[ChefKeith]

marking for later read

[Pablo64]

"A triple and a double, catcher's and fielder's, and Dolly Parton"

"Name two big hits, two big mitts.....and a famous country singer!"

[Revolting cat!]

All written by a flunky, read off a teleprompter. How funny!

[JPJones]

When Rodney Dangerfield was on. He sits down, Johnny says 'how are things?' ..Rodney goes thru every joke in his repetoire for 5 minutes non-stop. At the end Johnny just stops laughing and says "...anything else...".
Rodney: "Naw I'm done bring out the next guy."

Lol!

[LearnsFromMistakes]

Johnny commented on McDonalds 'Over x Million Served' sign. Said that if they kept selling burgers at this pace, they were gonna have to get another cow.

I was young, and that was hilarious...

[Daaave]

Any Karnak skit.

As Art Fern, in a "Tea-Time Movie" comercial, "You don't have a job, we don't care! You don't have credit, we don't care! You don't make your payments, then we care!" Mr. Carson would slam his pointer on the counter, one time breaking it.

When Mr. Carson was asked which political party he belonged to, he said he belonged to the Whig Party.

When talking about death, Mr. Carson said, "I believe that when I die, I'm going to a garage in Bakersfield."

I have the Johnny Carson tape, '80s &' 90s, with Bette Midler as his final guest. It was certainly worth every penney.

[bad company]

Easily the funniest gag I ever saw was just after Reagan bombed Lybia. France refused to allow our jets to use their airspace. The next night Carson suggested American tourists avoid french airspace. The french were rather aggravated and the french embassy issued a terse statement. The next night Carson had on a ""french tourism envoy". Shortly after the guy started speaking Carson hit him in the face with a pie. OMG!!!! My heart stopped. We've just gone to war with france!?! Turns out the guy was just an actor playing a part. Classic.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump
To read later

[BigSkyFreeper]

George Gobel, "You ever get the feeling that life is a tuxedo, and you are the pair of brown shoes?"

[Keith in Iowa]

[mwyounce]

I remember while discussing the laws of supply and demand in my college microeconomics class, the prof told the story of when Johnny Carson caused a toilet paper shortage....

Here's the story from a web site:

It actually all started as a joke. Johnny Carson was doing his typical NBC Tonight Show monologue on December 19, 1973. 

Heeeere's Johnnnnnny.... 

Of course, Johnny, like most talk show hosts, had a staff that helped write his monologue. His writers had heard earlier in the day about a Wisconsin congressman named Harold Froehlich. Froelich claimed that the federal government was falling behind in getting bids to supply toilet paper and that "The United States may face a serious shortage of toilet tissue within a few months". 

His writers decided to include a joke based on this quote in Carson's monologue. He said "You know what's disappearing from the supermarket shelves? Toilet paper. There's an acute shortage of toilet paper in the United States." 

Too bad they couldn't see the consequence of this statement. You may not be aware if you are young, but the early 1970's was a time of shortages - oil in particular. The next morning, many of the 20 million television viewers ran to the supermarket and bought all the toilet paper they could find. By noon, most of the stores were out of stock! Stores tried to ration the stuff, but they couldn't keep up with demand. 

Johnny Carson went on the air several nights later and explained that there was no shortage and apologized for scaring the public. Unfortunately, people saw all the empty shelves in the stores, so the stampede continued. 

Scott Paper showed video of their plants in full production to the public and asked them to stay calm - there was no shortage. The video was of little help. The panic fed itself and continued. 

They finally got the shelves restocked three weeks later and the shortage was over. It is the only time in American history that the consumer actually created a major shortage (I don't think that the "shortage" of Barbie or Power Ranger dolls at Christmas time could be classified as a real shortage!). 

And to think that it all started as a joke.

source: http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/toilet_paper/

[Michael.SF.]

Not a Carson line, but a great moment:

Karnack: Please, Karnack, must have complete silence.

Riiippppp

'Karnack' then delivers answer (long forgotten by now).....

Audience: dead quiet

Ed: hmmm, there is the complete silence that the great Karnack desired.

[Gum Shoe]

My favorite JC moment was during his interview with Diane Cannon. Apparently he had been dating her, and then she broke it off for some reason. She had since started dating some other star (who's name I can't recall). When she mentioned this to Johnny during the interview, he asked her "What does he have that I haven't got?". Dianne's face froze, eyes wide, and then she began to laugh hysterically. Carson's face was a red as I've ever seen it! He could take it as well as dish it out. That one was pretty damn funny to me.

[Walkingfeather]

I think one of the funniest bits was when Carson had a lady on that collected patato chips that were shaped like different things. ( lincolns profile and such) She had been collecting them for years. As she is explaining to the audience one of her favorites you can hear carson bite into a patato chip. There was a ghastly look of horror on this womans face and that suprised look from Johnny. Then with perfect comdedic timing he reaches behind the desk and pulls up his own bowl of chips like... " Oh sorry just having a snack" It was a perfect practicle joke.

[beyond the sea]

I'm lost......... I took the Slawson Cutoff.

*******

Heaven is a funnier place today with Johnny there.

[ru4liberty]

It was so cold today.

How cold was it?

It was so cold, a flasher came up to me and described himself.

[Cornjonny]

One of my favorite Carson moments was when Ed Ames was demonstrating how to throw a tomahawk, only to hit a cardboard dummy in the crotch.

Carson replied: “I didn’t even know you were Jewish.”

[MadelineZapeezda]

A show where children, parents and granparents could all watch at the same time together........will never happen again!

Remember when he was showing a little boy magic tricks on how to make a quarter dissappear and the amazed boy asked"could you make a million dissappear?" to which Johnny quickly uttered "Yea, get married!"

[RightRules]

Definitely among the top three funniest things I've ever seen: His eulogy to Roget (a la Roget's Thesaurus). "... celebrating the life of our friend, Roget, who has departed us, passed away, yes, he's checked out, left the building, pushing up daisies, he's makin' that call from the horizontal phone booth, parkin' the bronze bus, takin' that last spin in the brass-handled sedan..." and at least 50 other descriptions...

[MadelineZapeezda]

RIP,Johnny. You were one of a kind.

Read more on his "Medal of Freedom" Award given to him by Pres. Bush in 1992