Johnny Carson

 

Johnny Carson

Let’s concede that Johnny Carson had no competition when he took over the nation’s bedrooms back in the ’60s. Now that we’ve spent more than a decade with Letterman and Leno, there’s little doubt that Carson would still be our first choice from 300 channels of late-night diversions. “The Tonight Show” had been around long before his long hosting stint began, but Carson elevated the art of the celebrity interview. Carson represented millions of befuddled Americans as he steered his couch through the social upheavals of the ’60s and ’70s. He was relentlessly polite while constantly testing the shifting boundaries of double entendres—and his younger guests’ gullibility, as best illustrated when Carson tried to gently inform Susan Sarandon that her guru probably didn’t really live on oxygen, and likely occasionally snuck away to get something to eat.

The power of Carson’s nightly monologue has been exaggerated over the years, but he still famously created a panic when joking about a toilet-paper shortage. Still, none of his imitators could ever create memorable characters like movie host Art Fern and psychic Karnak the Magnificent. His floundering during the 1980s couldn’t be blamed on declining talent. Instead, he—along with network brass—made the fatal error of trying to phase out reliable older guests in favor of younger talents who were effectively nonentities. Carson didn’t seem like an antiquity because he was out of touch; he seemed like an antiquity because he was feigning interest in celebrities who were already damn boring while still in their 20s. At least Carson was spared talking with contestants from reality shows when he retired in 1992. America was still grateful that Carson got more than a decade of proper rest before his death at the beginning of 2005. —J.R. Taylor

Richard Pryor

There weren’t many great meetings of minds back in the ’60s. One of the most important occurred when famous folkie Phil Ochs went to a posh fundraiser in Beverly Hills. A young black man in a waiter’s uniform brushed past Ochs while muttering about how all the good guilty liberals could “at least pay the help.” Then the waiter went straight up to the podium and continued his complaints in the form of a vicious stand-up routine. Ochs would later commit suicide as he grew weary of addressing leftist hypocrisy. Richard Pryor was just getting started.

The holy trinity of controversial comics will always consist of Pryor, Lenny Bruce, and George Carlin. Of those three, only Pryor rates proper respect. He’d already scared enough Hollywood figures to be denied the lead role in Blazing Saddles after co-writing the screenplay back in 1974. (To be fair, Clifton Davis was probably the smarter choice as a comedic leading man.) Pryor would have to wait until 1976 before he finally broke through with Gene Wilder in Silver Streak, and only became a proper movie star when the pair returned for 1980′s Stir Crazy. In the meantime, his turns on “Saturday Night Live” and his own short-lived NBC series—along with 1979′s Live in Concert—were legendary comic encounters that, sadly, would be censored today as contrary to good leftist sensibilities.

Then things fell apart. Pryor quickly lost control of the weak grasp he had on reality and succumbed to a wide assortment of vices. By the release of 1981′s Bustin’ Loose, his confused state and resultant debts had already made him a willing pawn of the film studios. A series of lame comedies and indulgent projects squelched Pryor’s rising star—and nothing had changed when Pryor attempted a comeback in useless vehicles such as Critical Condition and Moving. In the end, Pryor’s legacy is that early stage work. The first few comedy albums are still out there, and Pryor remains untouchable as a truly original angry comic. —J.R.T.

Richard Pryor (click for larger version)

 

Pope John Paul II

Nobody lets a Pope pass without plenty of attention. Still, let’s take the time to celebrate Pope John Paul II—born Karol Wojtyla—as the first Pope who spent his career as a pop-culture icon. Over the course of his 26-year reign, he would release CDs, have his early plays performed, and star in his very own comic book. He’d also be played by Albert Finney in 1984 and Jon Voight (in what would became a posthumous salute) last year. Don’t forget the accessories, either. John Paul’s bulletproof Popemobile became an iconic symbol after an assassination attempt, and his face adorned such fine Popeabilia as neckties and waterproof digital watches. He also appeared with Bruce Willis in 1998′s Armageddon. Pope Benedict XVI already has a hard act to follow. —J.R.T.

Rosa Parks

Fed up with being pushed around by white people, a weary 42-year-old Rosa Parks told a white man “no” when he demanded that she surrender her seat to him on a Montgomery bus in 1956. She was fined $10 for refusing. Within days, Parks’ simple but courageous stance launched a bus boycott in the city.

Her later years found a more litigious Parks. In 1999 she sued the band Outkast for using her name without her permission in the song “Rosa Parks.” After having the case initially thrown out, she later hired famed attorney Johnnie Cochran. The case was eventually settled with Outkast paying an undisclosed sum. The 2002 film Barbershop featured Cedric the Entertainer as a cranky barber who argues that Parks was not the first to refuse to give up her seat and had received the notoriety because she was an NAACP secretary. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton led a boycott of the movie until NAACP president Kweisi Mfume said he thought the controversy was blown out of proportion. An irate Parks skipped the 2003 NAACP Image Awards, hosted by Cedric the Entertainer. —Ed Reynolds