As I've mentioned here elsewhere, I used to like to go hang out on Stage 1 at NBC Burbank when a certain Mr. Carson was doing this thing he used to do called The Tonight Show. There was a little area of standing room right behind where Fred DeCordova and the other producers and staff members sat or congregated during the taping, about two yards from the edge of the guest couch. If you looked even vaguely like you belonged on the lot, and if Johnny hadn't had a bevy of recent death threats, you could loiter there during the taping and enjoy the proceedings. I probably watched all or part of a dozen Carson shows from there and there was a true feeling of magic in the room.
I was there when this clip was taped, and it's a shame the camera wasn't on Mr. Carson because I have never seen a human being laugh so hard in my life. Everyone was convulsed with laughter but Johnny looked like he was going to need paramedics to come in and give him oxygen.
The comedian is Charlie Callas, who I can't recall seeing on TV the last few years, not even on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, where he was once a regular. His website has not been updated in four or five years but his Internet Movie Database listing says he was in a Larry the Cable Guy special in '07 and that he's in a horror movie spoof currently in production.
Right after Callas did this bit on Johnny's show and they went to commercial, Carson told him how hilarious he thought it was. At that moment, Exec Producer Fred DeCordova hurried up to the desk and informed Johnny that NBC Standards and Practices was "concerned" about the routine and wanted to discuss perhaps editing the tape or doing an audience cutaway during parts of it. From where I stood, you could see steam emanating from Johnny's ears and he said, very firmly, that it was staying in and there would be no cutaways and that, by God, was that. End of discussion. DeCordova, fulfilling his role as Good Cop, returned to our area and told a worried-looking lady, "I tried." The Standards folks at NBC were occasionally able to overrule Johnny but I gather that this was one of many times they decided the battle wasn't worth the headache.
Here's one very funny minute of Charlie Callas…