How Five Minutes with Red Skelton Changed Johnny Carson’s Career
Original Airdates: Jan. 16-19, 2026
TVC 721.2: Ed welcomes Mark Malkoff, host of the award-winning Carson Podcast and the author of Love Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan’s Journey to Find The Genius Behind the Legend, a deep dive into Johnny Carson’s thirty-year reign as host of The Tonight Show that includes interviews with more than four hundred Tonight Show personnel, including staff members, production people, writers, friends, and such Tonight Show guests as Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, Bob Saget, Larry King, Michael J. Fox, Paula Poundstone, Loni Anderson, and many, many others. Love Johnny Carson is available wherever books are sold through Dutton Books. Topics this segment include the prominent role that Carson’s second wife, Joanne, played in helping Johnny become host of The Tonight Show in 1962; how powerful Joanne was behind the scenes of The Tonight Show, especially during the New York years; and how a surprise appearance by Red Skelton on Carson’s Coffee Break, a five-minute show that Carson hosted for Los Angeles station KNXT in the early 1950s, changed the trajectory of Johnny’s career.
The “Surprise Guest” Segment of The Johnny Carson Tonight Show
Original Airdates: Jan. 16-19, 2026
TVC 720.3: Mark Malkoff, host of the award-winning Carson Podcast and the author of Love Johnny Carson, talks to Ed about why Johnny Carson often had a “surprise guest” during the early years of hosting The Tonight Show; how Carson’s writers often approached writing the monologue differently whenever a guest host hosted the show in Johnny’s absence; Carson’s secret philanthropy; and his legendary generosity toward up-and-coming comedians.
Love Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan’s Journey to Find The Genius Behind the Legend is available wherever books are sold through Dutton Books.
The Night When Johnny Carson Upstaged Don Rickles
Original Airdates: Jan. 23-26, 2026
TVC 722.4: Part 2 of a conversation that began last week with Mark Malkoff, host of the award-winning Carson Podcast and the author of Love Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fan’s Journey to Find The Genius Behind the Legend, a deep dive into Johnny Carson’s thirty-year reign as host of The Tonight Show. Topics this segment include why the act of Carson inviting young comedians to join him on the couch after performing their set had a much greater impact in Los Angeles than when the show was based in New York; how Doc Severinson became Johnny’s band leader in 1967; why Ed McMahon’s relationship with Carson was “friendly, yet fearful”; and the back story behind the night in December 1976 when Carson barged onto the set of Don Rickles’ NBC series C.P.O. Sharkey (which was taping next-door to The Tonight Show) after realizing that Rickles had broken after the cigarette box on Carson’s Tonight Show desk the night before. Love Johnny Carson is available wherever books are sold through Dutton Books.
