No plants on TV anymore. When did that stop being a thing? After “The Tonight Show” moved to Los Angeles Johnny Carson always was surrounded by green stuff. A forest, a jungle even, sometimes the cheesy wallpaper that it just was.
“You have to understand, it was the 70s.” Like that horrible set that looked like a hunter’s lodge, with a painting of a misty lake in the background and those yellow chairs. And then Frank Sinatra hasn’t buttoned his shirt properly. Don Rickles comes out and makes great jokes about the mob, but why doesn’t he say anything about Frank’s frankly ridiculous collar?
Rickles is funny though. Maybe the funniest. There always comes the moment when he gets “serious”, when he lets the audience know that of course he doesn’t mean it, that of course we’re all friends, that of course it’s all a joke. But you couldn’t tell from looking at him. He’s furious, and he’s always holding back. What happened behind the scenes, when they were all drunk and didn’t have to pretend they liked each other, that must have been pure gold.
Carson also had animals. They all had animals. (Letterman’s were ironic.) It was possible to be a professional “TV animal person”. Like Jim Fowler, who was a guest on “The Tonight Show” many times. Sometimes he brought a leopard with him, sometimes just a shrew. Johnny would play with the animal and maybe get peed on. Can it be that it was all so simple then?