Jonathan Winters Didn’t Fit in the Marines | Carson Tonight Show

[Music] I have known uh Johnny wers for about 17 years and I have never ceased to be amazed at his his talent he's genuinely a funny funny man and he has his own television show syndicated around the country and on April 6th he will be up at the Sahara Tahoe would you welcome please Jonathan [Applause] [Music] wter [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hello John oh gosh pretty thrilling huh well it is I will wore my new sweater new for me uh was in a fire sale and I grabbed it up I'm not proud I a lot of my things are used uh the shoes were I bought those in the same sale not ashamed of that not there was a fire sale and that's about all there is to that I got to tell I got to tell them what you did to me you may not even remember this remember when Jack par was doing the old CBS Morning Show right I think that's the first time you were really ever appeared on television about 1955 56 we did it out of Grand Central Station and we did two shows one at 7:00 which played in the East and then at 8:00 the Midwest and West would join the network and then you had to go back and repeat the first hour of the show live for the West Coast again and I'd met you the first time then and I was back there filling in for Robert Q Lewis on a daytime show and you called me at a hotel once you won't remember this at all there a lot of things but I remember you I know there there are many things you have done remember a little dim my uh my mind has failed me a number number of times but on this particular thing I was staying at a little cheap hotel back there real cheap hotel right and I got this call one day and it was from you although I didn't know it at the time and I was just finishing up the show I said Johnny Carson I said yes he say say Mr Welton I'm with Jay Walter Thompson advertising agency in here in New York my ears just the whole scalp went up and he says we are doing some commercials for the Buick company I remember it so well and he says we'd like you to be our spokesman and uh of course there's $22,000 in it and a new Buick and right then a dollar would have been you know didn't have any money and I knew that you knew that I had to go back to California I had to come back and do a show I was doing and I wouldn't be there so I started to do you know little disclaimers like I'd love to do it Mr Weldon and then you start to get nasty just a little bit well if only me you can't do it that's Trouble With You California guys you come into town give you a job you don't want to stay and then you got really angry and I'm practically dying and I could killed you at that time and then he that's Johnny wers and I could see the Buick just flying away and I'd already spent the $2,000 on the house driving the car you you did little little cutie things didn't you well I still call guys up and I still answer the phone as different people I love to do that one of my favorite stories um I love to maybe you know be an old person or and someone will say hello uh is uh Jonathan W AR no the boy is the boy is in the basement he uh combing the kitty say well who's this well just an old man who wanders around his house and as a lot of times you get odd reactions from people other but one of my favorite stories was I I've told it before but it is a it is a fun story several several years ago number of years ago I'd gone back to Ohio um to see my mother and uh my stepfather and and several relatives and uh always it was at Christmas time and uh all of us were feeling no pain my stepmother my my stepfather was certainly in rare form and my mother had had a few and uh I'd had several and drink of your choice yes uh little touch of the gra and uh like many people who uh embi in ranks uh you get uh telephone itis and want to call the world and so I I wanted to call a friend of mine and His Name Was art Lidle and he and I had gone to school together and he was a funeral director and uh so uh I called him and I assumed a character and I knew that he didn't hadn't seen me or heard my voice in a long long time so I knew I was home free and I called him up and uh he uh owned the uh still does this day the Jackson liol Funeral Home in in Springfield and uh so I said hello is uh is Mr Arthur L Jr there and he said yes speaking and I said uh is this Arthur L Jr he said yes I said well this is Elwood PE suggins and I live out on the Lakewood Beach area and my brother passed away here Sunday week and uh I was I was wondering if you could do a job on it and uh there was a there was a long bu and he said how long did you say he'd been dead I said well he passed away here Sunday week he said good Lord man where have you got him and I said well most our people are from Boise and I didn't want him have come that far just to look at grass you know so what we did we put him out there on the porch set him up