What is sis-boom-bah

Unless you like your jokes professionally tamed, the edges sanded off, watered down and served with an extra helping of corn, you already know that night after excruciating night, Jay Leno proves he isn't worthy. Certainly not of the job he's had hosting The Tonight Show since 1992 - with the exception of the seven months Conan did a far better job of it.

Jay Leno wants you to believe he's a good guy, a man of the people. The kind of talk show host you can have a beer with, and who'd never take your show away from you just because his new one flopped and he wants his old one back. Well, not so much on that last one.

To realize how bad Jay Leno actually is in the modern late night era, all you have to do is watch Letterman. Or Jimmy Kimmel. Craig Ferguson. Or Jimmy Fallon (who ever thought anyone would be saying that?).

But before all of them, there was Johnny.

Johnny Carson owned late night in a way no one else ever will. Every night, almost, for thirty years Carson put America to bed with style and wit that was at once ahead of and very much a part of its time.

When I was a kid I remember watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson one night when I was up late fighting a particularly nasty flu. It happened to be the night of what was perhaps his most famous line as Carnac the Magnificent:

Carnac: Sis boom bah.

Ed McMahon: Sis boom bah.

Carnac: Describe the sound made when a sheep explodes.

It was the first thing to make me feel better in a week. If Johnny was on, things were okay in the world. Even if they weren't.

The reason Carson's on my mind is this week's Newsweek features an article by Bill Maher remembering Johnny twenty years after his retirement. It's a good article.

The first night Leno hosted The Tonight Show in 1992, he didn't mention Carson's name once. Not to thank him, not to acknowledge him, nothing. When asked about it, he blamed it on Helen Kushnick, his notoriously overbearing manager and agent who got him the show. Many people say she orchestrated Johnny's retirement so Leno could get it.

For all his posing about being a good guy and putting out this straightforward "you know me" "I'm a regular guy" image, the fact he didn't ever thank Carson betrays Leno for what he was at the time: an ungrateful coward who didn't have the guts to stand up to his manager and do the right thing.

I'll never forgive him for it.

But his punishment is what he's become. Jay Leno, before he got the Tonight Show, used to be the best stand-up working anywhere. He'd do Springsteen-length sets. I used to love seeing him, and hearing material that was fresh, original and edgy with cleverness and insight. I imagine the Leno that did that material isn't the same one he sees now when he looks in the mirror.

Despite his publicity machine, and because of his slighting Johnny that first night, Leno will never be a class act.

Certainly not anywhere near the one he replaced.