Editing Johnny Carson (section)

=== Comic characters ===
<!-- Commented out: [[File:Carnac.jpg|thumb|Carson as the character "Carnac the Magnificent", mid-1970s]] -->
Carson played several continuing characters on sketches during the show, including:
* '''Art Fern''' was the "Tea Time Movie" announcer,<ref name=EW>{{cite magazine|last=Hibberd|first=James |url= https://ew.com/article/2012/05/14/johnny-carson-pbs-tonight-show-king-of-late-night/ |title='Johnny Carson: King of Late Night' airing tonight: Overrated royalty? A review |magazine=Entertainment Weekly|date=May 14, 2019|access-date=October 19, 2019}}</ref> whose theme song was "[[Hooray for Hollywood]]". Carson once admitted on camera that this was his favorite character, based on late-afternoon movie broadcasts and TV hosts who delivered live commercials throughout the movie. Each sketch usually featured three long commercials interrupted by four-second clips from old silent films. When the camera returned from each clip, Art was always caught off-guard and immediately reminded viewers that they were watching a film favorite. The movies always had unlikely casts and even less likely titles: "[[Slim Pickens]], [[Patti Page]], [[John Wayne|Duke Wayne]], and [[Charlton Heston]] in another classic Western: ''Kiss My Saddle Horn!'' Carson originally played the fast-talking huckster in his own voice (as Honest Bernie Schlock or Ralph Willie (parodying California used-car dealer Ralph Williams), and the sketch was called "The Big Flick."  Carson finally settled on a nasal, high-pitched, smarmy drone, reminiscent of [[Jackie Gleason]]'s "Reginald Van Gleason III" character. The sketch was renamed "Tea Time Movie" and the host became Art Fern, wearing a lavish toupee, loud jackets, and a pencil mustache. Actress [[Carol Wayne]] became famous for her 100-plus appearances (1971–1984) as Art's buxom assistant, the Matinée Lady. While Art gave his spiel, she would enter the stage behind him. Art would react to her attractive body by wincing, loudly shouting "''Ho''&nbsp;— leeeee!" and turning almost everything she said into a sexual [[double entendre]]. After Carol Wayne's accidental death in 1985, Carson kept Art Fern off the air for most of the next year, and finally hired Danuta Wesley and then [[Teresa Ganzel]] to play the Matinée Lady. Carson also used these sketches to poke fun at the intricate Los Angeles interstate system, using a pointer and map to give confusing directions to shoppers, often including points where he would unfold the cardboard map to point out, via the appropriate picture, when the shopper would arrive at "the fork in the road". Another freeway routine in the same theme centered on the "[[California State Route 90#History|Slauson Cutoff]]", a slang term Carson popularized to describe the truncated Marina Freeway (which ended abruptly at Slauson Avenue in Culver City). Art Fern would advise drivers to take a series of freeways until they reached the Slauson Cutoff, and would then advise them to "Get out of your car, cut off your slauson, get back in your car," often followed by peals of laughter from the audience, led by McMahon.
* '''[[Carnac the Magnificent]]''', a [[turban]]ed psychic, could answer questions before seeing them. The character was taken from Steve Allen's essentially identical "Answer Man", which Allen performed during his tenure as host of ''Tonight'' in the 1950s.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=28cMReggGGEC&pg=PA172 |title=The Columbia History of Television|page=172 |publisher=[[Columbia University Press]] |date=2009| last=Edgerton| first=Gary R. |isbn=9780231121651| access-date=October 23, 2011}}</ref> As Allen acknowledged in his book ''The Question Man'', this bit had been created in Kansas City in 1951 by [[Bob Arbogast]] and used on ''The [[Tom Poston]] Show'' in New York where it eventually ended up on ''The Steve Allen Show'', much to the surprise of both Bob and Steve. Carnac had a trademark entrance in which he always turned the wrong direction when coming onstage and then tripped on the step up to Carson's desk. (In one episode, technicians rigged Carson's desk to fall apart when Carnac fell into it.) These comedic missteps were an indication of Carnac's true prescient abilities. McMahon would hand Carson a series of envelopes containing questions, said to have been "hermetically sealed and kept in a mayonnaise jar on [[Funk and Wagnalls|Funk & Wagnalls]]' porch since noon today." Carson would place each envelope against his forehead and predict the answer, such as "[[Gatorade]]". Then, he would read the question: "What does an alligator get on welfare?" Some of the jokes were feeble, and McMahon used pauses after terrible [[pun]]s and audience groans to make light of Carson's lack of comic success ("Carnac must be used to quiet surroundings"), prompting Carson to return an equal insult.  McMahon would always announce near the end, "I hold in my hand the ''last'' envelope," at which the audience would applaud wildly, prompting Carnac to pronounce a comedic "curse" on the audience, such as, "May a flock of wild geese leave a deposit on your breakfast!", "May your sister elope with a camel!", or "May a diseased yak take a liking to your sister". Staff writer [[Pat McCormick (actor)|Pat McCormick]] wrote some of the zaniest Carnac material. One joke had McMahon and Carson nearly rolling on the floor with sustained laughter. The answer was "[[Sis boom bah]]". The question: "Describe the sound made when a sheep explodes."
* '''[[Floyd R. Turbo|Floyd R. Turbo American]]''' (with no pause between words) was a stereotypical common working man, wearing a plaid hunting coat and cap, who offered "editorial responses" to left-leaning causes or news events. Railing against women's rights in the workplace, for example, Turbo would shout: "This raises the question: kiss my [[Dictaphone]]!"
* '''Aunt Blabby''', a cantankerous and sometimes amorous old lady, was an obvious copy of [[Jonathan Winters]]' most famous creation, Maude Frickert, including her black spinster dress and wig. Aunt Blabby was invariably interviewed by straight man Ed McMahon about elder affairs.<ref name=EW /> McMahon would innocently use a common expression such as "check out", only to have Aunt Blabby warn him: "Don't say 'check out' to an old person!"
* '''El Mouldo''', a mentalist, was a revival of Carson's 1960s character The Amazing Dillinger, burlesquing mentalist [[Joseph Dunninger]]. El Mouldo would attempt to perform mind-reading and mind-over-matter feats, all of which failed. Often, his tricks would include an attempt to bilk money from Ed McMahon or would end with his begging the audience for a dollar, or at least bus fare.
* '''The Maharishi''', whose theme song was "[[Sadko (opera)#Principal arias and numbers|Song of India]]", was a frizzy-haired "holy man" who spoke in a high-pitched, tranquil tone, greeted announcer McMahon with a flower, and answered philosophical questions. This was a take-off on [[Maharishi Mahesh Yogi]].
* '''Doctor Dilly''', a feeble-minded physician who dispensed rambling medical advice. Carson imitated stage and radio comedian [[Ed Wynn]] for this character, using a high, cracked voice and a silly giggle.

One time-honored routine was used whenever Carson and a guest toasted each other with glasses of water on the air. Carson would telegraph the joke to the guest: "The king is dead!" Then both would shout "Long live the king!" and take a mouthful of water. Offscreen, Ed McMahon cried, "The king lives!", prompting Carson and the guest to do a [[spit-take]] in mock terror. [[Don Adams]], [[Don Rickles]], [[Mel Brooks]], and [[Dom DeLuise]] engaged in this routine; one of Adams's ''[[Get Smart]]'' episodes was even titled "The King Lives?"