last 30 years, when those same custodians of taste were allowed, commanded, to express no interest. Readers of a certain age can recall when every New York Times music critic was writing about classical music, except for the guy on the jazz beat, and when opera divas graced the cover of TIME. (No rock performers were cover boys until the Beatles in 1967.) Now neither...
...over the decades, did Carson. In his very first Tonight monologue, on Oct. 1, 1962, he told the audience, "I'm curious," and he allowed his social and cultural curiosity fairly free rein. The young host would acknowledge that he attended the opera (his favorite: Giordano's Andrea Chenier). He booked serious authors to fill the last 15 mins. of his then-90-min. broadcast. His musical guests eschewed rock 'n roll; they included crooners, opera tenors and sopranos, lots of jazz men, both in the spotlight (Joe Williams must have sung Every Day I Have the Blues 40 times...