The War for Late Night_ When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter [129]
It was another case of Dave only getting more so. Years earlier, when Dave was better about talking to people, he still avoided dinners with large groups from the show. And if he was out and ran into someone he knew—a frequent guest from his show, say—he would often be thrown and not know what to do, how to go over to the other table and say a simple hello.
Even with his idol, Johnny, the awkwardness could sometimes seep out. Soon after Carson bought his estate in Malibu, which was not far from where Dave had purchased a much more modest home, Dave appeared on The Tonight Show. After the taping, Johnny pointed out that they were neighbors now. “Maybe we should get together,” Johnny said.
“And do what?” Dave asked.
Dave was never less than eloquent when speaking about Johnny Carson, if not to him. He openly admitted to being “in awe” of Carson and how he felt that he literally owed his career to Johnny.
Carson’s had been the vote that sent Dave off to CBS when NBC was still dangling the fever dream of The Tonight Show in front of him in 1993. It was Johnny who had told him that the eighteen-month hold in the deal made it sound bogus, and that he certainly would not have accepted it for himself. That was enough for Dave.
Nobody, not even Jay, really doubted who Carson believed deserved to succeed him, but Johnny himself didn’t have a vote in that. He kept his opinion on the matter private, at least until it was revealed after his death that Carson had regularly submitted monologue jokes to Dave.
That was the handiwork of Peter Lassally, the longtime executive producer for Carson, who took on the same role for Letterman after Johnny retired—first while Dave was still at NBC, and then for a time at CBS. Lassally, whose expertise in broadcasting stretched back to Arthur Godfrey’s days in radio, became Letterman’s chief counselor, advocate, and father figure during the turbulent days after NBC threw Dave over in favor of Jay. Throughout the late nineties and into the next decade, their relationship, like most others involving Dave, cooled and warmed, warmed and cooled. At the same time Lassally, to his delight, was growing much closer to the retired, and now more relaxed, Johnny.
The separation from the show that had been his life and utter preoccupation for thirty years had proved jarring for Carson. Friends reported that it had taken at least six months after he stepped down before Johnny could have a normal day—one in which he didn’t feel the withdrawal pangs. Even after he settled in to his postshow life, however, Carson could not turn off the trenchant comic instincts honed over a lifetime. He would read the paper in the morning, watch the news, hear about some zany event taking place somewhere, and the joke would simply come to him, like music. And what good is a perfectly crafted joke if you can’t tell it to someone?
Johnny took to calling Peter Lassally, sometimes once a week, occasionally several times, when he had one of the monologues down. Over the phone Johnny would read his collection of carefully composed, Carsonesque jokes—perform them, really, just as he would have if he had driven to Burbank, put on his suit, and walked out onstage to read them off cue cards. The performance was just as amusing and appealing as it had always been, the only difference being that now Johnny was not entertaining the multitudes but performing for an audience of one.
Lassally would compliment Johnny of course. As the jokes rolled on, Peter developed another idea. “These jokes are wonderful, Johnny,” Peter would tell him. “You really should start sending these in to Dave.”
Carson dismissed the idea. “No, I can’t do that,” he would say. “I don’t want to force Dave to do it. Dave would feel obligated.”
Lassally could hardly