Mark Malkoff is obsessed with Johnny Carson

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0:21I got my iPhone repaired at an Apple store dressed as Darth Vader, and everybody charged at me that worked for Apple, and I thought I was in trouble, but they all wanted photos with Darth Vader. All right, so this guy you were listening to, his name's Mark Malkoff. He is a comic and a writer. His obsession is with late-night television and specifically The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. And for those of you who watched Johnny like I did earlier in my life, you would know that Johnny did some silly stuff. Some of his skits were whimsical, fun. I mean, I could have seen it having like go to Apple store and do crazy shit vibe.

1:01So Mark Malkoff, obsessed with late night TV. It got me thinking about my own obsessions, what I stream religiously. I'm sure that many of you out there stream a lot of stuff and can't stop. Mine's like Law & Order SVU with my wife. The Pit is my show right now. Stranger Things. It's like where do those obsessions not go away in our daily lives and play out in our careers and what we do? so yeah food for thought there so Mark Malkoff he has hosted a podcast called the Carson Podcast he now hosts the Late Night Podcast and he's written a book about his Johnny Carson obsession it's called Love Johnny Carson One Obsessive Fan's Journey to Find the Genius Behind the Legend so this is our chat on David Green's Obsessed with Mark Malkoff his obsession with Johnny Carson we start our conversation though talking about our shared Pennsylvania roots.

1:56Mark and I both have them. He has roots in Hershey, Pennsylvania. For me, it's Pittsburgh and Lancaster. So here's our chat.

2:06Can you clear this up for me? Is the rumor true that the smell of chocolate was artificially pumped out of the streetlights in Hershey to make the town smell like chocolate? No, it's legit. That was absolutely legit chocolate smell. And nobody I have ever met, that I grew up there and ever talk about it. It just was, it was ubiquitous. It was accepted and no one ever mentioned the fact that streetlights are in the shape of Hershey Kisses and... But the shape is one thing, but like the smell, like it, because you would think if you were a visitor that it was just coming from the factory and it was just very charming.

2:43But I mean, I think it was artificially created. I'm not really sure. I should know this as I graduated of Hershey High School and working at Hershey Park. No one in my, in my investigative journalism around this topic have been able to confirm or deny this, but I just thought maybe you'd be my guy. Yeah, but I was at Hershey Park. I went to Chocolat World. I've probably gone hundreds of times and concerts at Hershey Park Stadium. U2 was there for eight days. Oh, Jimmy Buffett, Alan Jackson in Hershey. Like one of the best concerts I've ever been to. Bob Dylan, yeah. I could recognize some of his lyrics.

3:17Well, now that we've established our South Central Pennsylvania shared pedigree, um what when how did how did you get into johnny carson when you were growing up in hershey pennsylvania oh goodness i started right before i was in the midwest in arlington heights illinois my dad when i was five years old just started showing me old comedy there was a movie called it's a mad mad mad mad world and it would be the equivalent now of getting every famous comedian in one movie and you had people like jerry lewis and jonathan winters and just the biggest stars in one movie. It would be unheard of today.

3:52So I knew who a lot of the comedians were. And then my dad just got me into Johnny Carson. And, you know, I'd stay up late on a Friday night when I was a kid, or they had primetime anniversary shows. And you see this guy who's just so likable and so funny. And he's with kids. He talks to kids. He's with animals, talking to farmers. He's talking to people that aren't famous. And then he's with people like Rodney Dangerfield. Some of the jokes were over my head, but it was like this party. And it was just so there was just something about it. But I had so many questions watching this, and I would just ask my dad, what is going on?

4:24Who's holding the curtain open for Johnny? How do they know what to talk about? The curtain didn't seem to just open on its own. Yeah, there was a guy, and I'm like, I'm going to meet this guy, and I want to ask him questions about this. And it was just, yeah, from the time I was a kid, like five, like that, I had questions about Carson. And this is, you know, when we were growing up, I mean, there was no internet. It was just, everything was a giant mystery. Yeah. But you weren't, at five years old, you weren't watching like 1130 PM. You were literally rewatching on VHS tapes that your dad recorded for you.

4:55Sometimes on Fridays, I could stay up, but normally, yeah, it would be like VHS and I would tape Carson and I would watch the monologue maybe in the morning eating Captain Crunch. But yeah, I just, it was an education to show business. I was definitely reading the newspaper at that point. I think I got a decent amount by the time I was a teenager, the political jokes. In your book, you describe your self-described nerdy kid. Say more about that. And also, I think you wrote that you were a kid who struggled to feel like you could fit in sometimes. Take me deeper into that. I feel like nerdiness now is embraced and it's cool, but back then it was all about sports and about the jocks and people.

5:38Their whole thing was like, my dream is to go to the Super Bowl. My dream is to go to NBC Burbank and go on the Tonight Show set or go over to Saturday Night Live and be in the audience. And my posters on the wall and stuff were just my comedic heroes. And I was just obsessed with Letterman and Carson were just all the cool kids. It was all about Joe Montana or whoever, Michael Jordan, which I could appreciate to some extent, but I would so rather hang out with Phil Hartman when I was a teenager than Michael Jordan. And I don't think that there were many other people that my age that felt that way.

