Tonight Show
I always loved Steve Martin’s stand-up comedy. It was pure absurdism, almost dadaism. It wasn’t politically topical, not in the sense of today’s political team sports.
He was a recurring guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show on NBC in the 1970s and ‘80s, back when there were only three television networks. I, too, have mostly forgotten what that was like as a practical matter. For one, I was a kid then and didn’t get to stay up to watch such things as late-night talkshows.
With the American population back then lower by about 100 million compared to what it is now, around 20 million watched the Tonight Show every night, so as much as one in ten Americans. There are very few events on television or elsewhere that more than two or three million Americans see simultaneously—live—to talk about the next day as a shared experience.
On the other hand, more people today will see one-to-two-minute video clips of highlights than would ever have been thinkable back then. If you didn’t see something on live TV, you weren’t likely to see a video clip of it later on any sort of device other than the big TV set in your family’s living room. From that perspective, the 1970s feels like privation.
Twenty-some million Americans would have seen Steve Martin do this simultaneously:
That’s professional comedy!
Happy Mothers day everyone!
I learned crime is way down on mothers day. Why. Apparently because Moms break so many laws, that they don't commit as many crimes when they are being celebrated.
If we make everyday mothers day, we might bring down the crime rates (except at the CIA, those pervs!).
I can recommend Steve Martin's book 𝘕𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘐𝘴 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨. It's a memoir of Steve's experiences making movies and his truth-is-stranger-than-fiction encounters with various other famous people over the years, illustrated by cartoonist Harry Bliss.
https://www.amazon.com/Number-One-Walking-Movies-Diversions/dp/1250815290