Johnny Carson vs Joan Rivers

#teamjoan all the way. Johnny came off like the nasty little sad bitch he was.

#teanjohnny all the way. Joan came off like the nasty little sad bitch she was

Rivers spent the rest of her career acting the victim, precipitated the suicide of her husband, and salvaged her finances by hawking plastic jewelry on cable TV. And she never shut up about her perceived injustices.

Carson ended his career to a record TV audience, being serenaded by Bette Midler and retired to his yacht an insanely wealthy man. And he kept his mouth shut.

Whatever they were as people in real life, Carson stayed very much above the PR fray while Rivers mud wrestled with anyone who took her bait.

True, that Joan milked it until the end of her life. But Carson will forever be remembered as a fragile, bitter grudge-holder.

Joan sure did milk it but I’ve read 2 books about Carson as well as a few interviews with people who knew him and he was a cold bastard - at best. Joan was not the only person that he cut out of his life either. He was the type of guy that people tip toed around.

Joan also did herself no favors by letting Edgar, EDGAH! - be her manager and producer. I think without Edgar things may have gone better for her. Even if the Carson blow up had happened I think her show would have done better without Edgar in the picture. She knew that too and never let go of her bitterness toward Edgar. She chose him over the career and her own show and he repaid her by killing himself and leaving her in the shits.

There’s a good interview with Joan done by psychologist and wife of great comedian Billy Connolly. It’s like a recorded therapy session but it’s a pretty good insight into the real Joan. The psychologist hones in on a pattern of betrayal in Joan’s life.

Bump

Carson really helped Joan make her way to the top and she knew all the rules - when she betrayed him she took a tumble and I really didn't feel sorry for her. She was genuinely funny but also abrasive, selfish, and very mean spirited at times. She was the author of her own undoing.

Only gays of a certain age care about Joan Rivers. Johnny Carson is considered a TV comedy legend by most people.

He should have been the bigger person and reached out to her when Edgar committed suicide. They didn't have to be the best of friends, but come on, show an ounce of compassion. It's a TV show. She reached out to him when his kid passed.

It's been said that he felt an immense sense of love towards her that he didn't feel towards many people, including his ex wives.. Hence why he took it as a betrayal.

The further we get, the worse Carson, and all the men, look. His feud with Joan showed him to be a petty little bitch. He was also largely responsible for the Leno/Letterman feud. Carson made Leno his "permanent guest host" after Joan left, but then felt that Letterman was his heir apparent. He wanted to treat Leno just like he had Joan, as someone good enough to guest host, to think they were being groomed for the big job, and then not get it. Of course Leno and Conan were no better, since they continued to honor Carson's ban on Joan. It wasn't until Jimmy Fallon that she got to appear again on the Tonight Show. And, I always felt it was insensitive of Letterman to name his show The Late Show, when that was the name of Joan's failed program.

Funny how the poll and the thread don’t agree.

Wasn't there a list (Carson and his team made) of his potential replacements floating around and someone sent to to Joan and Edgar and Joan's name wasn't even on the list for consideration even though she was pulling in better numbers than him when she guest hosted? Now I think a little Joan went a long way and perhaps she wouldn't have been suited for The Tonight Show but not even on the list, ouch. If I recall some of the names were ludicrous too but they were in Johnny's old boy's club. There was a time when someone could have made a great mini series on Johnny's life but that time has passed. He's almost forgotten now by the culture at large and people under 35 don't know him. On top of that white men who cheated on their wives and were sexist in the workplace are not exactly flavor of the month right now.

[quote] He's almost forgotten now by the culture at large and people under 35 don't know him. On top of that white men who cheated on their wives and were sexist in the workplace are not exactly flavor of the month right now.

That is what would make it a great miniseries. If they did it earlier the makers would have been expected to show too much reverence. Now they can really show the warts and all. They just did the Fosse/Verdon series, and they aren't exactly household names with the under 35 crowd.

No clue why Carson got so mad when she got her own show. Like she’s supposed to spend her entire life subbing for him?

"#teamjoan all the way. Johnny came off like the nasty little sad bitch he was. " R1 And Joan wasn't?

R15 Joan was a righteous bitch, not a little SAD one.

R14 It wasn't that she got her own show, it was that she let him find out about it when Fox made the announcement rather than telling him beforehand herself. He felt she owed him that much.

Hard to really choose a side. They were both a couple of miserable, self-destructive narcissists. Funny, though.

Oh yes R16, calling Michelle Obama a man is so righteous.

R18 She was a comedian and it was a joke. I didn't always agree , with Joan's jokes, but I never took them seriously either.

Each one seems to come off very badly. I mean they were both ruthlessly ambitious take no prisoners TV personalities so how could they have been nice considerate human beings in any case?