again to lattice and uh c spell set in just kept him harder in [Laughter] car I remember the other day it sun come out and he commenced to get flhy and uh his face dropped a little bit and uh but I tell you Mr lle even in death there's humor my uh my eldest boy Lamar Jean Twisted the deceased hand around and put a softball in well lightle lit in me good Heavens I've never heard anything like this so then I of course I broke in I said well it's Johnny wners and he said a few things those are some of the little things that I what is the wildest thing you've ever done um the wildest thing yeah that that you remember now the reason I can say that because we know each other from we have spent some evenings together oh a number of good evenings when we had been talking to bushes at 300 or 4:00 in the morning I I uh I guess uh I'm trying to think the wildest thing I ever did well I remember one story uh very well uh I I was sitting uh this was back East I was back in New York you were talking about an advertising agency made me think about this and uh telephone rang and I went to the telephone and I decided I would become a character as I just mentioned and a man said uh hello uh is Jonathan Winter's there and I said that little funky man's on a little tractor and he's out in the backyard cutting some gray and uh so uh he said uh he said who's this and I said this is say who are you and he said well this is uh Mr Cavendish and I'm with benon BS or something and I'd like to talk to Mr wners he said you mean let me see if I can find roundo so gee you going to see this guy at the other end of the phone so uh I I then Shi my voice I said hey R come on in there a phone call for you get on it so I said hello uh this is Jonathan ws and and then the guy at the other end said who was that I was talking to I said I'm on the phone too so uh it's fun to do these little bo upet a few people here's uh here's Ed to say you about a great new opportunity to try one of the most remarkable vacuum cleaners ever made we're back my guest tonight are Joan Rivers Judy Collins and Johnny wnter uh your syndicated show has been renewed out here and you're going to do something else on CBS yeah we uh we can mention that I hope we can of course because the Network's here they can stand that I think uh I I always know there's there's a little friction you know between the three but what the heck they're all making a lot of bread uh I uh I start doing uh my little show uh it's a half hour and it will start on CBS uh here in Los Angeles 7:30 to 8 uh around the middle of April I don't have the exact date I hope it'll be around the middle of April that's what they promised me that and then um I'm going back East um to New York uh on Monday and U it it'll be back there uh it'll start it's already in Philadelphia in your hometown uh Big Ed yes and I was discharged you know in in Philadelphia very good yeah fellow Marine fell Marine that's right you Corporal he was a colonel yes that's right I remember he yeah there's an awful lot of difference here rarely uh do you guys mingle with the enlisted guys right right kid well you didn't you didn't like the service fire remember we sat around talking about that several nights you no I uh I got along fairly well in the service uh I was always disturbed because I didn't know where I was and unless you're an officer you see you're not clued in and you're not given the the top papers which I felt I should have had at least one or two papers and uh I kept asking questions which is always trouble running up to a captain you know a colonel like yourself and saying where are we sir I of business move out and I was always moving out uh I was frightened a great deal of the time uh I was frightened to the guys I uh I didn't understand a lot of them they didn't understand me I was kidding all the time you know I being Grandma one minute and I handy you know that would a lot of guys didn't understand that would shake up a Barracks late at night I turned I'll never forget to a full bird full bird bird colonel and did a voice on him which I'll never forget and I said oh sir what is your [Laughter] name little sense of humor don't do that in the Marines very often so I was misunderstood a great deal of but I got out eventually uh I knew I would I had good feelings about that and uh I got out I spent 2 and A2 years and then uh I wandered around aimlessly uh looking for odd jobs and uh being odd I found a lot of odd work we were talking about the first thing people ever remember Judy remembers at 2 years old or three and four do you remember back that early when you were a kid the three and four years back to one the one I remember the beads on the ankle oh remember the blue beads and the nurse putting them on it uh no I that's that's that's pretty far back no I uh I remember I I'd have to go along with the girls I remember back about four yeah yeah