Johnny Carson's senior thesis!

[shimp scrampi]

Wow. The internet is an amazing thing.

University of Nebraska - Lincoln has posted Carson's 1949 senior thesis "How to Write Comedy for Radio" - a reel-to-reel recording wherein the young Johnny dissects the structure of radio comedy. This was mentioned on the PBS television comedians special recently...

It's a large file (69 megabytes) but well worth listening. Clips from Jack's show are abundantly used to illustrate his points. This would be an awesome discussion topic for a chat some month.

Here's the link:

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/theaterstudent/1/

[Brad from Georgia]

Awesome find, Shimp! I concur--great material for a chat!

[JohnM]

Thanks for sharing this incredible find. Johnny sounds as suave and confident at 22 as he would when he was 52.

[TimL2005]

I had a friend dub from VHS to DVD some Cleveland Television 50th anniversary programs for me recently..He Dubbed everything that was on the tapes. One show included in these tapes was a TV Land Museum of Television archive showing of Jack Benny with guest Johnny Carson from October, 1963. It was obvious the respect and awe Johnny had for Jack then...Johnny did his card tricks and played the drums on the show..