Customer Reviews

Here's Johnny!

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Ed McMahon has written a fitting tribute to a great comedian, Johnny Carson. Ed, who spent almost thirty years with Johnny on the "Tonight Show," gives readers his take on Johnny as a performer and a human being.

Johnny was a difficult man to get to know personally. Ed comments that Johnny felt more at home in front of a camera entertaining 10,000 people than going to a party attended by 10 people. Carson was an extremely private person. McMahon tries his hardest to give us a glimpse of the "real" Johnny.

I cut a star off the review because there are several minor mistakes and goofs in the text. Ed seems to have some trouble with chronological events. Names of individuals are mentioned in the context of the "Tonight Show" before these individuals were well-known. With the number of shows Ed and Johnny did, and the number of guests they had and famous folks they skewered, it's understandable.

I recommend this book to anybody who loved Johnny and misses him. Johnny was unique. At the end of the book, Ed discusses why we'll never see anybody like him again. Certainly none of the current crop of talk-show hosts holds a candle to Johnny. Johnny could be satiric without being mean-spirited. He could be likeable without asking to be liked. He could interview a lady with a collection of "potato chip" people and places, yet still interview a nuclear physicist or philosopher with equal ease and believablity. The only talk-show host in Johnny's league would be the late Steve Allen. Both men were great wits with insatiable curiousities. They were well-read and literate. They were gentlemen, who showed respect and civility to all who sat next to them at the desk. They are missed dearly.

I bought this book within the first week of its release. I was (still am) a big Tonight Show fan when Johnny sat in the chair. This book is a fast read, and I did enjoy the new pictures I had neer seen before. I gave it one star because I bought Ed's first book on Johnny - For Laughing Out Loud. I'm sorry, but I felt like I was reading the same book over. The sad thing is, Ed (in both of his books) tells us all these stories on the tonight show, but it's like a retelling of the 4cd set of the tonight show Johnny put out in 1990's. It's like he can't remember any story besides what is in this cd collection. To make matters worse he repeats most of this info over in this, his second book. If you don't have either book, I would start out with Ed's - For Laughing Out Loud, as you can get this on Amazon for 1 cent.

I loved Johnny Carson. However the book that Ed McMahon wrote just repeats itself over and over, i kept saying to myself "it has to get better" and it never did.

There are some funny spots in it, and it did make me laugh once in awhile.

Miss you JC.

Dave

I enjoyed the book. There may or may not be any new material, but Ed McMahon has written a narrative that covers the 30 years and is a smooth flow of conversation with the reader.and at the end I felt I had a better understanding of Johnny. I must confess a broad perspective - I actually was an audience member of a Jack Phar tonight show., and have watched all of the players from Steve Allen to Johnny. It is difficult to recognize how special something/someone is until it is no longer there. I watch Johnny's successors, and they serve only to remind me how special Johnny was. I do think Ed has done complete justice to his subject, and has gained my admiration for his approach.

Unfortunately, this book is mostly a re-hash of events that took place on the show that we've all seen before on the DVD boxed sets. It gives very little insight into Carson's life or thoughts. Acutally, it doesn't give much insight into McMahon's life or thoughts either. Seems like a hurried attemp to capatalize on the publicity surrounding the recently-departed Carson.

Save your money. If you just have to read it, wait until you can find used copies for a buck or so on amazon.com. I feel cheated.

I have little more to add to the reviewers below. Unfortunately, Mr. McMahon (whom I loved along with Johnny and Doc and Skitch before him) has little more to say than even casual fans of the Carson annniversary shows would already know, but stretched that little out into a book. It is a fast and empty read. I know there are people in the world who think Johnny Carson was not human and did not have a persona except what we saw on the tube or on stage, but surely McMahon doesn't think there were more than two or three. Anyone who saw the last week of Carson's shows must know that this was a complicated man McMahon was dealing with as his subject, but outside of telling us Carson was a complicated man, McMahon never helps us to understand him. Instead, from McMahon's anecdotes, they just sound like frat brothers who have never matured past the age of 21. I was shocked to find out that McMahon admits he had not seen Carson for over a year before he died. These hardly sound like bosom buddies, and the lack of depth of understanding of Carson outside the show (there are a few asides in which Carson admits to anxiety but not much more) is a gaping hole in the narrative. Aside from the photos, one other positive. For those who, like me, were particular fans of Carnac, there are two pages of the best jokes from that series of sketches. I was pleased to read that Ed's favorite Carnac joke was mine too. Regrettably, I can 't recommend doing anything more with this book than looking those two pages up in your local public library in a corner where you can have a good laugh without disturbing other readers while imagining Ed and Johnny delivering those jokes as only they could.

If you want to know the "real" Johnny, this book won't help. One would think that Ed would know many "inside" stories about Johnny, but this book is just a rehash of the skits that were on the TONIGHT SHOW. Nothing new. Nothing earth shattering.

Rent some of the available videos. A better way to spend valuable time.

If you're expecting an in-depth book about the history of the Tonight Show, or a probing look into the mind of Johnny Carson, you will probably be disappointed. If, however, you accept this book for what it is, a series of enjoyable anectodes, often out of sequence and unrelated to each other, you will enjoy it.

No, Ed McMahon will never win a Pulitzer Prize, but reading this book was like sitting down with an older uncle who has led a very interesting life, and listening to him tell stories from the old days. Yes, some facts might be wrong and he might veer from one story to a totally unrelated one as one recollection triggers another one, but he's still fun to listen to.

Ed McMahon was Johnny Carson's second banana on the Tonight Show during the years of the late 1960s thru the1990s.

He wrote a book (and did an audio for Time Warner audio) a few years ago called "For Laughing Out Loud : My Life and Good Times ." In this production, Ed recanted his times with Johnny on the Tonight Show.

His second volume, Here's Johnny (three CDs and one cd-rom, three hours, abridged, Oasis Audio) is half retreads and half new material.

However Ed is a natural storyteller, so even these anecdotes sound semi fresh to someone who has not heard them before.

For those who don't remember the classic Carson tonight show, this will all be new to you.

Bennet Pomerantz AUDIOWORLD

I was disappointed in this book, having been a big Carson fan when Johnny had the helm of the Tonight Show. This book really sounded like Ed had some steak and margaritas with a hack writer and gave him a cut of the profits to put his stories together into a book. I give the two stars for Ed's stated affection for Johnny, and he has a couple of good stories to tell, but he repeats himself quite a bit and after a few chapters I found myself saying "OK Ed, give me some substance". Just a light piece of drivel I wished I didn't waste my time on.