Best Tonight Show Host?

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Who do you think was the best Tonight Show Host?

I would say Johnny Carson, hands down!

i wish i were old enough to have been able to regularly watch jack paar. he was classy along with the folk he interviewed. but nobody does smutty better than jay.

I remember Jack Paar's velvet voice sliding under the bedroom door when I was a little kid in my bed. My father used to enjoy but my mother found his humor more than she was aware of.

and Steve Allen - I liked him too, and Jay, but nobody, but nobody beats Johnny!!

Merle

I also liked Ed McMahon, of which I can do a great impression.

no sidekick was as funny as ed.

Jay Leno never fails to make me laugh.

Leno here too, never interested in watching the show under any other host.

Sadly, I am not old enough to recall Mr. Carson as the host, or at least he wasn't when I started watching it. While I truly believe from the clips I have seen with Johnny Carson hosting that he is most likely the better choice, I had to go with Leno as he was the only logical choice I had.

tonight show hosts through the decades, in a nutshell:

steve allen was bona fide intellectual but concealed it in silliness and bonhomie.
jack paar was a quicksilver bon vivant who took no bull from anybody.
johnny carson was middle america with a sneer, and some intellectual pretention.
jay leno is boomer humor who also translates well with younger audiences.
conan o'brien is strictly young adult humor with limited crossover appeal.

No one compares to Johnny Carson. Jay Leno wants to have a similar legacy, I'm sorry but as in Carson's own words, 'Leno's just a seat filler'.

i had no idea that the tonight show was seen down under.

If you know how to find it I have only watched it once since Leno came back though

it is not that you found it but that you thought of it in the first place. johnny carson tried to make an inroad into the UK but his humor did not translate there, from what i read. they thought of him as "a self-impressed, strutting bantam dandy" or words to that effect. how popular was johnny down under?

Wasn't even alive for Allen and Paar and I was 3 when Johnny Carson finished up, so my vote between Leno and Conan goes to Leno. Leno always makes me laugh, Conan's random crazy antics make me laugh, but not as much as Jay.

it seemed to me that carson tried to incorporate aspects of steve allen and jack paar [intellectual gravitas mixed with social buzz and some silliness] into his show, to variable result. he tried to make his program both funny and thoughtful, with his mix of stand-up comics and hollywood types, as well as writers and educators.
OTOH, jay leno is straight-up stand-up comedy, and he makes the show work for mixed audiences in his own way, with his broad humor. unfortunately, the same can't be said of CoCo, whose humor and audiences seem strictly for young-adults, 18-30. if CoCo wants to broaden his audience [and his nielson numbers] he needs to broaden his humor as well.
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just my 2-cents' worth, adjusted for inflation