6:10Did other kids think you were strange for loving comedy? Like what was the not fitting in part? I think the non fitting in part was that, yeah, my interest, I didn't know anybody that had the same interest that I did, at least to not that extent. I feel like I started to fit in a little bit more when it was Saturday Night Live, because in high school, other people were watching that more. Certainly not to the extent, certainly not to the extent where they were writing the cast members letters like myself and getting them on the telephone and going and then finally, you know, talking my way in and getting up to the set and stuff like that.

6:46But I just, I just had to know these things. And I think that that helped. And then I started performing comedy in high school. And that's how I started not getting picked on. And that was a very big lesson about the, embracing the nerdiness actually started to work a little bit for me. Interesting. Then it started to be cool. It went from being this thing people didn't understand to, oh my God, this guy's funny. I wish I could be funny like him. By the time I was a senior, I was student council president, and everybody knew who I was. I was getting picked on just two years or two and a half years earlier and just not going well socially.

7:26So it was definitely, yeah, this light bulb moment. And then the obsessions with Saturday Night Live, especially when I started, yeah, interacting with the cast as a kid. You as a teenager were in a letter writing relationship with some of the cast of SNL? Yeah. If you could get to the people before they blew up, like Dana Carvey, I couldn't, or Dennis Miller, people like that I couldn't get to. They would not write me back. but like I've letters from like Phil Hartman and Kevin Nealon, Sandler. I have Sandler back when he first started. He just started in December of 1990 and we would write each other back and forth and he called me a couple of times.

8:05I had an answering machine message from when I lived at 70 Brook Drive with him calling me. He was the nicest man. Adam Sandler? Yeah, my answering machine. So yeah, it was definitely one of those things with no internet. It was just like, I couldn't believe, it was like talking to like the astronauts on the moon or something. you were just writing as a fan you were just like hey i'm a kid from hershey pennsylvania like i tv guy listed 30 rockefeller plaza new york new york 10112 and i've just started writing everyone but i mean yeah farley bet in his first year in 1990 um would write me the thing is with snl when you can first get on that show they weren't that famous and they were they were really struggling to get on so i mean phil hartman was just a nice guy i mean he was just um yeah but i have yeah from all of them and then subsequently hanging out in the 30 Rock lobby, getting pictures with all of them and yeah, just going to the, just camping out overnight for the show.

8:57And that's back, you know, when New York was still a little scary. So yeah, it was definitely this different world where I was like, you know, my mom would write, Mark has an educational trip, will not be in school today. He's going to be in New York and I'd be going to see Letterman on the sixth floor of NBC. So I'd go see Late Night with David Letterman and go see SNL. And it was just this world. And I'm like, I have to be a part of this. I love your mom for backing you up and saying, this is an educational trip. Oh, not even that. Like, go to New York. Like, hell no. I made her take me October 16th, 92, which was a Friday, to go see Letterman.

9:31And then I made her, I got tickets through someone else. Because you could only do one ticket per show. You'd send in a postcard and I would have all my other friends' addresses and got tickets for October 27th. So we went October 16th, Tuesday, October 27th, which was like a week later. And she drove me again, three and a half hours protesting, but I just wear people out politely. And I think that they just are like, okay, they capitulate more than they don't, I think eventually. So what, what kind of comedy were you doing yourself when you were like in high school? I was just doing sketch comedy.

10:04Like some of it was like imitating Saturday Night Live, of doing like original Wayne's World sketches or whatever. It's always like poking fun at the teachers or whatever was going on in Hershey. I remember when U2 was there for eight years doing their whole, they were rehearsing for Zoo TV, which was like unbelievable that they were there. You could just go and hang out and listen to U2. I remember that there were all these protests from like older people. They were saying the music was too loud and it was just, we just kind of satirized that. So yeah, I was, yeah, 16, I think, when we started doing the comedy.

10:34And that's when my sleep problems started, anxiety with comedy. And they still, to this day, I still sleep issues. Wait, say more about that. What was the anxiety around your comedy? My anxiety was just that everybody is going to come here and I do not know how to produce and put on a 90-minute sketch show. And I am in way over my head and everyone's going to expect that this is really, really funny. I have friends that are funny, but they don't have the same commitment level as myself. I mean, the scariest thing sometimes is with the obsessions is when you get yes. I remember going to my teacher and said, can I have my own sketch comedy show at Hershey?

11:13And I know he's going to say no. He said yes. And I'm like, I'm in so much trouble right now because I do not know how to put this together. And yeah, I did a bunch of them. But yeah, every single time I was a freaking basket case. Wow. That's such a thing too. Like the combination of having the courage to ask to do something that you believe in. And then once you're actually in it, feeling tremendous anxiety, it's like the courage to want to do it and the courage to ask to do it does not necessarily mean that the experience itself is going to be stress free. I mean, I think with this book, I've never done a book before.

11:45But once you sign the contract, you're just like, I have to write a book. And it was just like the voice in my head, at least when I was writing the book, was like, you've never done a book before. You're not qualified to do this. It was really scary for the beginning and just going through the whole thing with something that was so overwhelming. But I was obsessed with the subject, and that was really obviously something. And I love the subject, so that's what got me through it. Yeah, the book is great, you should know, even if it was stressful. And, I mean, one of the many stories I love is you literally going to NYU because you wanted to be close to NBC.

