From Mr. Carson's last TV appearance in 1994
I almost hit the sack early last night. That had been the plan all day long, after a very busy day of podcast recording.
But a little after 9:30pm, my BlackBerry went off with a text message with a huge surprise.
“David Letterman to admit to affair on his show tonight.”
Well yeah that caught my attention and changed my plan for the evening.
Fast forward this story to Act 2 of his show, when Mr. Letterman told the blackmail sex scandal story. For those that haven’t seen the video, you can see it here.
As I was watching this story unfold on my TV just like the rest of the east coast, I started to realize something.
I wasn’t watching David Letterman.
That was Johnny Carson on stage.
It’s no secret that Mr. Letterman’s biggest mentor was the original king of late night, Johnny Carson. It’s always been known that Mr. Carson kept his private life VERY private. Some stories, such as his divorces, were revealed over time, but he never really addressed them. He would quickly address it, leave it at that, and only bring it up in the way of a punchline of a joke later.
When Mr. Letterman at the end said that the monologue he just gave would be all he would say, that’s when it clicked in my head that he was doing EXACTLY what Johnny would do.
In 1982, Mr. Carson was arrested over a weekend in Los Angeles for DUI. It made national news all weekend (as Johnny would joke, “it was a slow news weekend.”) It’s kind of a big deal when the biggest TV star of all time gets in trouble like that. All weekend, American waited for him to appear on the show Monday to see what he would say.
I wish I could show you the video clip, but unfortunately it’s been removed from YouTube. If you would watch it, you could compare it to what we saw last night.
As the show opened and he walked from behind the curtain, Mr. Carson was escorted by an actor dressed as an LAPD officer, talking to him and telling him what he was doing, only to be let go to do his monologue. It’s one of the most unexpected and funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
Later in the show, Mr. Carson took a few minutes to talk about the incident. He spent no more than two minutes talking about it. He acknowledged it, said he had too much wine, would pay the price, and would not do it again. And that was it.
It was real. It was classy. It was all that was needed.
Last night, I saw the same with Mr. Letterman.
As so many in the spotlight are being called out for things in their personal life, the tabloid media wants to throw these people through the mud. These celebrities are then hounded, go on talk shows at their own will to talk about it, issue more statements, put videos on YouTube, etc. (see Chris Brown & Jon Gosselin).
Mr. Letterman kept it the way it should be. Private for him to deal with and that’s it.
I saw a glimpse into the way television used to be last night. As my industry expands and changes, a piece of the past showed last night.
And it was something we ALL can learn from. Pure class.
