CBS Does Segment on the Genius of Johnny Carson as Colbert Circles the Drain
“His audience, more than triple the size of all three current network late night shows combined, made him the national agenda setter of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.”
Now that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been cancelled for losing millions of dollars a year, it seems like an odd time for CBS News to run a glowing piece about how great Johnny Carson was, but that’s exactly what they did.
CBS News Sunday Morning did a glowing segment about how Carson united the country and actually told jokes that viewers would talk about the next day. Was this a not-so-subtle jab at Colbert?
Nicholas Fondacaro of NewsBusters:
Shots at Colbert? CBS Reminisces About Johnny Carson as Late Night Withers
After weathering a week of blistering heat from the rest of the liberal media following the announcement that The Late Show and host Stephen Colbert were being kicked to the curb, CBS seemed to respond in the form of a love letter to Johnny Carson and reminiscing about what late night used to look like. CBS News Sunday Morning put together a piece remarking on how Carson brought people “peace,” “hope,” and laughter at the end of the day instead of being a divisive political silo.
“With so much talk about the future of late-night TV shows just now, we thought it was the perfect time for Jim Axelrod to take a look back to a time when late night was the place to be and ruled by a most singular man,” proclaimed fill-in host Tracy Smith as she introduced the segment…
Despite the proliferation of televisions, none of them could hold a candle it to Carson’s draw. “Everybody who was anybody appeared on The Tonight Show and 17 million Americans tuned in, many from their beds,” Axelrod noted. “His audience, more than triple the size of all three current network late night shows combined, made him the national agenda setter of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.”
On how Carson was able to pull off such a herculean feat, Carson biographer Mike Thomas proposed that, “Johnny brought a lot of people peace at the end of the day. People loved to laugh. But I think he gave them hope that the world would go on the next day, no matter what was happening.”
Watch the segment below:
Stephen Colbert could have learned a thing or two from Johnny Carson. This clip of Carson has been in heavy rotation on Twitter/X recently, for obvious reasons. It appears to be from an interview Carson did with 60 Minutes, in which he explains why politicizing late night TV would be a horrible idea.
Johnny Carson understood his platform wasn’t for serious issues and didn’t fall into the trap other late night hosts have. pic.twitter.com/fLRJlvsxpV
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) June 12, 2025
I’ll leave you with this clip of Rodney Dangerfield cracking Johnny up on The Tonight Show in 1979. If you want to skip Dangerfield’s standup set, just go to the 4:00 mark:
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Craig Ferguson was as close as anybody got to Carson, besides Leno. I didn’t think Letterman was all that good, too enamored of himself. The rest are no where near Carson.
I never understood Letterman and watched the show just a few times.
Johnny was the King of Kings.
Letterman was too New York City, IMO. While Carson was in LA, it tried to keep it broadly appealing.
carson was about fun
the left…not so much
You could watch Johnny Carson and not know his politics (Republican, apparently)
Unlike Gutfeld and Limbaugh, who wore their politics on their sleeves.
and your point is?
The GREAT Rush Linbough was a LOT of things, but being a working comedian wasn’t one of those things!
Yes he was. I saw him in person twice on stage in his early years. He was hilarious. Women even removed their panties and threw them on the stage where he was. He assured everyone in the audience that he was not a politician, that he would never run for political office, that his show was all about entertainment, and that people should not read more into it than that.
Limbaugh also managed to be correct about almost everything.
You’re just jealous because the women you meet key your car.
Yes, so?
First, Gutfeld is not in the past tense–he is still the leader in late night talk shows. He is open about whom he supports but allows that others are welcome to have differing opinions without engendering hate. He deals in the single most effective sort of humor: self-deprecation. When was the last time Colbert admitted he was wrong or laughed at his own foibles? And, Gutfeld almost nightly jokes about Chris Christie’s weight. When did Colbert ever take a swipe at Jerry Nadler’s rotundity?
russ wasn’t a late night host moron
he was political. good gravy
call back under ur rock
People like you just don’t get it. Limbaugh was Limbaugh because of the ever-increasing march to the left by NSM. FOX followed.
Gutfeld is Gutfeld because of people like Colbert and Kimmel.
“His audience, more than triple the size of all three current network late night shows combined, made him the national agenda setter of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.”
And *that* was the problem. The (broadly) “left” saw this as a way to “nudge” the electorate in directions they ultimately didn’t want to go.
Carson didn’t set an agenda, except by accident. He rode the zeitgeist for content, he wasn’t the vanguard. Colbert, et. al. don’t understand that.
A story about the reach of Carson: My wife put herself through college, working for the phone company in NY City by day, going to school at night, an hour commute home, a bite to eat, and doing her homework while watching Carson. One day her French teacher asked her to put her homework on the blackboard. Apparently, it was not up to par and the teacher asked her, “Did you do this while watching Johnny Carson?” She had and remembers it with a chuckle.
The difference is that Carson was funny, and smart enough not to alienate half of his potential audience right out the gate.
Michael Jordan knows what Carson did. “Republicans buy my shoes too”
Don’t come out of the gate alienating half your potential market.
beat me too it.
was going to put that up
Was this CBS’ way of saying to Colbert, “No, this really is just about you”?