Ed McMahon

Ed McMahon is dead.

That is really the end of an era.

I liked Ed.

When I was in the USAF, I was in LA for three weeks. I always wanted to see the Tonight Show so I got up at 5am and drove to Burbank to try to get tickets for that day's show. They gave the standby tickets out at 8am and then you had to get back by 3:30pm for the taping I think at 5pm.

When I got to NBC in Burbank it was almost 8am. It took me 2 1/2 hours to get there. That was fun. I didn't know traffic could be that bad. I got in this huge line and got my standby ticket. Now I had to just hang out until 3pm because if I drove back to the base I would just have to drive right back. I get to the studio on time..I'm always early....and we are put in this line based on your standby ticket number. I'm almost at the end of the line. There is no way I'm getting in. So just before they close the doors, one of the pages comes down the line and they have one seat left. Well everyone there had at least someone who was with them and they didn't want to leave their partner....except me. So I got the last seat for the 25th anniversary Tonight Show.

It was really cool to be there. It was mostly clips, no guests. The interesting thing was that Ed looked like he was absolutely bored to death. I guess after sitting there for 25 years and saying Hiiioooooooo every once in a while I would be bored too. The millisecond that the taping was over...I mean the light in the camera was still half lit....Ed was gone. Like he was shot out of a cannon. Everybody else stayed around for a few minutes....not Ed. Maybe he had some bad Mexican food.

And why don't they play those old tonight shows on TV? Somebody's sitting on them and they must be worth a fortune. Or is it one of those things where I'm supposed to pay $19.95/month to get a new DVD every month? Or maybe if the old Tonight Show was on somewhere no one would watch the current one. Who knows?