I thought I’d switch and do a little Jay Leno instead of Johnny Carson. In this clip, Jay asks high school students questions about geography, and the girl from Arkansas shows how great the Public School systems are doing.
While playing Mingo on television (the Native American in Daniel Boone), Ed Ames developed some skill in throwing a tomahawk. This led to one of the most memorable moments of his career, when he appeared on The Tonight Show on 29 April 1965. When Ames claimed that he could hit a target from across the room during that show, Carson asked Ames if he could demonstrate this skill. Ames agreed, and a wood panel with a chalk outline of a cowboy was brought on to the stage. Ames proceeded to throw the tomahawk, which hit the “cowboy” in the tip of the crotch. This led to a very long burst of laughter from the audience and Carson’s famous ad-libs; “I didn’t even know you were Jewish!” (which is funny, because Ames was born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents).
This was a show that ran twenty-two years ago. And I thought back then that Don Rickles was old!
Jay Leno often brings laughs with the animals he brings to the show. But, Johnny also brought animals on board, as you can see from this clip with the baby marmoset. This clip is shared with Joan Embery, a woman who maintains an active presence in the preservation of wildlife and the environment.
El Moldo, the really, really bad psychic, one of Johnny Carson’s funniest characters, in a late 1960s or early 1970s Tonight Show skit. Johnny once said that of all the characters he created, El Moldo was his favorite.
