Geoff Fox: My Permanent Record
Back when I was in school teachers would always scare me with stories of how my exploits would end up in my permanent record. I believe this is it! – Geoff Fox
I’m posting this clip for a number of reasons, but mostly because it’s good to remember the good times. Too many people I know have died recently. I’d wish I could stop that.
About a month ago when I wrote about my friend Sue’s passing I mentioned she was an NBC page when I first met her and how she had appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson holding the prize envelopes during “Stump The Band.” I’ve just gotten the video
I’m posting this clip for a number of reasons, but mostly because it’s good to remember the good times. Too many people I know have died recently. I’d wish I could stop that.
[jwplayer mediaid=”12157″]
We all want to be “F*** you rich.” We all want that opportunity to tell the boss off
Mark this day down. January 12, 2010 is the day we all saw an example of someone who is “F*** you rich.”
We all want to be “F*** you rich.” We all want that opportunity to tell the boss off. We all want to demand the respect we deserve. We all want to say we know best, not he or she (I’ve had female bosses just as bad as any male boss).
We never do.
We can’t.
Our principles are fine in the abstract, but few of us have the guts to live a life ruled by principle. Principles are expensive. You can’t eat or pay the mortgage with principles.
Today Conan O’Brien lived the dream. No surprise he’s rich… but “F*** you rich!” Who knew?
Speaking of The Tonight Show he said:
That’s principle speaking. It doesn’t come cheap. It doesn’t make as much difference when you’re “F*** you rich.” It’s still impressive.
Fortune is fickle. It’s often bestowed on the undeserving. Not Conan. He’s the man.
I’ll bet it’s good to be “F*** you rich.”
Blogger’s note: What a wuss. I can’t even write the word, though I know you know exactly what I mean. It’s part of my upbringing in the Ozzie and Harriet 50s.
I have one Ed McMahon story and it involves my very secretive friend from the San Fernando Valley and his spectacularly beautiful wife. I asked if he could get me tickets to see The Tonight Show and he asked her.
For the past few days I’ve been torn as to whether there should be an Ed McMahon entry in the blog. Though a huge presence on television he struck me as a man with little personal integrity. He sold what can politely be called “crap” on the Atlantic City Boardwalk and never really changed. Seemingly he’d shill any product.
His moral code aside, where he was really excellent was as Johnny Carson’s announcer/sidekick. Howard Lapides coined the term we liberally sprinkled Ed’s way. It was “FL” for fake laugh. If Carson intended something to be funny then it was funny to Ed! His laugh was loud and recognizable.
Don’t underestimate this power. The Tonight Show was ‘sweetened’ in real time by Ed. No post-production house could add a laugh track that would help as much.
I have one Ed McMahon story and it involves my very secretive friend from the San Fernando Valley and his spectacularly beautiful wife. I asked if he could get me tickets to see The Tonight Show and he asked her. She had been a page at NBC. She’d even appeared on The Tonight Show giving Johnny the prize envelopes on Stump The Band!
Her specialty was making sure you’d be seated “DIF” or “down-in-front.” That’s where I sat. Thank you Sue.
There are few places I’ve been that immediately seemed so eerily familiar–Mission Control in Houston and the big digital clock at the shuttle launch facility in Florida, CNN’s newsroom, the floor of the NYSE and Carson’s studio on West Alameda in Burbank. I’d seen it a thousand times before I ever set a foot inside.
The crowd entered and politely sat. We were excited. As taping time approached the band played a number and Ed came out to warm everyone up.
“There seems to have been a mistake–a clerical error,” he said.
The audience sighed worrying what was wrong and how it would affect our best laid plans.
“I don’t know how,” he continued, “but Johnny, Doc and I have been scheduled to work on the same night!”
The audience went nuts!
I remember that moment as if it was yesterday–in fact it is the only part of my Tonight Show experience I remember.
With this one move NBC guarantees its future going forward. It’s an offensive, defensive and strategic move all at the same time.
This is genius. With this one move NBC guarantees its future going forward. It’s an offensive, defensive and strategic move all at the same time.
No secret here–network television (and local television) is in sad shape. Our business model continues to deteriorate in this horrible economic climate and in the face of increased competition from the Internet. NBC and the other networks have to do something to remain viable.
Moving Jay Leno to 10:00 PM is a cost saving move. The Tonight Show, even with an enlarged budget, is light years cheaper to produce than scripted episodic television. I would guess the demographics are comparable, maybe even better than episodic fare.
Moving Jay Leno to 10:00 PM lets NBC run a program that it controls 100%. There is no one but Leno to deal with. I’d guess he’s getting a long term commitment.
Moving Jay Leno to 10:00 PM is a defensive move. With Conan O’Brien set to take the 11:35 PM slot there were rumors of Leno jumping to ABC. Obviously, that’s off the table. At this moment, NBC ‘owns’ all the established talk show talent except David Letterman–who has seen much better days.
This is bad news for the Hollywood production community. Five weekly hours of high budget TV will no longer be produced. That will throw a lot of people out-of-work.
How this move do anything but benefit NBC? Even slightly lower ratings than what’s being replaced (if that happens) still has the potential to produce higher net revenue. Whether the affiliates benefit remains to be seen. Over the past decade networks have shown less than unwavering support for their local stations.
Tweeting on Twitter, the Times Brian Stelter says, “Leno at 10 would seem somewhat DVR-proof and Web-proof — a smart move by NBC, right?”
I wonder if he’ll do the show live? He should.
I’ve been watching YouTube tonight. That’s probably a bad thing to say, since watching YouTube means I’m not watching television.
It’s interesting how, in many ways, YouTube (or one of its wannabe sister sites) has become the conduit for many of our shared mutual experiences. That used to be the province of TV. Now, if you missed it when it happened, you can catch up online.
