The Tonight Show Television Program

Here are some of the significant events during Johnny Carson's nearly 30-year run as host of "The Tonight Show": 1962--Show debuts Oct. 1 from New York City with guests Groucho Marx, Mel Brooks, Joan Crawford, Rudy Vallee and Tony Bennett. The show runs one hour, 45 minutes. Ed McMahon is the sideman; Skitch Henderson leads the orchestra. 1964--Debut of Carson's skit characters Carnac the Magnificent and Aunt Blabby.

Dick Cheney jokes, George Bush jokes, Cheerios jokes and a "new bit" entitled "How Boring Is Alan Greenspan?": Jay Leno is back on late-night, looking happier and more self-confident than he has in months. (It takes a confident man to introduce the word "boring," not to mention Alan Greenspan, five minutes into an opening monologue.) And why not? As he has made clear through recent self-pitying interviews and the foot-dragging "The Jay Leno Show," he never wanted to leave "The Tonight Show" in the first place.

Stand-up comedian Bobcat Goldthwait pleaded no contest Wednesday to setting his chair on fire during the May 6 taping of "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and was fined $3,888 and ordered to tape public-service announcements to promote a Canoga Park burn center.

The last time Jay Leno said goodbye to America, it was in gala fashion, marked by high emotion, a cheering studio audience and tears. In ending his 17-year stretch on "The Tonight Show" last May, Leno gracefully honored his predecessor, the late Johnny Carson; figuratively passed the hosting baton to successor Conan O'Brien and then asked James Taylor to serenade viewers with "Sweet Baby James." Don't expect that kind of weepy, bittersweet send-off Tuesday when Leno signs off his failed prime-time program that was once trumpeted by NBC as a bold experiment that could reshape television.

There's nowhere you can turn right now, short of an airdrop into the Tasmanian outback, to escape the blizzard of media-tribute descending on our heads in the name of Johnny Carson, who--as everyone who hasn't booked passage for Hobart must know--leaves the airwaves Friday night. "Tonight Show" guests are fawning with more than the usual obeisance. Audiences are cheering the nearly departed with added gusto. Even the crisp edges of the Host Supreme are softening with sentiment.

On the one-year anniversary of David Letterman's celebrated relocation to CBS en route to late-night glory, here's a toast to Jay Leno. Today is the one-week anniversary of his tribute to his dad. Following his usual stand-up monologue ("'Hey, folks, story of the week . . .") on last Monday's "Tonight Show," Leno went to his desk and spent the next eight minutes of his NBC hour tenderly eulogizing his father, Angelo Leno, who had died the previous week of cancer at age 83.

Backstage before her first appearance on "The Tonight Show" in 1985, Roseanne Barr read a letter she had written to herself years before, dreaming of this moment. "This is the beginning of your life, for She who is and is not yet," the letter said in part, as recounted in a profile of the comic by the New Yorker's John Lahr. Much has been and will be said about how Johnny Carson "discovered" Roseanne, Ellen DeGeneres, David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling and Robin Williams.

British actor Hugh Grant faced the cameras Monday night for the first time since his arrest two weeks ago with a prostitute, offering his apologies on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and showing the embarrassed face that everyone wanted to see. "You know in life what's a good thing to do and a bad thing to do. I did a bad thing," Grant said.

Stand-up comedian Bobcat Goldthwait pleaded not guilty Thursday to misdemeanor charges of unlawfully setting his chair on fire during a May 6 taping of "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." The New York-born entertainer, who appeared in some of the "Police Academy" movies, waived his right to appear for an arraignment at Burbank Municipal Court. Instead, Goldthwait's lawyer, Peter Laird, entered the plea on his client's behalf.

Like a battle-scarred general reporting from the front, "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno says the live show he did from Boston's Bull and Finch pub the night "Cheers" went off the air was ruined by drunken "Cheers" cast members. Leno called the Boston Herald after a blistering review in that newspaper of last week's program, a ratings bonanza that featured nearly the entire cast of "Cheers."

Every high school in America has its cool kids, the smart, snarky ones who sit in the prow of culture, and its dorks, the plodding if amiable ones who sit in the middle of the boat and try not to make waves. One needs to be reminded of this in assessing what was really at stake in the headline-making Leno-O'Brien war that ended Thursday with an agreement to pay $45 million to O'Brien and his staff. Celebrities and critics are still taking sides -- the younger, hipper ones decrying how shabbily NBC had treated poor Conan; the older, statelier ones backing Leno -- giving us a clear demonstration of just how much this was a function not so much of money or ratings but of demographics.