12:23Is that really true? Oh, it's 100%. college decision came down to? Yeah, it's been my Fridays over and we've, there's a couple of times I was able to sneak my friends into the show. But yeah, we had Fridays, we would hang out in the 30 Rock Lobby when they were coming out of rehearsal and just, I mean, I just couldn't believe you could just hang out with like Chris Farley or Sandler or whoever was coming down. And normally the hosts were pretty nice too, to come down and talk with us. There was just something amazing and going to the early Conan tapings. I mean, I was going to Conan when they couldn't fill 199 seats.

12:54He started in September of 93, and I was obsessed with the show from the beginning. I loved the writing. I met Robert Smigel, and he started getting me tickets to the show when I was in high school, but they couldn't fill the studio. I mean, it was like, it was unbelievable. Now people are obsessed with the show, but back then, man, that was not going well. And you snuck into Letterman's show, as I understand it, even though you weren't supposed to be there because you worked for them for a little while, but you got in for his Johnny Carson tribute. What does sneaking into a Letterman show entail?

13:27Okay, so this is what it entails. I worked for the show. I was there for 11 months and 15 days from October of 98 to 99. Who's counting? I worked at the show, I know. It's on the eighth floor. My job was to get tickets for people over the phone. I had a bunch of other things, but the one thing that we could do when I was very fortunate, because most of the staff couldn't, is I could go down to watch tapings if I wanted to. I wasn't a page, but I could go down. But once you leave the show, and I did leave the show, you were not allowed to ever come and sit in the audience because it could throw potentially Dave Letterman off.

13:59Oh, if he recognized somebody. He does not want to see anybody he knows. It could be anybody from kindergarten, anybody he knows. He doesn't want to see anybody. At that point, I didn't even think he knew who I was, but they weren't. Basically, it's like if people wanted their jobs, they had to keep me up. I was obsessed with Carson. I was like, you have to let me into the tribute show. Please let me into the tribute show. So they smuggled me up to the balcony and they wouldn't let me take a seat because that would technically mean that I was an audience member. So they gave me a folding chair.

14:30As long as you weren't a folding chair, not an actual seat, you weren't technically there. Yeah. But I got to see Doc Severinsen and the band and I got to Peter LaSalle, who's Johnny's producer, who I always wanted to meet, who I was obsessed with as well with his late night career. So yeah, it was one of those things. I do really think if people are obsessed and they're very politely persistent, you just can't. If somebody says no, you just have to revisit it politely. Don't take no for an answer. Wear them down politely. I had a podcast for eight years about Johnny Carson. And one person took six years for me to convince to be a guest.

15:03One took five. And just every year, once or twice, just check in and be like, maybe listen to this episode. Maybe we could talk about this. And you just never know. But yeah, sometimes that's definitely served me well, I think, in my life. So I listened to some of your episodes of the Carson podcast. And it's interesting. Like, it feels to me like you are, I don't know, like you view yourself as the archivist of anecdotes around Johnny Carson. And it comes across to me as like almost this sense of responsibility of like gathering as many stories and as many details of these relationships that are out there to make sure the world knows about them.

15:45But I mean, is that on target or like what drove you to do that show and do interview after interview? There's responsibility, but it's one of these things for a guy that famous, that iconic, that for 30 years was maybe the most famous man in America. There weren't a lot of people telling the stories. The people on the staff were very loyal to him. And just a lot of the behind-the-scenes stories. And it was just like, I thought I might just do a few episodes. But as it turns out, so many famous people wanted to talk to me because they would tell me, Mark, no one's ever asked me about Carson. It's like the equivalent to having a really good college experience, loving it, and nobody ever wants to hear about it.

16:24And they get to tell me about going on it. But like, I started hearing from so many people around America and around the world that, you know, that had just either grew up on Carson or the YouTube clips that were like, please, Mark, I'm addicted to this. And so I felt some responsibility and I just wanted people to be able to tell their stories. And it's, I mean, this was like such an important part of entertainment culture in the journey of our country. And you just didn't want it to disappear somehow. Yeah. I mean, it was definitely made careers. people would tell me their personal assistants would be like, Jimmy Buffett's excited to talk to you.

16:57I'm like, why would that be accurate? And I asked Mr. Buffett, I said, why would you possibly be excited to talk to me? You're Jimmy Buffett. He said, Mark, no one has ever asked me in my entire career about Johnny Carson. And he said, it was the most important thing that has ever happened to me was going on that show. I couldn't get booked on television. He was a musical guest on SNL on Saturday Night Live once, and they let him play one song, but that was the extent. So it was a lot of these people. I just, I think I lucked out picking the right thing that everybody wanted to talk about, but just it's dopamine.

17:30You get some of these stories and it's just like, I have to keep going. Is there any way when you have obsessed about one person for so much of your life, if I ask you the question to actually describe who Johnny Carson was and tell us a few things that maybe we didn't know, like, can you even do it in a minute or two? Yeah, he was probably the most recognizable person in America after the president for 30 years. The country really trusted him. During turbulent times, people tuned in. He was a comforting man. His rule, which a lot of late night hosts don't have, was to make the guests look good.

