January 1 - National Watch Johnny Carson Day

Antenna TV Says Johnny's Here


I really hope you have access to the Antenna TV station or network, whichever it is.

Starting today, January 1, 2016, Antenna TV is going to rerun old The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson shows. (That item is true.) The shows will air at 11:00 PM Eastern, 10:00 PM Central, 8:00 PM Pacific time. Sorry, Mountain timers, you'll have to look it up for yourselves.

The shows were mostly hilarious the first time around, as I recall. I think the vast majority of the fun will hold up well over the years.

So today is National Watch Johnny Carson Day. If you don't have access to Antenna TV, you can watch clips of him on YouTube.

There are other options available to you as well.

You can find a still shot of him (at Wikipedia and elsewhere) and stare at it for a while. If you have your own paper photograph of him, dig it out and admire it from time to time during the day. If your copy is autographed, you only have to stare at it half as long as those of us with a plain picture. If your autographed copy is framed and hanging on your wall above either a mantlepiece or a picture of your parents, you may need to see a psychiatrist, but you're all set for National Watch Johnny Carson Day.

If you're really ambitious, drive by the house where he lived in Malibu, California. Looking at it counts as watching Johnny Carson.

I would have suggested visiting his grave site too, but he was cremated, so no such site exists.

If you attended one (or more) of the original shows, you can only use that information to celebrate today if you were actually on camera. Odds are that you were, since the cameras were frequently pointed at the audience, or Johnny did a sketch that involved him with audience members.

If you were privileged to interact with Johnny on his show, you probably already celebrate this day over and over again in your mind and with your friends (who are tired of hearing about it, by the way), so National Watch Johnny Carson Day doesn't really apply to you. You can move on to National Ed McMahon Day.