{"id":1349,"date":"2020-03-01T23:34:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-01T23:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/?p=1349"},"modified":"2025-06-07T17:50:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T17:50:31","slug":"the-tonight-show-1954-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/?p=1349","title":{"rendered":"The Tonight Show<\/em> (1954 \u2013 present)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Tonight Show<\/em> (1954 \u2013 present)<\/h1>\n

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The famed\u00a0sex\u00a0therapist\u00a0Dr. Ruth Westheimer – who I guess was paid to worry about these kinds\u00a0of things – purportedly \u00a0said:<\/p>\n

\n

“Johnny Carson has done more to ruin America\u2019s love life than anyone else in the country. On any given night that he\u2019s hosting\u00a0The Tonight Show, there are 10 times more couples watching his monologue than making love. By the time they\u2019ve exhausted themselves laughing at his jokes, they don\u2019t have the energy for sex and simply turn out the light and go to sleep. Though I wish [Carson’s successor] Jay Leno the best of luck, for the sake of America\u2019s libido I hope he never quite fills the master\u2019s shoes.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Johnny Carson (who hosted the show from 1962 to 1993) was not Tonight’s<\/em> first host, but he inarguably both perfected the\u00a0format and brought it to a new level.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n

The late-night TV landscape has changed a lot over the years<\/strong>. \u00a0Here I include two videos: one with Johnny interviewing Robin Williams<\/strong> in 1981 and another from 1967 with him interviewing — believe it or not — the legendary objectivist author and political philosopher Ayn Rand<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong> It is hard to imagine this happening today.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_video src=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Qr1DSLoHni0″ image_src=”https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Robin-Williams-with-Johnny-Carson.jpg” thumbnail_overlay_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.6)” _builder_version=”4.16″ width=”76%” box_shadow_style=”preset2″ global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_video][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_video src=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FMdlUhTGFbY” image_src=”https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Ayn-Rand-with-Johnny-Carson.jpg” thumbnail_overlay_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.6)” _builder_version=”4.16″ width=”77%” box_shadow_style=”preset2″ global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_video][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”0px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n

Personal connection<\/h4>\n

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I recall watching\u00a0Tonight\u00a0as a kid with my dad — hosted by Steve Allen and Jack Paar before Johnny took the reins. And as an adult, I performed several times with the\u00a0Minnesota Chorale<\/a>\u00a0and Minnesota Orchestra<\/a> under Johnny’s long-time music director, Doc Severinsen.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/2006-photo-of-Bob-Oganovic-and-Doc-Severinsen.jpg” _builder_version=”4.16″ box_shadow_style=”preset2″ global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_margin=”-18px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n

Bob Oganovic and Doc Severinsen at a rehearsal in 2006<\/em><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tonight Show<\/em> may be the longest-running – and most durable – franchise in TV history with only 6 hosts during the course of its well over 60-year run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.oganovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Tonight-Show-hosts-over-the-years.jpg?fit=1024%2C639&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1349"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3181,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions\/3181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}