Conan O'Brien, who hosts his last episode of "The Tonight Show" tonight, does not intend, in his words, to become a $200 question on "Jeopardy." "He just wants to get back on the air as quickly as possible," said Gavin Polone, his manager. A rich severance deal struck Thursday between O'Brien and NBC frees the comedian to join another network as early as Sept. 1. Most observers expect him to first flirt with Fox, which has wooed him in the past. Wherever O'Brien pops up, however, he will be without his trademark comedy bits, such as the cigar-chomping Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the Masturbating Bear, which remain the intellectual property of NBC. He's also muzzled from disparaging his former employer, although network executives expect the occasional lampoon.

Negotiations over Conan O'Brien's departure from NBC stalled Tuesday over the "Tonight Show" host's demands that NBC compensate staff members who will lose their jobs when the show goes off the air. The issue was one of several slowing the negotiations, which were expected to have been finalized earlier in the week. "The Tonight Show" employs about 190 people, including 60 to 70 who followed O'Brien to Los Angeles from New York last year when he switched jobs. NBC paid to relocate 40 to 50 of those staffers, said a person close to show.

Conan O'Brien is prepared to walk. Relegated again to second-string status, comedian O'Brien on Tuesday refused to go along with NBC's plans to push his show back a half-hour -- upending the network's hope to keep its two late-night stars, Jay Leno and O'Brien, on its schedule. O'Brien instead delivered an ultimatum to his bosses: Keep the storied "The Tonight Show" on at 11:35 p.m. -- or risk losing the man once heralded as the future of the program that has been a pillar of the network since 1954.

Conan O'Brien, the newly installed proprietor of "The Tonight Show" that Johnny Carson reigned over for nearly 30 years, paid tribute to the former host's sidekick during the opening of Tuesday's broadcast. "As you've probably all heard, Ed McMahon passed away last night, and this is obviously a very sad day," O'Brien said to the studio audience. "It is impossible, I think, for anyone to imagine 'The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson' without Ed McMahon. Ed's laugh was really the soundtrack to that show.

On June 1, the premiere of "The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien" began with a filmed piece that found the tall, skinny host, dressed in suit and tie, jogging across America to get to his new studio in Universal City. But O'Brien might need to pick up the pace. After a strong start in the ratings, "Tonight" is already slipping behind CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman," the rival program that O'Brien's predecessor Jay Leno defeated handily for years.

During Monday night's taping of "The Tonight Show," executive producer Helen Kushnick sat in her customary chair, overseeing the proceedings of NBC's prestigious late-night franchise for the final time. Today, there's a photo of her at the main guard gate on the NBC lot in Burbank with instructions not to let her in.

So this is it. Tonight, America has an appointment with Johnny Carson as he bids farewell to NBC's "The Tonight Show" after nearly 30 years. All over the land, VCRs will be whirring; bars and restaurants with TV sets will be tuned in, and viewers in bed will be drifting off to sleep to Carson's voice for the last time. In Beverly Hills, a spokesman for the Tribeca restaurant says extra TV sets will be brought in and "we'll have a few laughs with Johnny." A few laughs with Johnny. . . . Hmmm.

With a touch of emotion in his voice and a bit of dampness in his eyes, Jay Leno on Friday said his final farewell to "The Tonight Show," NBC's top-rated late-night franchise that he hosted for 17 years. Leno, who will return to the network this fall in a nightly 10 p.m. comedy series, combined his characteristic casual lightness with thanks to viewers, staffers, supporters and his wife, Mavis, who was in the audience.

Funnyman Andy Richter, who spent seven years as Conan O'Brien's "Late Night" second banana before leaving in 2000 to headline his own (short-lived) prime-time series, is returning to the fold. Richter will be the announcer on "The Tonight Show" when O'Brien takes over as host June 1, NBC said Tuesday. He'll also perform in comedy segments but won't be assuming his previous sidekick duties, a network spokesman said. "We have a proven chemistry that will be an incredible asset to 'The Tonight Show,' " O'Brien said.