about three three or four and I was an only child as you know Johnny but I didn't have any brothers or sisters and that was it Lonesome it was for a while was for a while and uh uh then I realized that uh that any goodies that would be handed over would be handed over to me but uh no I uh I was an unusual child you know you can imagine yes I I was frightening old people a lot you know scaring them on the porch or something like that uh and doing in class I I I was a slow student I i' like I was dumb that's what they used call he's slow teachers yeah the teachers would say the boy slow uh but I was you can imagine I I and a little girl next to me somebody like yourself I go and the girl would laugh and then point at me and say Johnny Winner's doing things Johnny Winner's doing things and I'd run out and jump through the window but no I I was not a very good student uh I I had very poor concentration and I was scared to death of the Blackboard uh there something about when I to me nothing today scares me like when the teacher would say I remember we had Miss meder who was a very unusual woman uh she well I don't want to go into long story that she was tough and could have made a sergeant easily and uh I was frightened of her and uh she knew that and she took advantage of that I felt and she would say John wners talk like a man uh to me a lot I that's unfair but I she sounded sometimes like very very strong uh and she said go to the board and I said yes Miss B I'll go to the board and I was always turning to a student and because I never knew where I was I was never prepared and give give me the answer quick and I'll never forget there was a guy called Alden sander there's Alden sander Alden sonander turned to me and he said we learn by doing I killed him at recet but uh I we learn by doing learn always one of those one those guys and bless he's heart he was a very bright student he was the brightest guy in our class I always remember that he was pages and Pages ahead of everybody and I was pages and Pages behind everybody uh many days I I I remember uh it seemed like I was sick a great deal at the time uh because I wanted to be and uh on warm sunny days I always had a cold I mother I I shouldn't go I and uh she'd grab me like this you know plac me on the [Laughter] bicycle like to school like to school a lot of times I roller skated that was fun remember roller skating sure yeah rotor skated rode the bicycle walked ran happy childhood though happy oh yes fairly happy yeah I was broke lot you know that that's not fun when you're broke all the time that's right but I would lay for people in bushes and uh what were some of the jobs you did before you got into some of the jobs I did yeah before you started before I started getting into Show Business oh some of the jobs I did I worked in a theater I was an usher in a theater uh before uh before I even got out of high school I was us I did and I worked in a a place called The U I think gosh I'm trying to think of the the bar well anyway I remember it was a circular stage and uh I was going around on that thing and doing little Funnies and I got something like $25 for the weekend and all I could drink and eat and uh then I went into the service when I was 17 came out and then I did a lot of things I uh I one thing I always remember I was uh work for the Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Bottling Company I Was An Inspector Inspector and looking for dead mice and marbles I uh sat on a little sat on a little stool you know the neon light and did this and just watch bottles all day long and then I uh I picked apricots and um picked potatoes uh Chuck corn you probably did that in Nebraska shoot and um and I worked I was a fry cook in the ellistone theone Park oh yeah in the ellone national park and worked 9:00 at night till 5:00 in the morning uh cooking steaks uh and hamburgers and just little short or things for for the uh for the uh what do they call them the I could never remember the guys um Park attendance R yes yeah that kept people from the Bears and things but uh well I did a lot of cookie I think most of us have done you know odd weird things unusual jobs never to do something here what are you doing here now well we're going to sell a little something oh good and then do Dr Stillman will come out and Dr Stillman will come out and help us so we can use it

Channel: Johnny Carson

Views: 1,495,669

Keywords: episode, best, funny, youtube, funny videos, comedy, laugh, funniest, stand up, comedian, hilarious, stand up comedy, johnny carson, tonight show, humor, sketch, johnny carson bloopers, johnny carson show, johnny carson animals, johnny carson monologue, johnny, carson, tonight, show, funny video, best of johnny carson, funniest moments johnny carson, jonathan winters

Id: 3e5SNae-xWc

Length: 17min 31sec (1051 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 06 2024