{alltv} There will never be another Carson

Conan O'Brien returns Monday night to the late-night talk show circuit. His new show, Conan, airs on both The Comedy Network and, an hour later, on CTV.

It might be good. It might be bad. But O'Brien's re-entry into the overcrowded late-night field underscores one and only one thing: There will never be another Johnny Carson.

If you are old enough to have watched and appreciated the late Carson when he hosted The Tonight Show from 1962-92 -- meaning, you're minimum in your early 30s -- then, like me, perhaps you find yourself melancholic when the latest Johnny-come-lately show hits the air.

Last week we asked you, our readers, which of eight late-night hosts -- Letterman, Leno, Stewart, Strombo, Kimmel, Fallon, O'Brien or Ferguson -- you liked and disliked most. Responses were all over the map.

It's sorta like asking people who owned a phone in 1986 what long-distance company they use now, as the market is so flooded with options nowadays. Back then there was only one -- Bell. But unlike that monopolistic company, which charged 75 frickin' cents a minute for daytime long-distance calls (honest), everyone wishes Johnny was still in charge today.

Most talk-show hosts since Johnny have been trying to imitate his show's structure, his comedic timing and his interview style. Yes, some have made it work for a few years -- such as Arsenio Hall, or Craig Kilborn on The Late Late Show -- but then their buzz was gone and they disappeared. Some were abject failures from the get-go, such as the painful-to-watch Chevy Chase, Joan Rivers and Pat Sajak shows. And others haven't been too bad, or were even spectacularly good in their heyday -- such as David Letterman in the '80s, O'Brien last decade and -- perhaps if he can keep making this off-the-wall zaniness work -- Craig Ferguson now.

Carson made it work for 30 years. And for the first half of that, his shows were 90 minutes long. Yet he made it look ridiculously easy. That's because he was so good. And funny. And perhaps most of all, likeable. He was said by some to be a dick off camera, and a tyrant behind the scenes on that show, but what North Americans saw of him in their living rooms and bedrooms was all charm.

His millions of nightly viewers would have loved if he'd continued for years more. Want proof? Watch this video clip as it'll give you shivers.

It was Johnny's only late-night TV cameo after signing off from The Tonight Show. It was not on his successor Jay Leno's pale imitation of a Tonight Show, but rather on The Late Show hosted by the man Carson himself had wanted to be his successor, Letterman. It was May 1994, and Letterman unexpectedly brought out Carson to read the Top 10 List. The shocked audience went crazy. After a minute or two of a standing ovation and loud cheers -- which only increased when Letterman turned over his host's chair and desk to The Great One -- a clearly moved Johnny regrettably shook his head. Nope, couldn't do it. He shook Letterman's hand and politely excused himself, walking off with an appreciative wave to the audience, without ever having said a word.

Who else would have got that kind of reaction? Seriously. Every time I watch that clip, I hope this is time the crowd shats up long enough to let Johnny speak. It reminds that our laughs were locked and loaded every time Johnny hit the stage, and it's a shame we all have so many left in our barrels.

Carson broke the mould. Everyone knew it, and everyone still knows it. Yet networks continue to try to capture even a smidgen of that Carson magic, just as most hosts continue trying to pay too much homage to their hero by putting only slight spins on Carson's tried-and-true late-night formula. He made that formula work; they usually can't.

We'll start finding out Monday if Coco's latest spin can. (Read Bill Harris' report shortly after the show ends at jam.canoe.ca)

Top 10 reasons we miss Johnny Carson:

10. He regularly had on guests -- huge stars even -- who had nothing to sell.

9. His rapport with Ed and Doc. Wasn't a lovefest, and was better for it.

8. Johnny's famous "A-OK" handsign-of-approval was -- as Jim Carrey told Johnny on one of his last shows -- what every aspiring comic in North America absolutely lived for.

7. Two words: Angie Dickinson. Their sexual frisson was dynamic.

6. Hijinks with guests. Think Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise and whipped cream.

5. His primetime anniversary shows. The tomahawk never got old.

4. The zany regular skits. Floyd R. Turbo, The Edge of Wetness...

3. Safe humour? Forget it. Once he had celeb-face Halloween pumpkins. One was caved in at the back -- "the John F. Kennedy pumpkin." Ouch.

2. Carnac the Magnificent. Many say this was the funniest. Answer: "Siss-boom-bahhh." Carnac: "Describe the sound made when a sheep explodes." Watch it at the 4:30 mark of this clip.

1. Monologues. The master. Perfect timing, perfect delivery. And when the jokes bombed, he mocked the joke, or the audience, and made us laugh anyway.