A tribute to Johnny Carson by James Randi
A very bright light in my life has gone out.
Forgive me if what follows is a little disorganized, but I've just heard that we've lost Johnny Carson. It doesn't seem possible. We were in touch just a week ago.
I'm dropping this into the web page as a sort of catharsis. The phone has been ringing incessantly, and I'm hardly able to speak coherently to those who express their grief and shock.
Just a few years ago I asked John about his triple bypass and how it was affecting his life. Typically, he told me that it had made such a difference to him in so many ways, that he would recommend it to everyone, "whether they need it or not." I now regret that I was never able to ask him a burning question: whether he'd given up smoking. I suspect he hadn't, since those of us who appeared on his show were well aware that he smoked all through the taping, concealing that fact by waiting until the camera was on a guest and would probably stay there for at least 30 seconds. There was an exhaust fan under the desk, always a lit cigarette within reach, and the audience had been prompted to simply not notice that he was smoking in between camera shots. I mention this because it seems pretty evident that tobacco got the man, as it does so many of us. It makes me hate the product — and those who promote it — even more than I did previously; it took away my father, too.
John was generous, kind, and caring. The JREF received several checks — 6-figure checks — from this prince, because he really believed in what we were doing, he followed our web page closely, and he would call every now and then with comments and suggestions for subjects he believed to be important. The phone will never again give me the delight of hearing his voice, and that is the burden I will have to live with. I will miss him more than I can say.
There was always a bit of mystery connected with my appearances on the show. John would never wish to meet guests before they actually walked out onto the set, but I was accustomed to hearing at tap on the door about 10 minutes before airtime, opening it to find him standing there. He was thoughtful enough to want to ask me what I wished to promote during my appearance, and always had some sort of anecdote to share with me. Once, after he'd left my dressing room, I was asked by the prop man, "Do you know where the body's hidden, or something?" He just couldn't understand why John had broken his rule in my case.
When the famous expose of Peter Popoff occurred on his show, conditions had been somewhat changed over those that usually applied. Earlier that afternoon I had met with Fred DeCordova, his director, I had shown him the video footage that we had exposing Popoff's scam, and when Fred said that he would show the video to Johnny, I'd suggested that it might be better to surprise him. "No," Fred had insisted, "Johnny doesn't like surprises." "Well, just think for a moment about the expression he'll have on his face," I told him. That did it. We went on-camera that evening without Johnny knowing the big surprise — that Popoff had a concealed receiver in his ear. John let out an expletive that was dropped out of the tape before it was broadcast later in the evening, and DeCordova had to agree that we'd made the right decision.
John and I were fond of pertinent quotations. We'd exchange them by e-mail or phone, really, I suspect, trying to out-quote one another. Here's one I'll send him right here and now:
Love is a bad tenant for one's bosom; for when compelled to quit, he always leaves the mansion more or less out of repair. — C. F. Hoffman 1806-1884
I loved you, Johnny. We all did.
Yes, I'm rambling because I just don't know what else to say. I will miss Johnny Carson like no other person in my life. He was such a good man, one of my minor gods, and a good friend that I regret to say I did not meet again in person after he left TV so long ago. Just one small example, if I may, of how generous he was. When I called and asked him if he might place a telephone call to Martin Gardner on that gentleman's 90th birthday, John had no hesitation agreeing to do so. "I've got most of his books," he told me, "and it'll be fun to speak with him." They did speak, on the afternoon of Martin's birthday, for some 20 minutes. That's the kind of gentleman that Johnny Carson was.
John, I will miss you, as will so many millions here and around the world, but your legacy lives on. I've just run out of words.
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Well, he's done it again, folks. When I returned from Italy, I found the usual pile of mail awaiting me, and one small hand-addressed envelope from Johnny Carson. In his letter, referring to a recent appearance by speaking-to-dead-folks John Edward on a popular TV show, Johnny expressed dismay at the acceptance afforded such a farce. The enclosed very generous check expressed his willingness — again — to support the work of the JREF. We are substantially encouraged by Johnny's participation, and we promise that his contribution will be assiduously applied to getting the facts out there to interested persons all over the world. It's so good to have friends, and Johnny Carson is one of The Good Guys who have reached out to us. Sincere thanks.
http://www.randi.org/jr/092702.htmlMonday, November 08, 2004
Most people know that James Randi is legally obligated to give $1,000,000 to the first person who can prove the existence of "paranormal" powers in a properly-constructed test. Not everyone knows that a lot of the money was fronted by his buddy Johnny Carson, who also started out as a professional magician. You can find hundreds of web pages about albino midget bicycle porn, but sadly, far as I can tell, www.randi.org is the only web site that carefully debunks paranormal flim-flammery, with a good sense of humor and regular weekly updates.
http://www.mcnett.org/2004/11/most-people-know-that-james-randi-is.htmlIn 1973, Carson had a legendary run-in with popular psychic Uri Geller when he invited Geller to appear on his show. Carson, an experienced stage magician, wanted a neutral demonstration of Geller's alleged abilities, so, at the advice of his friend and fellow magician James Randi, he gave Geller several spoons out of his desk drawer and asked him to bend them. Geller proved unable, and his appearance on The Tonight Show has since been regarded as the beginning of Geller's fall from glory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_CarsonFIGHTING AGAINST FLIMFLAM
Leon Jaroff
(From: Time Magazine Australia, 1986, June 13, p. 50-52.
Reprinted with permission in Investigator 3, 1988 November)
The studio audience at the Tonight show in Burbank is strangely silent, staring intently at the proceedings on the stage. A shirtless volunteer lies face up on a table, behind which stands a short, balding man with a fringe of white hair, a bushy beard and piercing green eyes. He kneads the exposed abdomen with both hands, presses one thumb down and draws it across the skin. A trickle, then a stream of blood appears. The audience gasps. Now his hand thrusts into the abdomen and, accompanied by a sickening squishing sound, pulls up a clump of bloody tissue. Host Johnny Carson grimaces. A groan of revulsion sweeps the crowded studio; one woman faints.
Again the hands plunge down, bringing up more gore and then a tubular organ, which the bearded man stares at momentarily. "Oh, no! That doesn’t come out," he apologizes, his eyes suddenly twinkling, and pushes it back into the body. The spell is broken and the audience roars, then titters nervously as he proceeds to remove additional gore. Finally he wipes away the blood, revealing an expanse of unbroken, unscarred skin.
What millions of people have just seen is a demonstration of "psychic surgery." The blood had been donated by a volunteer before the show; the "diseased tissue" consisted of shreds of lamb heart, hidden in a tray behind the table and manipulated by the facile hands of a master magician: James ("the Amazing") Randi, 59, conjurer, showman, crusader and America’s most implacable foe of flummery. The props and the techniques are those used by the so-called psychic surgeons of the Philippines, who promise miraculous, painless, lifesaving surgery to lure desperately ill people to their clinics. But what the sufferers get is sleight of hand, not surgery, and Randi’s goal is to spread that message. "These people go to the Philippines," he explains, "they spend their money, and they return home, in most cases to die."
Finally, in 1987, a skeptic named James Randi exposed Popoff's scam on the Johnny Carson Show. The reverend's wife was feeding him info-blurbs on frequency 39.17 MHz, according to an article in Science and the Paranormal magazine. Popoff listened to his wife's transmissions on a tiny earpiece. Ironically, the healer insisted the device was a hearing aid.
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=26408
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