18:06And he just made his guests feel very, very comfortable. And it was all first half hour was Johnny and his monologue. And then the rest of the show was making his guests shine. And he really, really cared about that. But yeah, he had sketches and it was just a big party. I mean, back in New York, especially the first 10 years, and when they would go on the road, it was the smoking and the drinking. And it was definitely the Wild West a little bit as late night shows go. But I would say it was almost a party. If you were a big star, you wanted to be famous, you wanted to be on that show and so many people exploded from that show and especially in comedy like unknowns like letterman and leno and it just it goes on and on with comedy but he he's i mean he seems like he was such a complicated person i mean wanting to be a good father but not being able to because of his sort of celebrity status um you know struggled with with alcohol was a cheater at times in his relationships i mean there's there's a lot more to this guy than i think a lot of america ever realized.

19:10There was. I mean, he would talk about his alcohol struggles on The Tonight Show, Believe It or Not. And he went on 60 Minutes and talked about it. He said he wouldn't drink just that one drink too much. He would turn into Attila the Hun. You know, Mark David Chapman, who assassinated John Lennon, he had a short list of people to kill if it wasn't Lennon. And Johnny Carson was like one of four names. I mean, so many safety issues with Carson where FBI had to be contacted and it was just like constant death threats. And even people that he knew were trying to get stuff from him. People thought they were friends with him, so they would go up to him and grab him by the arm and be like, go meet my other friends or Johnny this.

19:48The guy couldn't get any peace, and there was constant threats. Everyone wanted something, but the thing that people told me that I was shocked about, his friends would tell me that if he was comfortable with the person, he was almost the same Johnny you would see on television as he would be with when he felt comfortable, but there was only maybe a handful of people like that, but he was the same Carson. I don't think you can last 30 years like that on top without being yourself on TV. I mean, that was him. But when he was off that show for self preservation reasons, as I was told by many people, he definitely had his guard up and there were reasons for that.

20:24One of the stories that you tell in the book that really hit me, and I knew nothing about it, it was the day of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination that Carson had actually recorded the show and then didn't realize that NBC was actually going to air like his comedy on a night when America was shocked and in mourning. And it sounds like he was furious about that. And not announced that it had been pre-taped. People still thought that these shows were live, even though they were taped well hours and hours earlier that day. He walks out of 6B in New York on the sixth floor of Rockefeller Center.

21:03And he's told after the 90-minute show that Martin Luther King Jr. had just been assassinated, had just been killed, and just stunned like America. NBC is doing late-breaking news. And the last thing you think is that this is what... It was Tiny Tim's debut, who was this famous singer, and it was... He got married on Carson's show, and it was the second highest-rated show, I think, ever, other than The Moon Landing at that point, during that time period. But yeah, it was all this merriment and laughter, but he never thought that they would be foolish enough to air that, and they did and then there were people upset and johnny the next night didn't do the monologue and he explained that they had pre-taped and they did a whole tribute to um martin luther king they showed harry belafonte who carson had asked a guest host just um months prior for a week had martin luther king on and they showed that and then sammy davis jr and diana ross um performed and they all came in and it was a big tribute but it was definitely oh my gosh that was definitely not the right move for NBC to play that show.

22:05It never occurred to Carson. Well, and then a few days later, I think, right? He brought on an Iowa teacher to talk about how she had been communicating with her class in Iowa about racism. Yeah. Who was that and how did she get on the show? Jane Elliott made the news. She did an experiment. I think the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated did this experiment with school children in Iowa. She was a teacher. And it was an experiment, I think, how people treated one another based on maybe eye color or hair color. And just, you know, one was told you're inferior and treated a certain way.

22:43It made the newspapers, and there was a lot of praise, but there was a lot of divide, and people were upset, especially in certain parts of the U.S. I mean, it was just in 1968. I think his talent coordinator said, okay, you can come on the show, but don't talk about anything depressing. Told her that? Yes. She's like, it's racism. There's nothing more depressing than racism. And to Carson's credit and to her credit, it was, yeah, that's what they talked about. And it was, you know, there was no comedy in it whatsoever. Carson thought it was important. And, you know, the whole 60s right then, I mean, he was neighbors with Bobby Kennedy, his friends with Robert Kennedy.

23:20And I mean, he had just, then he got assassinated. Vietnam was going on. He was against the war. And there was just this very turbulent time with race. And he just he thought even though he didn't give his political views, he was very careful. He didn't know where he voted. He was definitely was very good at giving the microphone to people that he agreed with, like Harry Belafonte talking about for that week, booking so many people that were controversial at the time and giving him a week and having people like Gore Vidal, people that were against Vietnam, like Joan Baez on that show to kind of talk about his views.

23:56But you could never tell where he voted. But the fact that the talent coordinator told that teacher who was dealing with racism in her school not to be depressing and Johnny basically overruled his staff and did not try comedy at all. I mean, that's so touching. What does that say about him, do you think? I think it says that he was just so in tune with America and in tune with human beings just sitting down with people. And there was just something where people, he could just get people to open up and feel. If you were an A-list movie star, you were a farmer from Iowa, never been on an airplane or in a studio before, just comfortable, open.

