So there's a 100th Birthday Celebration Party thing going on for his 100th Birthday. I was pretty sure he died, had to check. Dead. Sounds pointless. Unless there's free cake and I can get some.
I’ll celebrate Carson because I remember when late night television was not 100% about politics. No wonder people like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert are losing audiences. Happy Birthday Johnny.
This is, of course, revisionist history about Johnny Carson. Carson did bits about politics very frequently. It is not 100 percent about politics now or close to it. Even accepting for argument's sake that the late night shows are more about politics now than they were in Carson's heyday, there's about a half-dozen contributing factors that I'd suspect: 1. The politicians and political actions of Carson's heyday were more moderate. If there was someone doing what Trump is doing now on a daily basis, there would be many more jokes made about that person. 2. Carson's persona is probably more moderate than anyone who has been on the air for the last 30 years in terms of late night TV 3. The Fairness Doctrine and network oversight was much more upfront than it is now.
George Carlin was on 60's Carol Burnett in his ascot days, and did some pretty biting satire that'd be right at home on Daily Show. Laugh-In was sneaky, and winky, but their whole existence was about pissing on Nixon. Then there was Smothers Brothers. They got Colbert-ed. Then, for the 80's (still under Johnny's timeframe) Richard Belzer had a talk show, and his monologues were always openly anti-Reagan. The resistance has always had to dodge fireballs, but its been there.
Carson did political skits on occasion, but he wasnt blatently biased and they were no where near the frequency like we see now. He said himself on a 60 minutes interview that comedians should never partisan preach to their audience and always viewed his show as an escape. Plus late night had went partisan left LONG before Trump entered the political arena. Jay Leno was the last host who followed Carsons lead and when he retired lae night TV ended for many.
The things I cited in the post you quoted all help explain your perception of how things have gotten more political. Pretty sure most, if not every monologue Carson did, probably had jokes about the sitting president or various politicians. The main difference is that the jokes were less pointed. Those milder jokes were probably a byproduct primarily of Carson being a mellower guy (or having a mellower style at least) than successors, of the target being less juicy/crazy than Trump. I tend to doubt that if Nixon/Carter/whoever did some of the stuff that Trump has done, Carson would have not been making as many jokes as the current crop of comedians and as pointed a set of jokes as they are now. If Nixon/Carter or whoever you named tried to pull
