Post by Diane Merkel on Nov 9, 2006 10:25:19 GMT -6
The source for the following is www.tommcmahon.net/2006/11/johnny_carson_a.html . Does anyone remember this?
Early in his tenure as "The Tonight Show" host, Johnny Carson ran a sketch about General Custer and his famous Last Stand that, by all accounts, was the worst sketch he ever did. Even years and years later, he and Ed McMahon would often joke about it when something didn't go right on the show. Just how bad was the Custer Sketch? Consider this anecdote:
While interviewing Johnny Carson one day several years after his retirement, Esquire's Bill Zehme visited Carson's office, taking note of various artifacts on display (including a bronzed rubber chicken presented to him by his writers).
"My favorite curio in the room, however, was a rectangular plexiglass box containing an actual old disintegrating rubber chicken, symbolizing Comedy, and a wooden arrow, left over from a bad Custer sketch, symbolizing Failure; he had kept both hidden behind his 'Tonight Show' desk since very early on as a private irony check.
"Last year [in 2001], he also brought in his bounty of awards and trophies because he didn't want them around the house...
"Upon vacating the office, he sent the whole cache, plus all wall hangings, to the Elkhorn Valley Historical Society in his hometown of Norfolk, Nebraska.
"'Awards and such make me uncomfortable,' he will say, blanching, 'I figured if these nice people in Norfolk want them and can do something with them, then fine - take 'em.' The chicken and arrow, meanwhile, went back to his house."