Still watching them together in old clips is a real pleasure. Two enormously talented people playing off each other like master fencers. The Sophia Loren moment is a high point. The way she zings it and his response and amazement in taking it makes one pretty entertained.

R19, Doesn't sound seem like a joke but whatever

Forgive me for not jumping on the Carson wagon ... but I have not found that man a bit funny. A legend? Only if you have lowered the talk show criteria to an unecessary minimum. If you want to see greatness then watch Parkinson, not some overrated schmuck. On the other hand Rivers has never failed to amuse me as she still does with her comedy shaningans way above anything Carson was capable of.

R21 What are you talking about that is classic Joan. Especially, since it is a TMZ video or similar. She knew what to say to make waves and get publicity. Say something completely outrageous and rake in the notoriety. Plus the fact that most comedians felt that the Obamas were completely of limits, was sure to ruffle her feathers. Sacred cows meant nothing to her, and the more sacred something was the more likely she was to go after them with the most outrageous comments. I miss her humor, but I'm glad she isn't here to see how fucked up comedy has become.

Carson in his time was a master interlocuter. Parkinson was an excellent interviewer but that's not what Carson did. His purpose wasn't to interview people but to present them to the public as entertaining personalities for a light relaxing end of the night diversion. What he got out of a Fernando Lamas or an Angie Dickenson was a completely different thing than what Parkinson did. Parkinson was more of a Dick Cavett only better.

Have you seen Joan Rivers on Parkinson. The format is no different from Carson's. Talk show is a talk show and it is the host that makes the difference. Paar, Cavet and Parkinson are the masters contrary to shmucks like Carson and Leno.

Oh dear god how can you compare Carson to Leno? Leno is the dregs. And I wouldn't say a talk show is a talk show. I see the Cavett and Parkinson shows as different say than from a Carson or Merv, Mike Douglas or Dinah Shore show. Though Carson was king of the light show format. Or as Bob Hope would say Plugola Alley.

Carson obviously came out better because he got over it and moved on. Joan lived with it til the very end. She talked about it more often than she did her husband's suicide, so it ate at her. Carson never mentioned her name again.

[quote] Leno is the dregs.

I wouldn't say that, he was very good at running a light celebrity oriented comedy talk show. They didn't go on the show for in depth interviews, nor did the audience want to watch a Barbara Walters special every night. I never liked Letterman because he was such a smart ass to his guests.

[quote] Carson obviously came out better because he got over it and moved on.

We don't know, that. He never publicly talked about anything after retiring. He was also the one that instituted the ban on Joan appearing on The Tonight Show, which lasted until 2014.

Carson was incredibly amiable. Edgy in a very comfortable way. And yeah I found Leno cringeworthy. Clearly most people did not.

We do know that Carson never talked about Rivers but she made it a point in almost everything she did after that. Even her own employees, managers, etc. said she never got over it. Even Joan said later she would have done it differently. No shit. It cost her everything and consumed her life afterwards.

Pleased to inform you that Mr. Carson and Ms. Molinsky hold no grudges anymore, even though they do not necessairly favor each other company, since one spends most of the time with his comedic equals (the likes of Milton Berle and Bob Hope), whereas the other keeps busy with the A-listers at the blue carpet. Yes, she did apologized to Ann Frank, profusely.

I LOVED JOAN. Carson turned out to be a bully BUT, IMO, Joan was the wrong one with the feud. She should have gone to him up front and told him about the offer from Fox and that she was going to go for it.

Why is it his business? It’s NOT.

Carson was the one who installed her as the permanent guest host and she was going on to be his competitor. In addition, she tried to hire away his staff. There's an excellent Vanity Fair excerpt from a book about her and the Carson situation is discussed in depth. One thing about Rivers that is threaded throughout is the she was a liar who created her own history.

"Robert Higdon, a longtime confidant. “She’s a comedian. Living inside her head—it must have been a difficult place to be. It just never stopped. She would say these things all the time, and it got to the point where I would just disregard it.”

Dorothy Melvin, Rivers’ longtime manager. “Joan would seize any chance, especially in her later years, to get publicity. Johnny was dead, and nobody would refute it. Joan wanted to be talked about, so she said outrageous things.”

R21

The problem with people who say outrageous things all the time in an attempt to be funny or to get attention is that, when they're serious, their fans can just brush it off. Rivers hated the Obamas. She meant what she said about them.

r34 Thanks I'm going to read that later, it looks interesting.