24:34And he was just able to actually listen to the guests, which a lot of hosts don't. They try to up them with comedy and jokes. And he was able to, yeah, to listen, think about the next question he wanted to ask and really edit in his head and multitask on a level that I don't think any other host was ever able to do. but his instinct was spot on. I mean, how do you do 30 years and not have any real serious competition? I mean, the only other entertainment entity I can think of is Saturday Night Live. I mean, really no, for 50 years, serious, serious competition that put a dent. I mean, you have to be doing something right and you have to have somebody at the top that is smart and that is just their instinct is spot on with the country.

25:19But he had like a little bit of a mean streak in him when he didn't like someone. I mean, what he wrote about Chevy Chase, I don't think Chevy Chase could ad-lib a fart after a baked bean dinner. And I know they ended up getting close and Chevy came on the show, but that's amazing. That was off the record to Tom Shales, and I got back to Chevy. Here's the problem. Saturday Night Live had been on for eight episodes. Chevy was turning into this big start. He was doing Weekend Update. He was the only cast member to say his name, I'm Chevy Chase and you're not. and very quickly, I mean, people, he was the only cast member, people knew who he was.

25:57New York Magazine writes an article in December. They had done, I think, eight shows at that point and put Chevy on New York Magazine, the successor to Johnny Carson. And that really, really irked Johnny. I mean, it's the hardest gig to do when people think that anybody can do it. And then I think Chevy at one point was like, you know, I never would want to do what Johnny does or something like that. And I think that upset Carson. And then Jane Curtin, and I think it was 77, 1977, did a joke disparaging Carson. And, you know, Saturday Night Live never would have happened if it wasn't for Johnny Carson.

26:30I mean, Carson didn't want reruns of The Tonight Show on Saturdays. Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersole had to go to Johnny in his office and ask for permission. And Johnny said, absolutely. I just want to make sure that you're not going to have, you know, people like Bob Hope and guests like that and the same type of music. And they're Yeah, I mean, that was something that I think there's a whole New York, more New York magazine than Chevy. And then Chevy said some stuff about Johnny and apologized for it and wrote a letter. And the thing is, if people wrote letters to Johnny asking, you know, I haven't been on the show in 10 years, like Robert Goulet, was there any way you could help my career and rebook me?

27:06He would do it sometimes. And he did it with Goulet. And he had Chevy Chase on. Chevy apologized. And within like just a little bit, he was with Carson the day before the show. And they spent some time together. And then before they know it, they're in a poker game for like two decades together and they're friends. I mean, it's just one of those things, I think, when sometimes people can humble themselves and write a letter and apologize. You just never know where it's going to go. But it was a shaky relationship. And Saturday Night Live, I mean, that was one of the things that caused Johnny to retire in 92, those sketches written by Robert Smigel with Dana Carvey as Carson.

27:40I mean, they were brutal. Robert has told me many times, Smigel, that he regrets that just upsetting Johnny, and it's one of his big regrets. I thought the sketches were pretty funny, especially Carcinio, but Johnny felt the exact opposite. Oh, that's interesting. I mean, Johnny was such, obviously, everyone knew him. I mean, he was ripe to be satirized on SNL, but that's interesting that it hurt him so much. They portrayed him as out of touch, and he's making references about Rudy Vallee. from who was, you know, two decades earlier, hadn't been relevant and just was really out of touch. And Johnny said, I never said weird, wild stuff and all this stuff and just really didn't understand it.

28:22But, you know, NBC would tell him, you know, it's going to get to dress rehearsal this week, but we don't know if it's going to get on. And Johnny, to his credit, never said, you know, I forbid this. He might have been able to get that, but he's just... He has that power. We make fun of people all the time on my show. I just don't find it funny. But if they want to do that, they can make fun of me. They can. But it did get to a point, though, where it was just too much. And that was one of the contributing factors. There were a few others. NBC changing the time from 1130 to 1135, pushing his show back without asking him.

28:55And a couple of people struggle to stay awake until 1130. I mean, he's thinking if America has stayed awake for me to 1130, why make them stay awake longer to get started? Only five minutes. But the numbers went down for the ratings. I mean, the affiliates made so much more money with advertising time extending the news by five minutes. But, you know, Carson was this institution and he was at one point, 25 percent of NBC's profits. And just for them to do that to him and not ask him, Carson, Carson saw the writing on the wall. I mean, just like everybody from Arsenio, which got good ratings. It was a different audience, but he could just see that so many other people were getting their own show.

29:32and even though Arsenio never overtook him with ratings, I think Johnny could just tell he just never wanted to be Bob Hope or Jack Benny and stick around too long. And I believe when he announced his retirement, he was 65 and got out at 66 and just really wanted the show of the quality not to dip. And I think he got out at the right time. People say that he prided himself in entrances and exits. And yeah, I think if people look, I mean, he's been off the air for 32 years and the media still talks about how amazing he was. All the late night shows still talk about this guy. Here we are. Mark, you have this encyclopedic knowledge of Johnny Carson and like everyone involved in his life, like from guests to stories to his staff to moments in history.

