Remembering Ed McMahon
Posted: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 3:49 PM by Cathy Finkler
by Chris Matthews
We lost Ed McMahon last night. The country knew him as Johnny Carson's sidekick on "The Tonight Show" where night after night, he opened with that trademark - "Heeere's Johnny!"
Talk about an iconic bit of Americana. I first saw Ed riding around on the hood of a car. That's what he did every night in the commercials growing up in Philadelphia: a grown man in suit with his butt on the hood of a brand new automobile. That was our own Ed McMahon in his nightly advertisement of McCafferty Ford up on the boulevard in Langhorne, Pa.
Ed had a more humble beginning in show business. He was the clown on "The Big Top," the big circus show that came out of Philadelphia on national television back in the 1950s. It was all part of the work a person does to break his or her way into "the business" on which you set your heart.
Ed had fought for his country in both World War II and Korea. He was once on "Hardball" with Sen. John Glenn and he told us about it and the lesson he'd learned back then.
"Col. Glenn and I, World War II and Korea, we flew in both places, fought in both places. The advice is the same. Do what you are trained to do. Look out for your comrades, the guys next to you. Take care of the guy that's right beside you. In the military flying element, you have a wing man.... and you would think as much about the wing man as any other person in life. That was your closest, closest possible buddy. And anything you do, whatever it is, in a tank or on the ground, you respect the guy beside you and you do your job." (Click here to watch the January 2005 appearance.)
Ed McMahon's dream, which he reached, was a big-time TV announcer's job - where he could get into the act - his pot at the end of the rainbow was working as "wing man," as he put it, for Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show."
I think his job there was more important than people figured. Ed McMahon, regular guy, was our connection with that witty, cool, aloof Johnny Carson who could be very charming but also very distant. Ed McMahon was our connection. If Carson could hang out with a guy like Ed - who was, for many of us, a guy like us, he might just hang out (if the opportunity ever arose) with that big "us" out there.
It's sort of the job Joe Biden has now - with Barack Obama. Anyway, that's a different story.
Good for Ed. He got where he wanted to get. That's not bad in any life. And so tonight, let's say good night to the man who made "The Tonight Show" what it was for all those legendary years.
Watch the complete video:
