Before he became one of the most important creative voices behind The Simpsons, writer and producer Al Jean wrote for a TV legend that wrapped up his iconic show in the early ‘90s. Okay, he wrote for two of them, if you include ALF.
In 1984, Jean and his writing partner Mike Reiss landed a job writing for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. As Jean once told the Television Academy, they scored the job only after nailing a five-minute “personal interview” with Carson, who was rumored to have dismissed writers for objectively ludicrous reasons. Even though he worked at The Tonight Show for a year and a half, Jean “barely met Johnny,” calling the gig an “isolated experience.”
“He was so isolated from his writers that we read National Enquirer to find out what was going on in his life,” Reiss wrote in his book Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons. The pair of future Simpsons writers were eventually fired by Carson, although the show unsuccessfully tried to hire them back just a month later, shortly after they had already secured new jobs.
Jean recently posted a tribute to his old boss on October 23rd, which would have been Carson’s 100th birthday. This prompted Reiss to reveal that Jean was responsible for one of the TV icon’s most memorable late-career bits: the portable desk he brought along with him to Late Night with David Letterman.
“They’d built a folding Tonight Show desk and had it for ages, not knowing what to do with it,” Reiss explained. “@AlJean had the inspired idea of having Johnny bring it onto Letterman’s set and unfolding it there.”
On May 16 1985, an admittedly “nervous” Letterman interviewed Carson on Late Night. After being introduced and walking onto the set as Paul Shaffer’s band played “Johnny’s Theme,” Carson darted backstage and re-emerged carrying a collapsible version of his Tonight Show desk, which he immediately assembled next to Letterman’s.
“You will find out, David, after a few years — this is the only way I can talk with anybody,” Carson joked. “I was out to dinner last night at a restaurant, I (took) this with me. I go home after the show, I use this in our bedroom. I do not perform well without this desk.”
“I think your desk is bigger than mine,” Letterman quipped. “Well, in another 20 years, you will have this desk,” was Carson’s retroactively ominous response.
Still, the prop desk bit wasn’t quite as funny as The Simpsons. Or The Critic for that matter.
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