A rather well-known comedian who asked to remain nameless wrote to ask…
I watched the Carson show you had on your site this morning. I understand why they cut out some of the music but there's a big, ugly edit between the time Ed McMahon does his "Here's Johnny" and the moment when Johnny walks out from behind the curtains. Any idea what the deal was with that?
Yeah. I'll bet the deal was that after the show was finished, they had Ed redo the opening so they could drop out the name of the guest who was bumped. He's mentioned at the end of Johnny's monologue and again later in the show…but the fact that he ain't in the opening billboard means they redid it and edited the new version into the tape.