I knew this is where comedy was.

Goni Carson changed my life twice.

It was just like a dream. It was just like everything I had worked for and dreamed about has come to fruition.

They said Johnny fell overlapping.

It makes me so happy.

I made him laugh.

But with Johnny, you know you knew you had a kid audience and you could really go crazy.

My wife with the curtain, all I held real books backstage.

People were running up and she'd go back out, go back out.

Johnny, you want you back.

I walked back through the curtain very calm and Johnny, I took about and

Johnny put that little circle up at the finger and I I am Mark Malkoff. This is the podcast where I talk to people whose lives were changed by going on the tonight show

starting Johnny Carson. Individuals that worked on Carson guest who regularly appeared

on the show in top people in entertainment that were influenced by Carson.

My guest today is one of my all-time favorite stand-up comedians, Stephen Wright.

His debut going on Carson in 1982 was so memorable that the Tonight Show showed it almost every year on their anniversary clip shows.

Stephen Wright and I got together at ICA Collective in Midtown New York City, we talked about how appearing on Johnny Carson

changed his life.

Enjoy.

For your Carson debut, how many years have you been doing stand up?

I had been doing it three years.

I started in July of 79, and I got to go on there in August of 82.

...