Like most inveterate TV watchers of my generation (or a generation younger, or a generation older), I’m still wrapping my mind around the death on Sunday of Johnny Carson, the man who was both an icon of American television and a deeply and obviously human being with gifts that vastly exceeded (what little we think we know of) his flaws. One of his most remarkable gifts, even greater than his ability to transcend a dying joke with expert timing and delivery, was the ability of this otherwise intensely private man to make public connections with all sorts of people. Steve Martin captures this excellently in his January 25 op-ed in the New York Times:

You knew how to treat everyone, from the pompous actor to the nervous actress, and which to give the appropriate kindness. You enjoyed the unflappable grannies who knitted log-cabin quilts, as well as the Vegas pros who machine-gunned the audience into hysterical fits. You were host to writers, children, intellectuals and nitwits and served them all well, and served the audience by your curiosity and tolerance. You gave each guest the benefit of the doubt, and in this way you exemplified an American ideal: you’re nuts but you’re welcome here.

Martin identifies the profoundly democratic, profoundly American symbol that was Johnny Carson. It’s why, more than a decade after he left broadcast television and disappeared into retirement, Carson still occupies such a prominent place in our cultural memory.

—–