Quotes
Robert Blake/Fernando Lamas/Victoria Principal/Charles Fleischer/John Twomey
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
- Ed McMahon: That big mansion that you have does not include a court?
- Johnny Carson: Now, what do you mean? I don't live in a mansion!
- Ed McMahon: What?
- Johnny Carson: A little G.I. housing thing.
- Ed McMahon: I spent a weekend there, only saw half of it.
- Johnny Carson: You want me to tell 'em where your home address is?
- Johnny Carson: [on government grants] Three hundred thousand dollars was spent for a Masters and Johnson study entitled "Male Impotence, and Kitchen Utensils That Can Help".
- Johnny Carson: You've never used this in court or anything. I mean, how's the legal profession look upon this as a - as an attorney?
- John Twomey: Well, I'll tell ya - in the courtroom, during a tense trial, you kinda wait towards the end of the trial. Kinda like a "gotcha" - you know how that story goes? And just as the opposing counsel is just rising to make an important point to the jury, you know...
- [he makes two farting sounds with his hands]
- John Twomey: Just a couple of quick...
- Johnny Carson: That was a new little addition there, wasn't it? The humming, with the - the, uh...
- John Twomey: Well, yes - it's... it's kind of a three-part harmony. I'm working on a fourth part, but I can't really divulge that.
- Johnny Carson: Well, I... I - I'm not sure we're ready for a demonstration.
- Robert Blake: Every couple of months, we call the lawyers, and divide up the kids and the furniture, and throw things, and do the whole - just push it as far as we can. And just kinda run it right into the toilet until it's out of gas. And then it's over.
- Johnny Carson: Then you're back together again.
- Robert Blake: Yeah.
- Johnny Carson: Now you tell me.
- Robert Blake: [on Wally Cox' advice] My philosophy is "don't do the crime, if you can't do the time". And I'd be - I'd be afraid there'd be a lot of heavy time that I would not be prepared to do. And he says, "Well, Robert, there's a way around that." And he's hiking along. I say, "What is that, Wally?" 'Cause I'd like to know what that way around would be. He said, "Well, you go ahead, and you have your little caprice - have your little affair. And if the bag turns out to be a drag, well, you're lucky - you just walk away. And if it turns out to be terrific, well, you shoot her."
- Johnny Carson: That's like writing a letter, when you're angry at somebody - sit down and write the letter, don't send it. And say all of the things that you're angry at, and put the stamp on it - and then throw it away, or put it in the drawer. Say it's sometimes - it does the same thing.
- Robert Blake: I didn't get to that yet.
- Johnny Carson: You haven't...
- Robert Blake: I still send the letter.
- Fernando Lamas: And then, eventually, you just wind up in Hollywood, sitting next to another actor reading The Hollywood Reporter, and lying to each other.
- Fernando Lamas: I remember the picture - Clark Gable rode a horse right into the Plaza Hotel in Buenos Aires. Now, Buenos Aires is a city with eight million people and seven lines of subway, and he's riding a horse - you see? And ties a horse to the front of the hotel.
- Robert Blake: They put some big star with a - with a lady, and they go in the tank. So they stick him with another guy, and they go off in the sunset together, and it makes a lot of money.
- Fernando Lamas: Yeah. And we never know what they do beyond the sunset, those two!
- Robert Blake: Yeah. That's a strange phenomenon...
- Fernando Lamas: Very strange.
- Robert Blake: That really is true.
- Fernando Lamas: That is.
- Robert Blake: You don't see John Garfield and Paulette Goddard go off in the sunset - it's Redford and Newman.
- Fernando Lamas: Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Yeah.
- Johnny Carson: Well, progress; I don't know.
- Robert Blake: That's progress.
- Fernando Lamas: Let's be broad-minded; what the hell.
- Johnny Carson: Are you Italian?
- Victoria Principal: Am I Italian? Principale - Vittoria!
- Johnny Carson: You've another Italian over here.
- Fernando Lamas: Oh - you *are* Italian, eh?
- Robert Blake: *I* used to be Italian.
- Victoria Principal: Did you?
- Johnny Carson: Before the operation.
- Johnny Carson: [on government grants] Eighty-seven thousand dollars for a study of why sex is better than cleaning up the yard, no matter what your wife says.
- John Twomey: I know that tonight, for example, there are manualists... uh, not coming forward to the public. They're just sitting home playing with themselves... And I think they're really...
- Johnny Carson: Absolutely. You've got to have an audience for that.
- Fernando Lamas: Now they say, "The star of our show!" And some idiot comes up, and he says, "We're gonna play a game now."
- Johnny Carson: Time to bet your bippy!
- Fernando Lamas: "We're playin' a game! You take off all your clothes, and you show, and the one who's better equipped wins the game." And this is the "star" of a show.
- Johnny Carson: It's always tough to find people who do comedy - 'cause it's probably the roughest job in the world to walk out in front of an audience when you're not known, and make people laugh.
- Charles Fleischer: [imitating Caine from "Kung Fu"] Master?... Why I walk like this?... And why... I talk... so slow? No one ever stay to listen.
- Fernando Lamas: What happens when you have a problem like that? Livin' with a crazy old broad that yells a lot? Either - either - either you get under the problem - and that's no good, because then all your life you go around hating all old ladies; that's no good. Or you get on top of the problem, you yell back - which is what I did.
- Johnny Carson: I'm tryin' to get a story about a sweet old grandmother here, and I...
- Fernando Lamas: Right. Right. You - you wouldn't take it; you couldn't take - see, as they... I mean, nobody can yell 24 hours a day and be sane.
- Victoria Principal: [on Los Angeles exercise classes] The thing that made me quit - I gave it up, the third day - was there was one where the women would sit on the floor, with their legs outstretched in front of them. And it was to firm a muscle peculiar only to the female race, and located in the thigh area. And the rhyme was: "One two three, one two three - think how happy he will be."