Joan was arguably as famous as she ever had been right before she died. She was huge among young women for example. When she passed I remember the older people in my office remembered her from Carson and Hollywood Squares back in the day but the young people were really upset at her passing and knew her from Fashion Police, her social media and as a cultural figure. She knew how to market herself. She used the paps at LAX to her advantage. She flew in every week to tape FP, the paps would wait for her and she would let them get into the elevator with her and follow her out to her car. I remember going on a binge, watching dozes of Joan at LAX clips and it struck me that she was very kind and respectful towards the paps and understood that it was a case of you scratch my back... She was always ready with some outrageous quip that she knew would get her publicity. I remember in one she apologized for not having a quip, went quiet for a while and then came out with something awful about Lohan or Hilton or whoever was the 'it' girl at the time.

There was a sweet moment actually where the paps broke the news to her that Michael Clarke Duncan had died. She said a few outrageous things about young people od'ing and got in her car. The car pulls away then stops and Joan runs back out. She tells the pap that she didn't know who he was talking about and confirmed with him that it was MCD from Green Mile. She then gave a very sincere apology for what she had said and she seemed genuinely upset that he had died. In another she asks one of the paps about his daughter who I gather had been ill before slipping him some cash to get the girl a gift. She really wasn't the worst of them behind it all.

R36, I completely disagree with the idea that she was the most successful when she died. First, she became a joke. When she did the Red Carpet for E!, everyone was laughing about how ill prepared she was and how she never knew who anyone was. Some even suggested dementia. They moved her to the studios but even still, being on E! is not even in the same galaxy as being a late night talk show host on NBC. The networks had been diluted by that time so even people watching a niche network was small. She used to play sold out stand up concerts but by the end was reduced to playing Indian casinos. Her plastic surgery was the thing that made her current and that also made her a joke. DL was filled with threads about how grotesque she was and her nauseating tag along daughter.

By the time she died, Rivers tried to stay contemporary but it was a smaller audience and when she did get a larger stage like the Trump show, she was publicly derided. She stayed in the public eye, which is an achievement, but she was in no way as popular or well known as when she was permanent guest host of the Tonight Show.

R35 I have no doubt that she disliked the Obamas, she did identify as a liberal Republican, but I don't believe that she actually thought Michelle Obama is transgendered.

I also think one of the most concise description of Rivers' personas, pre and post Tonight Show was she was a victim, then became oppressor. Almost always to women. Perhaps that why she appealed so much to gay men.

The irony is that even though Joan victimized, she still portrayed herself as a victim. My husband committed suicide, I got fired from Fox, my daughter is ugly, etc.

She did seem to show signs of early dementia towards the end. That walk off calling the interviewer negative is really bizarre.

I'm (barely Team Johnny), just because he never spoke about it publicly while Joan never shut up about it. 35 years! Oy.

Can't think of funnier woman EVAH! Liberal self but don't care a bit what were her political sympathies were. Even if she voted Republican and embraced deplorable Trump she hustled her ass and did more charity work than most of the Grindir whores here on DL. Get a grip for once ... will you?

She disparaged Michelle Obama and for me that was a big no no. I liked her a lot growing up in the 2000s. But when she started to go after Michelle, for me that was a huge turn off and I soured on her.

[quote]Only gays of a certain age care about Joan Rivers. Johnny Carson is considered a TV comedy legend by most people.

Johnny Carson is culturally irrelevant. He's faded like Bob Hope.

R44

Would you have been bothered had Rivers gone after Melania ?

[quote] If you want to see greatness then watch Parkinson, not some overrated schmuck.

Parkinson was AWFUL. He developed this aura years after he disappeared due to the lack of "intelligent" interview shows on British TV and then they revived him and he was just as bad.

When asked who was his most interesting interview he said Muhammad Ali? Really? All the people he interviewed and that's his fave? A ranting boxer?

Likewise I recently watched an old interview he did with Julie Andrews and he went on and on smirking about her goodie goodie personna, asking if she swears in real life, idiotic infantile questions like that and he kept on it. It was embarrassing to watch. & . he was NOT well liked in his time.

That woman interviewer, Lynn Barber, thinks he's shit as well, when asked.

Rivers is remembered now but she's going to fade super fast. They all do.

Rivers died a decade after Carson. I agree she won't even be remembered in ten years.

Nothing gets more stale and dated than an old joke. They're not meant to have long lives.

R18, Joan called the First Lady "Blackie-O." Now that was hilarious.

R51 Actually it wasn't. It was very racist, comedians love to say it was a joke. But the reality is, that they say that ass cover for their racist behavior.

Joan rivers was a fucking racist.

Joan would have so happy with Trump as president. What would her gay fans have said about her then?

R52

Yeah yeah yeah. Everything about blacks said by whites is

R A C I S T

we know, we know.

R54 And don't forget it either.

R55

We (white people) wouldn't dare !