What's th origin of that John Stewart/ Johnny Carson voice?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

You know the voice I mean? "Eeeooowww, looks like it's going to be a cold winter.." I could swear that there was a cartoon character that did that voice before Johnny Carson did it. And if a cartoon character did it, it was probably mimicking a real life character .. It might have been Jackie Gleason? (But for some reason doesn't seem quite right...)

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Ed Sullivan? Your description is vague.

― andy, Wednesday, 10 March 2004 18:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I can only describe it as where he tightens up his neck and speaks nasally - kinda whiney. He does it in almost every show - whenever he tells a stupid, Henny Youngman joke..

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 18:14 (twenty-two years ago)

he's kind of doing it a bit too much lately, he needs to knock it off. it's kind of Droopy Dog but I think maybe it's actually based on some other late 50's comic ala Jack Benny (but not jack Benny, I don't think).

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 18:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember watching old Looney Toons cartoons as a kid and they would lampoon popular film stars of the day, but I had no idea who they were. Like a goldfish would pop out of his bowl with Peter Lorre eyes and speak like him, or a pretty girl would turn around and would actually have Bob Hope's face. Only the Simpsons does that now, but with less subtlety.

― andy, Wednesday, 10 March 2004 18:44 (twenty-two years ago)

ten months pass...

It was on the tip of my tongue.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/19/television.carson.reut/index.html

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

wow!

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

they both stole it from eugene levy's performance in waiting for guffman.

― dan (dan), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:00 (twenty-one years ago)

HA! That impression was great. But the first 30 minutes of Guffman leave me breathless every time.

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha, actually, that's the first thing I thought of when I was trying to imagine what Dave was talking about. But Dr. Pearl was doing a Carson impression, wasn't he?

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

(xpost)

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeep!

― Huk-L, Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I've never heard of that "eoowww" predating Carson. I think it's from his regular sketch where he played an epicene TV-movie show host.

(Carson's sketches were quite unbearable.)

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:04 (twenty-one years ago)

It may have originated with Carson .. Just that I seem to remember a cartoon character (like Gazoo or TopCat/but not TopCat or some cartoon character-actor) using that voice, which may have predated Carson. Johnny's been around a long time though.. It could be a bastardization of a bastardization of a voice ..

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Now it's bugging me - What did Eugene Levy say in Guffman in that voice? Sumpin' about Brave, squaw, wampum .. I can just picture his eyebrows...

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Doctor Allan Pearl: I love to make people laugh and I've been doing it since, you know, school. People ask me, "Were you, were you, uh, you must've been the class clown." And I say, "No I wasn't. But I sat beside the class clown and I studied him and saw how he made people laugh." And so I picked some things up and, you know, at parties and family functions, I have to say I love, you know, breaking people up. So, there's a thing that I think I got an entertaining bug from my grandfather, Chaim Pearlgut, who was very, very big in the Yiddish Theatre back in New York. He was in the very, the sardonically irreverent "Dibbik, Schmibbik, I Said More Ham" and that revue, I believe, was 1914 and that revue is what made him famous. Incidently, the song "Bouby Made a Kishka" came from that revue. My father, bless him, brought me into the business. This was his dental practice before and I joke with my wife that, you know, at that point, that's when the, uh, the money started, uh, rolling in, you know...(switches to a voice of Johnny Carson as his Indian chief character) "Brave making.. more wampum to buy pelts." (laughs quietly) "One happy squaw wigmam...happy as mongoose." (laughs quietly again) That, uh, is, of course, from Johnny Carson who, uh, one of my heroes in a very funny bit.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:17 (twenty-one years ago)

"Dibbik, Schmibbik, I Said More Ham"

BAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA!

Thanks. That made my day.

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I always think of Jerry Lewis?

― ade (Adrian Langston), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:37 (twenty-one years ago)

gotta be jerry lewis. any voice you can imagine yourself saying "gahoy hoy hoy" in, that's jerry lewis.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm fairly certain that it is not.

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 20:43 (twenty-one years ago)

It reminds me a bit of Marvin the Martian from the old Warner Brothers cartoons.

― earlnash, Wednesday, 19 January 2005 21:16 (twenty-one years ago)

"hoaaa that's good paprika!" I've asked myself this too many times, (and noticed him overusing it lately yes) I'm thinking it predates Carson for some reason, I honestly think it's just some Borscht belt detritus whose origins are lost to antiquity.

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 22:15 (twenty-one years ago)

gleason seems very likely

― j blount (papa la bas), Wednesday, 19 January 2005 22:39 (twenty-one years ago)

I heard Al Franken today (and I consider him to be somewhat of an authority on comedy history) mention Art Fern, who was "Johnny Carson's tribute to Jackie Gleason"

So that may be about the best answer I'm gonna get.

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 27 January 2005 17:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Carson apparently wrote his college thesis on Jack Benny!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 27 January 2005 17:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm old enough to remember Gleason's Vietnam-era variety show, and I can hear the Fern antecedent now. JG would drink from a coffee cup at the beginning of the show and say "Oooooh, that's good booze!"

http://haminahamina.com/wavs.html

(third one down)

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 27 January 2005 17:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, that's what I was originally thinking .. although I was remembering "How sweet it is" in that voice.

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 27 January 2005 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Props to Morbius!!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 27 January 2005 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Right, Cheersthanksalot!

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 27 January 2005 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

When Stewart did the voice Wednesday, he followed with "My hommage to..." and pointed upward. Studio audience remained clueless.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 28 January 2005 14:24 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.