30:19I wonder like, is this an obsession you could even have if you didn't have that innate skill? I feel like if you didn't have that ability, this would be a hard obsession to have in the way that you do. In terms of me doing a podcast and asking questions and being curious? I guess, but which is central to your obsession. You've been able to act on this obsession in such a fascinating and important way. I guess I could not have an obsession with a person or a central figure in our history the same way you do, because I do not have that memory or encyclopedic ability. Yeah, that is a blessing and a curse, because sometimes I think about my second grade teacher who is not nice to me, and the memories will just come.

31:07I'm at breakfast, and I remember everything from when I was two years old on. And I definitely, this stuff holds on. I mean, I couldn't do science class. I couldn't memorize science or I was bad in math because I just couldn't pay attention to stuff I didn't care about. But if I was really into it, the stuff stays with me. I don't, for good or bad, it's there. Are there any lessons for, you know, kids who might be like you were feeling, I don't know, like not accepted? and what an obsession like this could do in terms of dealing with it, in terms of coping, in terms of finding who you are? What is the role of an obsession like this for a kid like you?

31:58I think now it's finding other similar people that can relate and that have the same obsession. Back then, I didn't know anybody who had this obsession. I didn't think that they existed, it, but they absolutely did. But I feel finding similar, like minded people and trying to maybe do if people have the curiosity, the power of asking, I think, especially when people are younger, it's unbelievable what people can get away with sometimes when they're younger, asking for things. And yeah, just I think the curiosity is key. I really do. But I definitely think just in terms of the internet, I mean, I talked to the first guy who ever did this Saturday Night Live fan website.

32:39It was a fan page and SNL had never had a website and Lorne Michaels would go to it. And I think the guy's computer crashed or whatever, so it wasn't up and Lorne sent him a computer. He paid for it himself. And it was one of those things where this kid was in high school and it was just his obsession. And then the cast was going there to learn news and things. I mean, I think younger people, when they follow their curiosity, I definitely think amazing things can happen. It never occurred to me when I started writing the cast that they would write me back. It didn't. And it just opened up the possibilities.

33:13So was Carson in a way like a vehicle for that curiosity, like to keep following it, like almost the embodiment of your curiosity and it kept you kind of in it and unwavering? I think so. I mean, there was definitely like Saturday Night Live finally started lighting cameras backstage and it was like, okay, this is how the show's going. I got myself backstage, but it was definitely for, in terms of comedy, I feel like it was like the most, for somebody that famous and for the show that iconic, just so a giant mystery of what happened. And I just couldn't accept that. Every time I just, in my career, when I worked in TV, when I would meet somebody, I would make them tell me, go in on Carson and what that was like.

33:56And it was just, especially the first 10 years when he was in New York. It was just what happened. I just had to fill in the gaps for myself. And I, again, I had no idea that there were all these like-minded people that would follow me on the journey and that cared. But I mean, oh my goodness, they are out there. I'm so fortunate for that. What's the first memory of realizing that there was a community out there that you weren't, you know, some crazy kid with some crazy curiosity that no one else would understand? Yeah. I think with the Johnny Carson thing, once I released the first episode or two and I started hearing from all over America and people freaking out and just being like, you need to keep doing this.

34:32And then I remember emailing, I emailed Stephen Wright, who I did not know who went on Carson's show. And it was like the biggest moment of his life. And back when Facebook first started, if you messaged somebody and they accepted you, their email would pop up, which is, it doesn't happen now. So I had his email. I'm like, he accepted my friend, ran requests, we don't need each other. We don't know each other. But I was just like, maybe I'll need it at some point. So I email him and I say, so will you do this podcast? Three hours later, he calls me and he's like, Mark, I want to do your podcast.

35:04I'm like, okay, I'll come to Massachusetts. Mark, you don't understand. I'm in New York City right now, but we have to do it in two hours. And he told me, he's like, Mark, I never do these things like this. They take months to arrange even if they do, but for Johnny Carson, anything. And that was a light bulb to me that there were other people like Steven Wright and I just bonded and he was all teary-eyed talking about Carson. We still keep in touch now. This was 10 years ago or whatever, or more. And it was like, Stephen, I think was one of the light bulbs where I'm like, okay, there's other people like us that just love Carson.

35:35And yeah, there are thankfully a lot of them. It didn't occur to me that there would be, but that was definitely one of the first ones that I was like, okay, there's other people like us. That's interesting. So I was focusing on your childhood. I mean, it was adulthood when you realized that there was this community out there, when you started working on the podcast. Yeah. Like thinking that, I mean, that's when you realize that there was a community of people who shared this obsession of yours. For Carson, I had, yeah, it was one of those things where, yeah, I thought maybe I would do seven episodes maybe at the most.

36:05And I really thought it was going to go negative because Joan Rivers and a few other people just that had some experiences with him, just they would always just put out negativity out there in some of the books. So I just thought, I just don't want to put out a lot of negative stuff at all. So I just maybe I'll only do a few of these episodes. Then I start talking to his friends and his staff, people that never publicly talk. And it's completely opposite of what Joan Rivers and some of these other people have said in terms of me talking to 400 people that went on the show that knew him. He's unrecognizable in the book that me talking to these people that the media made him out to be J.D.

