JOHNNY CARSON Farewell Tonight Show LA Times Full Paper

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For its first ten years Carson's Tonight Show was based in New York City with occasional trips to Burbank, California; in May 1972 the show moved permanently to Burbank. The Tonight Show has continued to this day under a largely identical structure with Conan O'Brien as host.

Carson did not have guests on his final episode of The Tonight Show. An estimated 50 million people watched this retrospective show, which ended with him sitting on a stool alone on the stage, curiously similar to Jack Paar's last show.

During his final speech, Carson told the audience that he hoped to return to television with another project and that hopefully "will meet with your approval", and a few weeks after the final show aired it was announced that NBC and Carson had struck a deal to develop a new series, but ultimately he chose never to return to television with another show of his own. He only gave two major interviews after retiring. One was in 1993, another in 2002. Carson hinted in the December 1993 interview which was with Tom Shales of the Washington Post that he did not think he could top what he had already accomplished.

Carson appeared briefly on Bob Hope's 90th birthday special on NBC and did a voiceover as himself on The Simpsons on Fox, both in May 1993. He spoke to David Letterman via telephone on Letterman's Late Show on CBS in November 1993. Carson followed that with an appearance on the Kennedy Center Honors on CBS in December 29, 1993 to receive a lifetime achievement award. He never spoke and only sat in the balcony with President and Mrs. Clinton and the other honorees. During Letterman's week of shows in Los Angeles on CBS in May 1994, Carson passed by in a car during a skit early in the week and then walked onto the set on a later show to hand Dave the Top Ten list. He never spoke, citing laryngitis afterward, but received a long standing ovation from the live audience. It was Carson's last television appearance ever. A few months before Carson's death, Letterman announced that Carson had been sending jokes to the show in the last several years, and on Letterman's first show following Carson's death, the entire monologue featured the jokes that had been secretly penned by Carson.

Johnny Carson died of complications from emphysema on January 23, 2005 at age 79.

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