The Johnny Carson monologues 1984–1992 consensus narrative and the Lingua Franca of celebrity

Abstract

ABSTRACT With the rise of streaming services, the proliferation of social media platforms, and the diminished relevance of legacy TV, it is important to acknowledge the enduring media discourses and the social purchase once cultivated by legacy TV. This analysis examines NBC's long running The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and that program's distinguishing feature, the opening monologue. I analyze 270 monologues to assess the display of celebrities and famous people in jokes that promoted and undermined conventional wisdom, celebrated and subverted shared experience, and derided political machinations. I review the history of The Tonight Show and Johnny Carson's role as monologist; the regular display of celebrities and famous figures in the monologues; the concept of Celebrity-Signifier; and the fashioning of the monologues and audience engagement with the monologues with attention to the comic mode of address and Thornburn's notion of consensus narrative. This analysis suggests that the comic monologues—fashioned by committee, corralled by institutional mandates, and delivered by a trusted master of ceremonies—sustained a form of public thought with unparalleled reach that refined a lingua franca of celebrity and made available a unique “way of knowing.”