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 | | From: | King Daevid MacKenzie | | Subject: | Johnny | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 14:06:43 -0600 |
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 | ....Johnny Carson was one of the four last direct links we had to the
great funnymen of the radio era (the other three are, of course, Jerry
Lewis, Bob Elliott and Stan Freberg, who _were_ great radio funnymen
themselves). He learned his dramatic craft from extensive study of Bob
Hope, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Red Skelton, The Marx Brothers and Burns &
Allen, and even wrote for Skelton at one point. He blended many elements
of the forms of these performers and carried them into the television
age with bigger impact than anyone else. Of his contemporaries, only
Dick Cavett and David Letterman can legitimately suggest a peership as
far as being a comic who could entertain while carrying on an actual
conversation. As for his successors, well, the less said in comparison
of Leno or Kimmel the better...
--
King Daevid MacKenzie, WLSU-FM 88.9 La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA
http://wpr.org/music/ http://ultimajock.blogspot.com
"Why do people take drugs anymore, when reality has become a
hallucination?" LEWIS BLACK
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