I stayed up late last night watching Johnny Carson. Tom and I laughed in front of the set as my parents had so many years ago. I remember hearing them from my little bedroom upstairs. Dad would pop popcorn and open a Pepsi; the Tonight Show was a grownup party I wasn’t invited to.

But there would be plenty of time to watch Carson — when I was in high school; during college summers, when I came in from my 3-11 p.m. waitress shift; when I was single and living on my own; and (less so) after I married and had kids. Johnny’s last show was in 1992. Our middle daughter was not quite one; our oldest was three. I slept whenever I had a chance — including through the last Tonight Show. This is something I’ve been sorry about through the years, so when I heard there would be a documentary about Carson on last night, I made a point to tune in.

There they all were — Ed McMahon, Doc Severensin, Johnny in his natty suits  — all of them young, so young. There was Johnny bursting through the curtain, fiddling with his tie, swinging his imaginary golf club. There he was running from a baby cheetah and jumping into Ed’s arms, wearing a turban as Carmak, deadpanning after a guest’s wacky comment, saying things he would surely be called sexist for now. Johnny worked a flubbed joke better than anyone in the business.

It seemed like most everyone watched Carson, liberal and conservative, gay and straight.  Carson has been off the air for 20 years — and the world has become a more brittle, more divided and less funny  place. Don’t you wish we could all stay up late again watching Johnny?

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