I agree with critiques of Leno. Don't find him 
particularly funny or witty or entertaining. 
Likewise with the ever-dour David Letterman. 
Neither of those gentlemen was fit to SHINE Johnny 
Carson's shoes, much less fill them.

Carson would've been deserving of the Twain Award, 
at least possibly.   These others -- gimme a break.

And as another person posted, most of those 
late-night hosts aren't even writing their own 
jokes -- they have teams of writers working for them.

-Steve Hoffman
Takoma Park MD

On 6/18/2014 2:39 PM, Denis Donovan wrote:
> Johnny Carson, who was as unlike Twain as you can get, nonetheless had =
> something in common with him that was absolutely not shared by either =
> Leno or Lederman. Like Twain, Carson never explained a joke or a =
> routine. Carson let his performance carry the meaning and shape the =
> experience just as Twain let his written or spoken performance shape the =
> experience. Carson may have laughed enough during the process to fill =
> several studio audience recordings with every laugh he needed -- but =
> Twain's enjoyment of his verbal and written performances clearly is =
> palpable in everything Twain ever wrote ... and really comes across in =
> the autobiography. Twain's piece on German sentence-building is as =
> hilarious as anything Carson ever did and much of both of their material =
> carries high-powered socio-political-cultural commentary. And, as read =
> by Grover Gardner, had me laughing as hard as I ever laughed at Carson, =
> a laugh tinged with infinitely more respect.
>
> Just a thought.
>
> Denis
>
>
> On Jun 18, 2014, at 1:42 PM, Scott Holmes wrote:
>
>> I don't know about the rest of you, on Twain-L, but I never thought =
> Leno
>> was particularly humorous.
> Denis M. Donovan, M.D., M.Ed., F.A.P.S.
> Director, EOCT Institute
>
> Medical Director, 1983 - 2006
> The Children's Center for Developmental Psychiatry
> St. Petersburg, Florida
>
> P.O Box 47576
> St. Petersburg, FL 33743-7576
> Phone:	727-641-8905
> [log in to unmask]
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Please reply to: [log in to unmask]
>
>