36:45Salinger and he was not. Greta Garbo recluse. And just, I talked to his friends and the people that worked at the show in retirement. Oh, he's J.D. Salinger. No, he's out with his writers at lunches in Santa Monica. No, he's at the U.S. Open. He's going around with Bob Wright, the president of NBC, and they're just hanging out all around and going to different countries and going to Africa. I mean, it was, I just couldn't believe somebody that famous, that iconic, that the media got somebody like that so wrong. And it did drive me to really try to figure this out. What has Johnny Carson and your obsession with him meant to your life?

37:22It definitely got me a lot of friends that I didn't have previously, both in entertainment, some that are well-known, some that aren't well-known. A lot of guys maybe have sports friends and stuff. I never had anybody really in terms of Johnny Carson that really had that enthusiasm or knowledge, and I've gotten some of them. So I definitely think that that was good. I think my confidence level, being able to sit down with some of these people, and I'm going to their homes a lot of times in New York and LA, because back then you couldn't record remotely very easily. So people would invite me into their homes.

37:58So it was really, really surreal. And I definitely think it helped me get, I mean, I was pretty comfortable with famous people from working in TV, but this was a whole different level. And yeah, I think those are some of the things that I learned, some of the lessons in that. I mean, it got me a book deal, which I just never thought in a million years would happen. I knew that there was definitely people miss Carson, but it never occurred to me it was going to be more than me just talking to a handful of people about Carson, and that would be it. But it really, I mean, it lasted eight years and got me a book deal, got me friends.

38:34I paid the bills for quite a bit when I, a couple of times when I really needed the money, paid rent. Yeah, it was, it's just been unbelievable in terms of the relationships. I think that's what the people that worked on the show, the people, the staff, they did a reunion. They did a reunion of all the Carson employees and they invited me. One of them was like, you're one of us. And a bunch of them are like, you're coming, right? Oh, that's awesome. So I was like, so I definitely feel this kinship with a lot of them, which means a lot to me. I'm talking to Mark Malkoff, comedian, author. He hosted the Carson podcast.

39:06He has a book called Love Johnny Carson. And we'll be right back. We're going to do our lightning round. Mark Malkoff is obsessed when we come back.

39:20Hi, we're back with David Green is Obsessed. I'm with Mark Malkoff, who has a book out called Love Johnny Carson. He is self-described obsessed about Johnny Carson. But this is the part of the show I call Mark Malkoff is Obsessed. And I want to hear what other things you're obsessed about. If we could start, but then I want to open the floor to you. Apple stores, you did a video series on Apple. an Apple store in Manhattan. Why did you become so interested in the Apple store? I was obsessed because I would read these wild tales of what people were able to get away with doing in Apple stores. And I just, it was hard for me to believe.

40:00Like what? What were people doing that would shock you? I think like people were bringing in strange animals. I think one guy brought in a snake. I think somebody maybe brought in a... For fun or just because they like had their pet snake with them and they were shopping for a charger. I think it was their pet snake, but I would go to the Apple store. I would just be there and I would ask the employees, conceivably, could you do blank in an Apple store and come up with an outrageous scenario? And they would all say, I don't see why not. So yeah, I just wanted to put that to the test and I made a video where with just different scenarios to see what I could get away with.

40:34And I did one where I ordered a pizza to the second floor of the Soho Apple store and And he showed up with the pizza in the Apple Store employee. He said, did you just order a pizza? I said, yes, I did. He said, I think that's cool. I said, do you want pizza? And he said, I'm not allowed to until after my ship. But I said, you have a slice on me? That's amazing. I had a date with my wife in the Fifth Avenue store where a romantic date where I was in a tuxedo. And we had a disco ball. And we had a professional musician playing trumpet. And we slow danced. And the only thing the Apple Store wouldn't do is ask them if they could dim the lights for the dancing.

41:07But they couldn't do that. But other than that, and then the last thing, the biggest thing was I wanted to see if I could successfully bring a goat into the Apple store. Oh, great. Nala the goat. So I contacted a petting zoo. And that was definitely, my wife, Christine, was very nervous about that. But it turns out you can bring a goat into the Apple store. So I was four for four. But it's all curiosity. It's like, could you do this? Is this possible? And the bits are kind of Carson-esque. I mean, right? He was definitely silly and whimsical. Did you learn some of that from him? I definitely think he was a curious guy.

41:44He would have people like Carl Sagan on the show. And he wouldn't want to hang out with the A-list movie stars after the show, but he would go out with people like Carl Sagan just to pick his brain and just ask endless questions. And that's just me, I think, in terms of me just being curious. I did a video where I was obsessed with how many Starbucks stores there were in Manhattan. And I asked Starbucks how many are there, and they said that we don't know. So I determined, I went to every single one. There were 171 and I wanted to see if it was possible, go to every single store in less than 24 hours, make a purchase and consume something in Manhattan.

42:18Wait, 171 stores, you consume something in a single day? Yes, yeah, in less than 24 hours. It was 23 hours and it took me over a month of training on a bicycle and getting a director that was a bike pro and it was a lot of rehearsal. We tried it with a car and it didn't work so we had to do it with bikes, but I had to go to a store, every seven minutes for 23 hours straight and made a purchase and consumed something. I was a mess. I was so, by the end, I mean, I couldn't even ride a bicycle. My motor skills were so shot. My friend Jill came in with a car for the remaining locations the last few hours, but I was a basket case.

