Here's Johnny!

Ed McMahon's book, not surprisingly, is less an appraisal of Johnny Carson than an appreciation done in superlatives and half-remembered anecdotes. Amid the fluff there are nuggets pointing to what made Carson special. His rapid wit and insistence that the show not be overly planned were two halves that made a bigger whole. Late night today lacks anyone who excels at both parts of this equation. Jimmy Fallon has a reasonably quick wit but his show is overplanned; Jimmy Kimmel is lacking on both fronts; Craig Ferguson's show is unplanned (obnoxiously so) but his wit is not sharp, just weird; Conan O'Brien can't pull his eyes off that blue card telling him what to talk about; Letterman hasn't been funny for 25 years; and I'm not sure Leno ever was.