{"id":8727,"date":"2014-03-19T15:37:53","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T15:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ewanspence.com\/blog\/?p=8727"},"modified":"2014-03-19T15:37:53","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T15:37:53","slug":"remembering-the-sis-boom-bah-of-late-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/2014\/03\/remembering-the-sis-boom-bah-of-late-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering the ‘Sis… Boom… Bah…’ of late-night"},"content":{"rendered":"

Delightful archive article from 1978 on The Tonight Show<\/a>, and a look at Johnny Carson’s reign on late-night US television. I wonder if we’ll look back at Fallon’s time with such detail and honesty?<\/p>\n

During the monologue on May 11, 1977, he finds, as sometimes happens, that certain words are emerging from his mouth in slightly garbled form. He wrinkles his brow in mock alarm, shrugs, and presses on to the next sentence: \u201cYetserday, U.S. Steel announced. . .\u201d He pauses, realizing what he has said, turns quizzically to McMahon, and observes, \u201c \u2018Yesterday\u2019 is not a hard word to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Facing the camera again, he goes on, \u201cYesterday\u2014all my troubles seemed so far away . . .\u201d Only now he is singing\u2014singing, unaccompanied, the celebrated standard by John Lennon and Paul McCartney: \u201cNow it looks as though they\u2019re here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday.\u201d By this time, the band, which was clearly taken by surprise, has begun to join in, at first raggedly but soon improvising a respectable accompaniment. Warming to his berserk task, Carson does not stop until he has reached the end of the chorus.<\/p>\n

He resumes the monologue: \u201cNow, what was I talking about? Oh, yes. Yesterday . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

But no sooner has the word passed his lips than Doc\u2019s combo, determined not to let him off the hook, strikes up the melody again. Undaunted, Carson plunges into the second chorus. Having completed it, he silences the musicians with a karate chop. There is loud applause, followed by an extended pause.<\/p>\n

Where can he go from here? Cautiously feeling his way, he continues, \u201cabout twelve hours ago, U.S. Steel announced . . .\u201d And successfully finishes the gag. Everyone in the studio is laughing, not so much at the joke as at the sight of Carson on the wing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Delightful archive article from 1978 on The Tonight Show, and a look at Johnny Carson’s reign on late-night US television. I wonder if we’ll look back at Fallon’s time with such detail and honesty? During the monologue on May 11, 1977, he finds, as sometimes happens, that certain words are emerging from his mouth in slightly garbled form. He wrinkles his brow in mock alarm, shrugs, and presses on to the next sentence: \u201cYetserday, U.S. Steel announced. . .\u201d He pauses, realizing what he has said, turns quizzically to McMahon, and observes, \u201c \u2018Yesterday\u2019 is not a hard word to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[25,576],"tags":[1114,520,1180,1117],"class_list":["post-8727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-link-log","category-mainstream-media","tag-johnny-carson","tag-new-yorker","tag-profile","tag-tonight","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p58Gl0-2gL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ewanspence.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}