42:51But people were so nice to let me skip the line. I would just do my, you know, my passion please where I was like, I'm doing this video and he's one of us. I got to one of the stores. I got to one of the stores five minutes after closing. I don't know if you ever saw The Graduate, the 1979 film, The Graduate. And I'm banging on the door, you know, like Benjamin Braddock at the end. Elaine, Elaine. But I was like, you have to sell me something. And, you know, they're like, we're closed. Sorry. You're going to ruin my whole thing. But you got them to sell you something? Yeah. I bribed them$5 and the bribe got up to$50 for a piece of pound cake or whatever it was.

43:26And they took my$50 and I got my piece of pound cake. But the bribe just kept going up and I was desperate. That's amazing. persistent and I got it. So yeah, we ended up, I ended up making that happen. Okay. The last question, what is your next obsession where you plan to use this unbelievable skill of, of polite and sustained persistence? I'm not really sure. I mean, I definitely have obsessions. But it's one of those things where I have to weigh my cost and my, my wife, Christine has veto power. If, if anything's maybe too dangerous or affect our, affect our, our marriage. In a negative way.

44:03Like she let me live in Ikea for a week, which was good because I was obsessed with Ikea. And I convinced them to let me live and sleep in one of their stores and make a video back in 2008. You slept, did she come with you or did she say goodbye? She stayed over one night. They said that she could, but it took me months to convince Ikea to let me do it. And they let me do it and it was unbelievable. And I loved every second of it. I mean, I was obsessed with getting over my fear of flying. So I wanted to see how if I could convince an airline to let me live and sleep in a plane nonstop for 30 days and just fly nonstop commercially.

44:39And an airline after Ikea came to me and they said, Mark, would you live on our plane for a week to get over your fear of flying? I said, no, it has to be a month. And it's a month to get over my fear of flying. And they let me do it. And I said a world record. It was a Guinness world record at the time. I forget how many. But, yeah, I was flying nonstop. Just consecutive flights. Like you go from one flight to the next and then just get on the plane. I was on the plane all day. And then I slept alone on the plane at night. And it was in Atlanta on a tarmac. And I never went into an airport. You stayed on the same plane?

45:08Like when it would sit there, get maintenance? I never went into public or an airport for 30 days. I was on the airplane. And then every morning I would go on a tarmac unaccompanied because I had a badge. I had a very complicated get me certified to be able to go by myself in Atlanta on the tarmac with my sleeping bag and pillow. And, you know, people would ask, let me see your CIDA badge. And I'd show them that I was able to walk around and they were shocked. Some of them that didn't know what I was doing. And then I would just get on the plane for the day. And, you know, flying so many times and every airline pilot wanted to meet me because they said, are you really afraid of flying?

45:47I said, yep. They said, Mark, turbulence is like being in the ocean and going over a wave. It's driving over gravel. So they really talked me through. Bullshit. But you know what? Forcing myself to do this over and over again, I would say after a week or so, it really got a lot easier and I'm able to do it now and I don't freak out like I used to. So it's just going to extremes where sometimes for most people, they probably wouldn't do that. But I knew that to me, get over my fear of flying, I would have to do something like that. And then the last day they put my face on the plane, which I didn't know they were going to do.

46:20And that was for six months all over the country. and people would be like, Mark, you know your face is on an airplane? I said, I know. Wait, they painted your face on the plane where you had slept for, Jesus, that's amazing. Yeah, it was all over. One of the most surreal moments of my life was being in Michigan and I was at the airport and I turned around and my face, that was the plane. The plane was taxiing and there was your face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was months later and I was like, oh yeah, my face is still on the airplane. And that was, I really wanted the person next to me to be like, this is actually happening.

46:49That's my face. I didn't do that. But I just, I wanted somebody to be like, this is actually happening. But that was definitely surreal. But I was glad that it helped me get over my fear. Mark, I kind of want your life. I don't know what that says about me, but I kind of want your life. David, oh man. Yeah. This has been so much fun. This has been so fun. This has been great. Mark Malkoff, check out his, he hosted the Carson podcast, has a new book called Love Johnny Carson. And he's from Hershey, Pennsylvania. That's right. Mark, real pleasure. Can't wait to do it again sometime. Always good to talk to someone from Lancaster, if you say it correctly.

47:25There you go. Did everyone hear that? Lancaster. Everyone out there in the world, not Lancaster.

47:37David Green is obsessed as a production of Campside Media. It is hosted by me, David Green. Our senior producer is Lane Rose. We are mixed by Ewan Leitrimuen. The executive producers of Campside Media are Vanessa Gregoriadis, Matt Scherr, and Josh Dean. Special thanks to our operations team, Ashley Warren and Sabina Mara. If you have an obsession you would like to share, hope you do, you can send us an email. The address is obsessed at campsidemedia.com. That's obsessed at campsidemedia.com. And hey, if you enjoyed the show, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Really appreciate you listening.

48:17We all enjoy a little mystery. And with One Strange Thing, that's just what you'll get. Every other week, One Strange Thing podcast presents forgotten stories from America's newspaper archives. They all have something in common, a single element that can't quite be explained. From cryptids and curses to UFOs and modern-day miracles, One Strange Thing brings you stories that are very real and just a little unworldly. Subscribe now wherever you listen.