Why did Johnny Carson harbor so much personal hate toward Joan Rivers

Joan molested him.

His reaction always did seem…extreme. But then by most accounts he was an asshole off screen.

I vaguely remember seeing a show featuring Joan Rivers' career a couple of years ago and it covered the Tonight Show situation. I had always assumed that Johnny Carson was too rough on her and pretty unfair about it all. But, since I didn't pay attention back then, I didn't know that Joan had publicly made a really big deal out of trying to get higher ratings than the Tonight Show, and she played it out nightly as a contest while getting her studio audiences hyped up about it in a tacky, daytime talk show way. It was surprising to see how far she went in trying to make it a competition. Johnny probably felt above all of that (understandably) and didn't appreciate her relegating late-night to such cheap antics.

I think R3 hits at something important. Rivers portrayed herself as poor innocent victim of Carson (again and again and again), but she tried (and not a little bit) to outshine the boss, aware no doubt of Carson's views. She tried to outwit him and circumvent him and he responded in kind.

Johnny could have taken the high road.

Joan's show was 11 to 12 on Fox -- which was just starting out.

Johnny's was 11:30 to 12:30; he wasn't going to lose ratings to her.

He could have said Joan, I wish you well. and taken the high road, publicly, while having his bookers play hardball.

Joan's show would have lasted a few years. Johnny would have continued as king.

But the reality is she was much funnier and more popular.

That's probably what he hated.

It was kind of sleazy for Joan to not even tell him she was leaving until moments before the press conference announcing the new show.

The good times. I loved her appearances with Johnny. Their chemistry together was a great loss.

She probably couldn't tell him until the deal was done.

Was Joan going to be put in Carson's spot after he retired?

She was eight years younger than he was. That matters when Johnny was hitting retirement age.

I'm glad she got back on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon before she died.

[quote]She probably couldn't tell him until the deal was done.

The deal was done. The press and Carson all knew about it. That morning of the press conference she/Edgar decided they better tell him personally what he already knew. She called, Carson hung up on her.

The week before the announcement she had hosted The Tonight Show.

Johnny was a comedian, they are miserable people.

I wonder if part of it was money too. Johnny probably felt he should have First Right of Refusal when it came to producing a show for Joan Rivers.

R5, do you actually believe what you wrote? Just curious...

R7 The Tonight Show Staring Johnny Carson seems like just yesterday. I used to stay up as a kid to watch the monolog. I never really watched the show much after he left, but I would watch Letterman.

[quote][bold]Johnny was a comedian,[/bold]they are miserable people.

So was Joan, R10.

Your point?

Because he hated women.

R12, yes, I believe what I wrote. The time slots. Johnny could have taken the high road. All true.

Was Joan more popular? To her fans, yes. Granted to Johnny's, he was more popular.

But the start-up of Fox showed that there was a new player in town. TV was beginning to get more competitive.

Johnny was threatened for some reason.

If he wasn't, he wouldn't have reacted the way he did.

I was a kid at the time, but I recall something about Joan being told that there was no way she would get the permanent hosting gig when Johnny retired, despite her guest host stints being well-received and highly rated. I think that made her mad, and started the ball rolling. I don't think she was a victim, but Johnny took it too far.

[quote] But the reality is she was much funnier and more popular.

You wrote that knowing full well that if that had been true, then her show would have received higher ratings than his.

But of course it didn't. It flopped.

So why would you have posted such a patently false thing?

Joan was certainly bitter afterwards. I can't countenance this.

Joan Rivers visits Johnny Carson's grave

[quote]It flopped.

There may be some extenuating circumstances associated with that. You're right, the show flopped, but... Fox was a relatively new network at the time and was not available nationwide. The first half hour was up against local news, and then the last half hour was up against The Tonight Show. Plus, Johnny made calls to keep people from being guests on her show. She didn't have a fair playing field.

R19 again. I hadn't watched the full clip when I posted it (Sorry). It's actually very touching. I miss Joan so much.

R18 - Fox was still new at the time and had limited reach. It wasn't fully national and was only on UHF stations in a lot of markets. They didn't even have a prime-time line-up of shows until the next year. And that was only for one night, IIRC. They didn't have a 7 day a week prime-time schedule for several years.

