Latest / The Daily Writer / The Curse of Johnny Carson

Transcript

The Curse of Johnny Carson · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Most young people only have a vague idea of who Johnny Carson is, if they've even heard of him at all.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: But for anybody 40 years and older, you probably remember Johnny Carson as the former host of The Tonight Show.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: From 1962 to 1992, Johnny Carson ruled the airwaves as what he was frequently referred to as the king of late night.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that title was really well deserved because if you were a stand-up comedian in the late 1970s through the early 90s, you got invited over to the couch to talk to Johnny after your five-minute set, and you were officially now Hollywood Royalty.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he was called the king not just because everybody watched Johnny Carson, but because he was truly a king maker.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Every comedian on the planet wanted to be like Johnny Carson.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: In 1992, when Johnny Carson retired from the Tonight Show, everybody thought that David Letterman would be a shoe-in as the new host.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And why not?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Letterman's own late night show had been following Johnny Carson for the last 10 years, and it was no secret that David Letterman idolized Carson.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in turn, Johnny Carson personally likes David Letterman more than he liked Jay Leno.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the TV world was scandalized when the Tonight Show hosting spot went to Jay Leno instead.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: As a result, Letterman moved to CBS to start his own show opposite Jay Leno.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: The next year in 1993, a young upstart comedian who was a writer for The Simpsons got his own late night show at NBC.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: For years he followed Jay Leno in the lineup, even though his style was much more like David Letterman's style, whom he adored.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this, of course, was Conan O'Brien.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in the irony of all ironies, Conan had a brief stint hosting the Tonight Show for nearly eight months in 2009 and 2010 until his low ratings prompted NBC to bring back Jay Leno as the host.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the point of this little stroll down late night memory lane.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: All these hosts have been victims of what you might call Carson's curse.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: In one way or another, they all wanted to be like Johnny Carson, who will forever be immortalized as the greatest late night talk show host ever.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Even today, people who remember Johnny Carson will watch Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and other late-night talk show hosts, and they'll remark, oftentimes, that they just can't measure up to Johnny Carson, even though it's been 30 years since he was the host of the Tonight Show.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But let's be clear, Johnny Carson didn't put a curse on anybody.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, he was so good that everybody wanted to be like him, but nobody could measure up.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, over time they developed their own styles with their own audience.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Conan O'Brien alluded to this once when he said, It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does this apply to you?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would ask you this question: is there a writer that you look up to?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody you admire so much that it's hard to not want to be like them?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you emulate their style or you're trying to build your platform just like they've built theirs.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to give you a friendly word of warning.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to tell you to be careful.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to learn from other writers and their style or their techniques, but the world doesn't need another J.K.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Rowling, Stephen King, or James Patterson.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: What the world needs is for you to give the most valuable gift you can possibly offer.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that, my friend, is uniquely you.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're the only one who can give that to us.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else can give the world the gift of you.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're the only one who can do that.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So be yourself.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Don't try to just be somebody else.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be cursed by the constant desire to want to try to be somebody else.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like honestly, most of these talk show hosts have tried to do at one time or another.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And let's be fair, what we do as writers is a little different than what they do.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: They have an audience of literally millions of people daily.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not right now because there's a writer strike.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has an audience of any fresh content, at least.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you get the point that I'm trying to say.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: They have a unique pressure in TV, on TV shows and media that most of us will never have to face.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is the same.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be somebody else.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can only be yourself.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So here's today's challenge.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Are you content being yourself, or do you spend too much time wishing you were somebody else?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's a question worth asking and worth pondering.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.