The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (TV Series)

Donald Sutherland/Martin Mull (1983)

Johnny Carson: Self - Host, Billy, Governor, 'Gross Moments' Spokesman

Quotes 

• Johnny Carson : [after Martin Mull's performance]  Did a light go out when you were sitting out there? One of our lights also went out.

  Martin Mull : How'd I look?

  Johnny Carson : You looked very nice.

  Martin Mull : Really?

  Ed McMahon : Nice in shadows.

  Martin Mull : Kind of a swarthy kind of quality?

  Johnny Carson : Kind of gives you that, y'know, medieval type of quality. Is NBC trying to tell us something? The tape disappeared, the light...

  Martin Mull : Yeah, I heard those tapes are missing.

  Johnny Carson : This is the way, you know, when you're on your way out.

  Martin Mull : I think what you ought to do is keep those tapes missing for weeks and weeks and weeks, get a lot of press behind it, and run it as a special.

  Johnny Carson : [laughs]  Just the two tapes.

• Johnny Carson : Bobby, the tape we were gonna play for The Mighty Carson Art Players?

  [Bobby replies, "Yesss?"; Ed laughs] 

  Johnny Carson : Nevermind the Frank Nelson impression. "MMYESSSSS? What IS it?"

  Ed McMahon : No no, he'll have a definitive answer, something technical. Probably technical.

  Johnny Carson : Was it some kind of mechnical or technical problem?

  [Bobby replies, "They lost it."] 

  Ed McMahon : "They". You wonder who "they" are.

  Johnny Carson : Wonder who "they"...

  [Bobby says, "They just FOUND it!"] 

  Johnny Carson : They what? They just found it?

  [audience cheers] 

  Johnny Carson : All right, we'll do it fifteen or twenty minutes from now.

  Ed McMahon : Oh! No one will leave now!

  Johnny Carson : Okay.

  [reading card] 

  Johnny Carson : I have a note here: They lost Martin Mull. Okay, my first guest... The Mighty Carson Art Players WILL appear here tonight, we THINK, unless somebody loses it between now and midnight. A distinct possibility the way things are going.

• Johnny Carson : [after the Mighty Carson Art Players sketches]  I want to think Noel Coward for writing our last sketch.

  Martin Mull : That's from "Taste Takes a Holiday", isn't it?

  Johnny Carson : We have risen to new depths.