Members alphanguy74 Posted July 21, 2012 Members Share Posted July 21, 2012 This is just utterly fascinating in every way. What an incredible idea for a TV show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members quartermainefan Posted July 22, 2012 Members Share Posted July 22, 2012 I think she has it backwards with the Johnny Carson thing. Like David Letterman and so many others, Johnny Carson made Joan Rivers. He brought her on the Tonight Show and kept on bringing her back and then picked her above all others to be his substitute. The time to call him was well before she agreed to do the show, not as she is walking out the door. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members alphanguy74 Posted July 22, 2012 Author Members Share Posted July 22, 2012 I agree. She should have come to him, told him of the offer as soon as she got it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bright Eyes Posted July 22, 2012 Members Share Posted July 22, 2012 Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It truly was fascinating and now brings me to watch the Robin Williams episode as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaytimeFan Posted July 23, 2012 Members Share Posted July 23, 2012 It is a fascinating interview, the Sharon Osbourne interview is great too. She did one with Sarah, Duchess of York, that was great as well. I do agree with Joan's tact re: Carson. She wasn't supported by NBC and this is showbusinesses, surprise is important. And anyone who doesn't think Carson was a real bastard hasn't paid attention to Hollywood very much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bright Eyes Posted July 23, 2012 Members Share Posted July 23, 2012 I do wonder, say Joan and Carson had not falling out, do you think there still would have been controversary if she had gotten the Tonight Show instead of David Letterman? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaytimeFan Posted July 23, 2012 Members Share Posted July 23, 2012 Even if Joan and Carson had not had a falling out, she never would have gotten the Tonight Show. Never. NBC had a shortlist of 10 personalities to succeed Carson in the 80s and she was not on it and she knew it. THAT is the reason she left for her own show because the writing was on the wall at NBC that she would never have her own show there. Carson didn't own the Tonight Show franchise, he didn't have that much choice in his successor. If he did, Letterman would have succeeded him over Leno. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members alphanguy74 Posted July 23, 2012 Author Members Share Posted July 23, 2012 I think people always assumed that Carson had real power over the show, it's probably surprising to many that he wouldn't. Do you think if he DID have the power to choose his successor, and NBC WOULD have accepted Joan, do you think he would have chosen her? And I just watched the Sharon Osbourne episode, and WOW... talk about a screwed up childhood and screwed up life. It makes me feel really GOOD about my lackluster farm boy upbringing, having a nurturing, loving mother, and these idyllic days of working together in the garden, then watching Y&R together while he had lunch, something I still do at least once a week at the age of 43. Famous people's lives always seem exciting on the surface, but they deal with turmoil so many times. But crapping in a box and sending it to people in the mail? I'm stunned at how barbaric she would be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaytimeFan Posted July 23, 2012 Members Share Posted July 23, 2012 Not for one second do I think Carson would have chosen Joan as his successor. I am of the belief that Carson had Joan as his permanent guest host because it ensured that she couldn't become the competition. In fact, Carson's own producer, Fred de Cordova, didn't work when Joan was hosting. She had her own producer and had to get her own bookings, she'd book people Carson wouldn't touch (she launched Howie Mandel's career after years of rejection from Carson)...so Joan was never part of the The Tonight Show machine, she was a guest and I don't think Carson ever let her forget it. Given his numerous marriages and fractured family life, Carson had his issues with women and I'm sure Joan paid the price for her gender. I think Sharon Osbourne is a tremendous survivor. She is built of tough stuff and has brass balls. I think her Tiffany boxes full of crap being sent to people she loathed is fabulous, the stuff of legend. She's an original. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members quartermainefan Posted July 23, 2012 Members Share Posted July 23, 2012 She paid the price for her gender? He brought her on as a constant guest and helped make her career. You are making a lot of assumptions and forgetting their entire relationship before she took the job at FOX. If not for him she never would have been offered the job at Fox. Yes he had problems with women, but why are his divorces a damning indictment but say Joan Collins or Elizabeth Taylor's multitude of marriages a sign of how fabulous they are? <object width = "512" height = "328" > <param name = "movie" value = "http://dgjigvacl6ipj.cloudfront.net/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" > </param><param name="flashvars" value="video=2230341415&player=viral&end=0&lr_admap=in:warnings:0;in:pbs:0" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param > <param name = "allowscriptaccess" value = "always" > </param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param ><embed src="http://dgjigvacl6ipj.cloudfront.net/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" flashvars="video=2230341415&player=viral&end=0&lr_admap=in:warnings:0;in:pbs:0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" width="512" height="328" bgcolor="#000000"></embed></object><p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #808080; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 512px;">Watch <a style="text-decoration:none !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#4eb2fe !important;" href="http://video.pbs.org/video/2230341415" target="_blank">Johnny Carson: King of Late Night</a> on PBS. See more from <a style="text-decoration:none !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#4eb2fe !important;" href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/" target="_blank">American Masters.</a></p> In any case, PBS recently had a great American Masters on Johnny well worth watching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaytimeFan Posted July 23, 2012 Members Share Posted July 23, 2012 I'm not disputing that Carson was a major force in her career, but then so was Ed Sullivan and Rivers herself who toured constantly on the hustle. Joan Rivers absolutely paid a price for her gender. She never had a chance at NBC and Carson knew it and didn't support her when she went to FOX. If Carson wasn't threatened by her, he could have supported her, wished her well, secure in the knowledge that his show would always be the front runner. But that didn't happen. Instead, Carson put out an edict that anyone who went on The Late Show with Joan Rivers was not welcome on The Tonight Show and would be blacklisted from his late night kingdom. And if I forgot their entire relationship prior to FOX, what did Carson do? Amnesia? In regards to the PBS American Masters program, Carson's widow, Alexis Carson, controlled the edit. Finally, when have I said that anyone's multitude of marriages makes them fabulous? The answer is never. Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins have both been dismal failures in their personal romantic lives, Taylor constantly searching for someone to satiate her incredible need for attention while Collins dismissed each of her husbands the moment they strayed from her ideal. Carson is no better, nor no worse, than Taylor or Collins in this department. What does differentiate him from them is that he held the power in all of his relationships via his immense fortune and public platform. Taylor and Collins were, more often than not, evenly matched against their husbands, Carson held all the cards against his ex-wives. Except when they cleaned him out in divorce court, Joan Rivers didn't have that option, she was the only woman in his life he didn't marry. Interestingly, Carson asked Joan Collins out in 1986 when his marriage to Joanna Carson was over and her marriage to Peter Holm was headed for divorce court. Collins turned him down. So he married his very own 'Alexis'... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members alphanguy74 Posted July 23, 2012 Author Members Share Posted July 23, 2012 I can see both sides of this. And you are right about Ed Sullivan... his power cannot be ignored, he totally MADE The Supremes, and considering how many times Joan appeared, he made her as well, much more than Carson. All through the 70's, before she regularly subbed for Johnny, she was EVERYWHERE. Hollywood squares, Merv Griffin, guesting on TV specials. My only beef with her is that I find some of jokes in her stand up routine tasteless and desperate... the jokes about things that are truly TRAGIC. I get it... I know that she covers tragedy with laughter, but by the same token, those jokes rely much more on shock value than wit, and she never used to be like that. Not when I watched her as a boy. I still DO love watching her stand up routine, but not because of those kind of jokes... but in spite of them. It just makes her appear desperate to stay relevant... and I don't feel she NEEDS to be that desperate. And some jokes about tragic events CAN be done if done right... like 9/11... the joke about Osama and the electric cord... GOLD. I noitced a definate shift after Edgar's suicide. There was a mean spiritied undertone to her comedy after that AT TIMES... not always there, but it would bleed through here and there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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