{"id":55654,"date":"2025-02-10T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-10T12:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=55654"},"modified":"2025-02-03T09:51:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T15:51:13","slug":"adventures-in-carsonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/adventures-in-carsonia\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in Carsonia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Reliable, dependable, and comforting when not on prolonged vacations, Johnny Carson tucked a nation of millions in for three decades.\u00a0 \u201cThe Prince\u201d stuffed his hands in his pockets and cornerstoned his career as the impish smirking naughty kid.\u00a0 He constructed a godlike level of cool, descending from his everyman persona. The key?\u00a0 His unabashed knack for self-deprecation, routinely forking over his dignity for the audience.\u00a0 And they revered him for it.\u00a0 It was funnier when the joke didn\u2019t<\/u> work, and when he skewered his failed nuptials.\u00a0 Johnny was in on the joke, contrary to all the prior self-serious talking heads.<\/p>\n

When I thought I had enjoyed the definitive tell-all of Johnny, lo and behold Carson the Magnificent<\/a> came out this past November.\u00a0\u00a0 You get to hear the origins of everything\u2026.from the pantomimed golf swing to the iconic \u201cheeeeere\u2019s Johnny.\u201d\u00a0 And then there\u2019s experienced pitchman Ed, gameshow host and emcee with the boisterous guffaw, second only to that Dick Clark kid.\u00a0 Fun fact: fans expected Johnny to be diminutive, since he always stood next to his 6\u2019 4\u201d WWII Naval Aviator second banana.<\/p>\n

At times the late author Bill Zehme desperately wants you to know he had a high SAT verbal score.\u00a0 And I guess that\u2019s okay for the New Yorker crowd.\u00a0 We learn when you get past the starlets and palatial estates he was just a journeyman Nebraska magician with a ca-ca eating grin.\u00a0 His mother\u2019s cold-hearted cruelty ruined his adult relationships.\u00a0 After a couple drinks, he inherited this maternal trait.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And when he said he was done, he meant it.<\/p>\n

Not to belabor the point, but sample the magic Monday through Friday on antenna tv WQAD 8.2 at 9PM.\u00a0 And Saturdays at 10p!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reliable, dependable, and comforting when not on prolonged vacations, Johnny Carson tucked a nation of millions in for three decades.\u00a0 \u201cThe Prince\u201d stuffed his hands in his pockets and cornerstoned his career as the impish smirking naughty kid.\u00a0 He constructed a godlike level of cool, descending from his everyman persona.[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[9790,9789,676],"class_list":["post-55654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-staff-picks","tag-bill-zehme","tag-carson-the-magnificent","tag-nonfiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-etE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55654"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55660,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55654\/revisions\/55660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}