Hello, I want to mention here at the top that sadly after more than eight years, the final Carson podcast episode will be on

Thursday, May 26th. I want to thank everyone who has ever listened not that we're going away. We have many more episodes until then

But I want to especially thank our Patreon supporters and go fund me donors. Do we in the podcast this long would not have been possible without you?

As I mentioned to our Patreon supporters, the good news is I have reached out to many guests who have turned me down over the years to tell them the podcast is ending and some exciting names have

reconsidered and will be coming on.

I knew this is where comedy was. Johnny Carson changed my life twice. It was just like that dream. It was just like everything I had worked for and dreamed about has come to fruition.

They said Johnny fell over laughing. It makes me so happy. I made him laugh.

But with Johnny, you know, you knew you had a kid on a YouTube. You could really go crazy.

I'm going to have to cook all how real cooks backstage. People were running up and to go back out.

Oh my god.

Johnny, why don't you back? I walked back through the curtain very calm and Johnny that I took about and Johnny put that little circle up at the finger and I knew I had a line.

Welcome to the Carson podcast episode number 379. I am Mark Malkoff. This week we have two episodes.

So be sure to also check out episode 380 with guest producer director Don Mischer who worked with Carson when he hosted the Oscars as well as when Carson was honored in 1993 at the Kennedy Center Honors.

Our guest for this episode and I'm excited about this is Rona Barrett who discusses going on Carson's tonight show, working with Tom Snyder, Steve Lawrence, Maywest, Frank Sinatra and so much more.

Rona Barrett spoke to me from California. Enjoy.

Rona Barrett, thank you so much for talking with us.

I had to pleasure for me. Thank you for asking.

When did you meet Johnny Carson for the first time?

Long before I ever was on his program and that probably it it was somewhere in the early 60s or late 50s.

So this would have been before he got the tonight show he might have been doing. Who do you trust the game show?

Well, I think it was just as he got the tonight show.

So Johnny took over for Jack Parr in 1962. When you first met Johnny, what were your initial impressions of him?

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