Let's watch some clips from Johnny Carson's 1955 CBS TV series. This was the series Johnny later called his greatest professional failure and blamed its short run on a mistake he said he made: Deferring to others too much and letting his producers steer him into material that was wrong for him. In the episodes I've seen, I don't see that. It seems to me he was doing the same kinds of jokes and sketches that he later did on The Tonight Show when he was the guy in the charge. I think the problem was that he came off as cold and mechanical, whereas later he developed a little twinkle that made him a more appealing performer.
The person who selected these clips picked ones that feature actors who are best known to us today for their work supplying cartoon voices. First up is June Foray, who did a fair amount of on-camera work in the fifties, much of it with Mr. Carson. Later, we have Sara Berner and then John Stephenson. Ms. Berner was a popular radio actress and she was heard in a lot of Warner Brothers and Walter Lantz cartoons. For instance, that's her doing the Mother Buzzard in Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid, the cartoon that introduced Beaky Buzzard. Mr. Stephenson was heard in hundreds of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, usually as a villain. His most recognizable role was probably as Fred Flintstone's boss, Mr. Slate. And now, herrrrre's Johnny…