The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the Tonight Show franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, 1992. Ed McMahon served as Carson's sidekick and the show's announcer. For its first decade, Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show was based at the RCA Building at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, with some episodes recorded at NBC Studios in Burbank, California; on May 1, 1972, the show moved to Burbank as its main venue and remained there exclusively after May 1972 until Carson's retirement. The show's house band, the NBC Orchestra, was led by Skitch Henderson, until 1966 when Milton Delugg took over, who was succeeded by Doc Severinsen less than a year later. The series has been ranked as one of the greatest TV shows of all time in polls from both 2002 and 2013. Format Johnny Carson's Tonight Show established the modern format of the late-night talk show: a monologue sprinkled with a rapid-fire series of 16 to 22 one-liners (Carson had a rule of no more than three on the same subject) was followed by sketch comedy, then moving on to guest interviews and performances by musicians and stand-up comedians. Occasionally, Carson interviewed prominent politicians such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Robert F. Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey, however Carson refused to discuss his personal political views on the show out of concern it might alienate his audience and resisted efforts from his writing staff, particularly head writer and admitted liberal Marshall Brickman, to include more political material in the show. Other regulars were selected for their entertainment or information value, in contrast to those who offered more cerebral conversation.