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| Johnny Carson |
August 2009
Movie Entertainment
Earl Fowler
I’M DYING UP HERE: HEARTBREAK AND HIGH TIMES IN STAND-UP COMEDY’S GOLDEN ERA,
WILLIAM KNOEDELSEDER, PUBLIC AFFAIRS, HARDCOVER, 304 PAGES, $31.95
With Conan O’Brien sliding into Johnny Carson’s old chair on The Tonight Show in June’s changing of the bard, consider how much the tempo has changed since Doc Severinsen was waving the baton.
Jay Leno, who kept Carson’s seat warm for 17 years, will resume his shopworn shtick with a prime-time NBC show this fall. Picture laid-back Jay Leno as a youthful union firebrand – especially given the way Leno rankled the Writers Guild by writing monologues during the strike of 2007-08 – yet both he and late-night pillar David Letterman were central to an epic labour showdown 30 years ago.
Author Knoedelseder was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times in the mid- 1970s when a critical mass of “shamelessshowoffs and incorrigible cut-ups” converged on L.A., then the new home of The Tonight Show.
Along with Leno and Letterman, Andy Kaufman, Robin Williams, Garry Shandling and hundreds of wannabes created what Knoedelseder calls “a comedy version of Paris in the 1920s” – a lunatic centre fuelled by sex, yuks and rock ’n’ roll.
A lucky few traded quips with Ed McMahon. But in a time before cable TV, the only way for most to stand up and stand out was via the new comedy clubs. Steve Martin could sell millions of comedy albums, but the Lenos and Lettermans were initially tickled to wisecrack free in exchange for the exposure. Tickled but not getting the last laugh.
The main beneficiary was Mitzi Shore, the miserly owner of The Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard (and the inspiration for a character to be played by Lisa Lampanelli in an HBO pilot produced by club alumnus Jim Carrey).
When Shore refused to acquiesce to the comedians’ inevitable demands for compensation, a six-week strike ensued that wobbled as Shandling crossed the picket line. When Leno feigned an injury after being brushed by a car that crashed through the line, a settlement of $25 per set was quickly negotiated.
Never again would the funny business be quite so much fun. Barred from the club for his role in the strike, comic Steve Lubetkin took an era with him when he jumped from an adjacent roof to his death on The Comedy Store parking lot.