Joan's show was first. And besides ratings, the reason why it was cancelled is because they wanted to fire her husband, which led to arguments, and then they fired both of them.

It was not an apples-to-apples comparison by any means. Joan was saddled with creating a lot of buzz and viewership for basically her show alone - no intro shows before it.

That's not talked about enough. Most advertisers need 80% of national market to buy a national TV ad spot - and they BARELY had that, but on small independent stations with low viewership.

The Fox channel of today was nowhere near what it was then. I recall them coming out the following year with Duets, 21 Jump Street, Tracy Ullman Show, etc - but they didn't have much of any programming when Joan signed on.

[quote]You're right, the show flopped, but...

No "but." It flopped.

Fox's "The Simpsons" was an enormous success and is still with us.

R18, I will give you that Johnny and Joan were DIFFERENT kinds of funny. He was the straight man who had great deadpan reactions.

Joan was funny with great delivery. She didn't just react to the joke she TOLD the joke.

Her ratings were higher than his on The Tonight Show at times.

It's not Joan's fault that there was backstage drama with Fox or that Johnny's producers played hardball with guest bookings all of which led to her show failing.

Joan's comedy is seen on social today everywhere. It holds up.

I'm okay if I never see Johnny, Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise throw pies at each other again.

This isn't about who a person prefers -- Johnny or Joan. It's about how Johnny reacted in such an angry fashion to Joan. He could have taken her call and said, "Listen, kid, I wish you the best." He could have waited for the show to fail. And then, welcomed her back.

Joan was never going to get the Tonight Show. Johnny wanted it both ways. He wanted her to be okay with that and not go off and get her own show.

I think Arsenio Hall and Jay Leno made up after the former said he was going to kick Jay's ass.

Johnny, the aw shucks host we all tuned into for years and years, was pissed at Joan. He never denied what Joan accused him of. It was hard to watch him after he was so abrupt with her.

I prefer Joan's comedy to his.

R23 - the Simpsons started 3 years later in Dec 1989, after being introduced by the Tracey Ullman Show. The network was fully expanded and had almost a full program line-up at that time.

Not the same at all.

Joan's show was the first - and I believe only show - on Fox. It's hard to think how this could be - but I remember Fox only having one or two nights of programming and building it. The rest were re-runs.

It was weird to see a network 'grow' and not have a full slate of programming

She shat in his toupee

Maybe Carson didn’t like her because she was a piece of garbage?

Yeah I’ve heard the whole “women in comedy were oppressed” narrative. It doesn’t make her any less garbage.

R27 - liked her enough to be his go-to fill in host for many years and she got higher ratings when she subbed for him on his show.

You're calling her garbage because of why?

She took a huge gamble, and lost.

Too bad for her. She survived, even if Edgar did not.

R18 In all fairness Fox was only in like 80% of American households at that time.

He had a well-known reputation for being a world class asshole. She (at least in her later years) had a very favorable one with her fans and others that knew her. I've always been Team Joan on this one. I thought he behaved like a misogynistic asshole with the whole thing.

R30 - BARELY 80% - and it was on independent and UHF stations and split the air time with them.

So you really had to remember - oh, there's a new show on this 'old' non-network channel with a talk show host. T

These channels were the ones that played MASH, Brady Bunch, Bewitched, and other old show reruns. And then you have Joan - the only produced show on Fox network - for one hour 5 nights a week.

She single-handedly had to carry the success of the network on her shoulders. There were NO other shows on Fox. None.

He is almost completely forgotten these days, even here on DL.

R19 She says "because I'm a woman" in that video. It's like saying because I'm gay, because I'm Black or because I'm a Jew. Perhaps, rightly or wrongly, Carson felt like she wronged him and it's as simple as that. He certainly seemed interested in helping her out earlier in her career and she was still a woman (and a Jew) even then.

I think Joan and Edgar could have handled it better. Yeah, Johnny was an asshole but he also gave Joan a career. Lack of loyalty stings. In the end, she crashed and burned and spent years rebuilding her career and he ended his reign as the king of late night TV and retired peacefully.