Tonight on YouTube I was watching airchecks of a few comedians first appearances with Johnny Carson. I remembered seeing Rosanne Barr’s first set as it aired on The Tonight Show. Others I may have seen, but they didn’t leave an impression at the time.
When I was going to college and long into my working life, Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show was the only thing on nationally after the late news. There was no Letterman or Leno or Conan or Jon Stewart. Yeah – there was cable, but cable had few additional channels and fewer original productions.
A comedian making his/her debut appearance on the Tonight Show could expect their life to change forever instantly. I’ve heard more than one comic say that.
There were three responses you could get from Johnny. He could politely applaud. That was bad news. He could give you the ‘hi’ sign. That was approval.
If you were really good, Johnny would call you over to the couch for a minute or two. Ellen DeGeneres was called over on her first night. You could see in her eyes she totally understood what was happening.
That era, where one program could have such an impact, is gone. It will never come back. In a multichannel universe, no one show can dominate.
As much as the rights holders are probably upset, having these moments of television history available is yet another luxury of the Internet.
I spoke with a friend tonight – a Hollywood insider. He told me David Letterman would be back from a week off on Monday and that his show would be:
1) special
2) dedicated to Johnny Carson
3) feature only one guest who was a true Carson insider
All I know is this is the same guy who told me, at least a week before it was announced, that an unknown named Conan O’Brien would be hosting after the Tonight Show on NBC.
My DVR is set.
Forget about the Tonight Show being an NBC tradition. Forget about Johnny and Steve Allen and everyone who has had their career launched there. For a moment, think of the Tonight Show as what it is for NBC, an incredible cash cow.
I have read many estimates of NBC’s profit from the Tonight Show. The prevailing wisdom is somewhere between $75-100,000,000 per year. That’s an unbelievable number, probably the most profitable program NBC runs – possibly more profitable than prime time.
That’s why today’s announcement concerning the Tonight Show is so strange. NBC consistently beats CBS in late night, yet in five years, Conan O’Brien will replace Jay Leno as the Tonight Show’s host.
I can’t think of an announcement NBC could have made that would be more surprising.
It just seems out of character that Jay Leno, a workaholic, devoted to performing, would do this on his own. It’s possible Conan put pressure on NBC – after all the CBS late night show is searching for a host and they don’t want to lose him. But how could NBC ask Jay to go?
None of it makes any sense to me. But now we have five years of hearing the ‘inside story’ and allowing egos to build and possibly boil over.
Late last week, my friend Harold told me he was taking this week off and that if I took a day off, we’d go to “The City” (Since I was a little child “The City” meant Manhattan which was treated differently than other parts of New York City).
Fine. I asked for, and received, Tuesday off.
But, what to do in The City? We talked about The Lower East Side (I am a knockoff watch whore and am looking for a new faux Breitling), getting tickets at TKTS and seeing a Broadway show, the Ansel Adams exhibit at MOMA and going to see David Letterman.
I have been a Letterman fan since the first time I saw him on The Tonight Show. When his late show began on NBC, I got on my knees and begged our program director at WGRZ in Buffalo to run it (which she eventually did).
Around 20 years ago, Helaine and I went and saw a taping at 30 Rock. A friend who worked at NBC at the time got us into the studio early, where we shmoozed with Biff Henderson.
Letterman came out before the show and walked into the audience, looking for questions. Being right in front, we were tough to avoid. He called on Helaine and then answered her question, “What kind of makeup do you wear? My fiancee is on TV and his doesn’t look as good.”
When the show started, he made reference to the question and asked me what station I was on. Andrea Martin was on the show, but I don’t remember much more.
Of course, Letterman tickets are tough to come by, especially in the summer when his target audience is … at will, so to speak. So, I emailed my friend Mel at CBS. “They hate us,” he replied, making no bones about the Letterman staff’s relationship with the rest of CBS.
Next, an email to Aaron Barnhart at the Kansas City Star and www.tvbarn.com. Aaron has been a Letterman fan forever, and I figured he was connected. Anyway, I had just done a favor for him, so he was into me.
No pull.
But, Aaron suggested I go to the CBS website and put myself on the standby list. What the hell? It was late, the dog was chowing down, I had nothing better to do.
This afternoon the message appeared on my cellphone. Mitch at Late Night was calling, telling me they had a cancellation and I was invited. Assured seats, no standby. How cool is this?
All I had to do was answer a trivia question to establish my Letterman bonafides. First, how often did I watch? I told him 2-3 times a week (any more and too much Dave starts sneaking into my performance). My question, “Who is Alan Kalter?”
Damn! Alex, I’ll take staff announcers for $500.
So, Harold arrives at 10:00am. We”ll drive to Stamford and catch Metro North to Grand Central. And, we’re going to see Letterman.
Bob Hope died last night at age 100. It was announced early today.
Over the past few years it has been sad to watch the Hope family milk Bob’s memory. It’s not like they don’t have all the money in the world already.
It’s been pretty well known that Bob was in sad shape for the last few years. Still, on the occasion of his 100th birthday the family attributed a pretty good ‘ad lib’ to him. Even in his prime Bob was written for. At this moment, who would believe he wrote the line at all? Why not let him live in dignity, without making up things to make him seem even larger.
As far as I’m concerned the true judge of Hope’s stature was his treatment on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (I’ll use the show’s full name). Bob could walk in, at any moment, while any guest was on the air, and Doc and the band would play “Thanks for the Memories”, and Bob would sit down. And the other guest… too bad.
When Bob was done, he’d get up and leave. And he could do this anytime he wanted to.
That’s an achievement.
