Summer 1988: Attended a taping of "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." To get tickets, you had to get to the NBC lot way before oh-dark-30 (I got there at 5am and was 9th or 10th in line, first people at about 3:30). Then if you wanted good seats in the studio (who didn't?), you had to go around to the front of the building near the front door of NBC/KNBC and park your butt along a concrete planter that ran along the front of the building, the earlier the better. Once inside, you sit for about 45 min or so depending on how soon you got seated (ushered in @ 4:30, taping began @ 5:30 on the nose). Various staffers mill about the set, the stage, the bandstand, performing various tasks in preparation for this national TV production...studio cameras are being moved around, put in their places, cue cards set up, NBC Orchestra members filing through the colored curtain over to the bandstand to take their seats, pages seating still more people, mic boom operator sets up...a dapper-looking, bespectacled gentleman in suit and tie comes out of a big door near the control room with a file folder in his hand, casually strolls over to the set, steps up onto the carpeted "floor," and puts the folder down on the end of the desk nearest the stage before taking his place over near the control room window and begins chatting with this person and that while quietly observing the goings-on all over the studio...then about 10 minutes before showtime, this gentleman, producer Freddy deCordova, whose authority suddenly covers this studio at NBC like a tent, grabs a mic, strolls out to center stage and announces to the entire studio, "Let's get this thing started!!" to which the audience responds with wild, raucous applause and cheering. Ed McMahon takes his place at a lone microphone stand to Johnny's right between deCordova and the set to announce the start of the show and the night's guests...then Johnny himself. Everybody's ready and wildly enthusiastic, waiting for Johnny to come out, and eager to see their idol in action, which he does shortly. He does not disappoint. Some have made a pilgrimage to be here today.
