Johnny Carson was a late night staple for me in the 1970s. He certainly wasn't new to us, but my roommate and I had become big fans of Don Rickles in the year or so before moving from Cleveland to L.A., and I think it was shortly after we arrived there in June 1972 that Rickles was the guest host for a week. We watched that religiously, then our appreciation for Carson carried on for a long time. I never actually got tired of him or anything, but there were periods later when I simply changed my late night viewing habits, so it was off and on with the late night shows, and I eventually brought Letterman into my fold little by little. ALWAYS returned to Carson, though, right up to the end.
