New Historic Carson Exhibits Coming to the National Comedy Center
Thanks to a new partnership between the National Comedy Center and the Elkhorn Valley Museum in Norfolk, Nebraska and the Carson Entertainment Group, we’ll be assured that generations will be able to learn about the legacy and influence of Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show. The Johnny Carson Archive will now have a home in the National Comedy Center in Jamestown while continuing to have a home in the museum in Carson’s hometown in Nebraska.
In an announcement made on what would have been Carson’s 95th birthday, the National Comedy Center revealed they will lead the preservation of history Johnny Carson archives including artifacts, wardrobe, creative documents and awards that will be jointly exhibited by the National Comedy Center and the Elkhorn Valley Museum. The collection will chronicle Carson’s early life, career and legendary thirty-year reign as the king of late night television and one of the most beloved personalities in comedy history.
It’s thrilling that thanks to this unique arrangement, the Carson archives will continue to be exhibited in Nebraska as Carson wanted, but also be more accessible to those traveling to the country’s premiere comedy state of the art comedy archive located in Jamestown.
“Johnny Carson personally directed that the television memorabilia in his office be placed in the Elkhorn Valley Museum in Norfolk, Nebraska, his boyhood home. The fact that the National Comedy Center is located in the hometown of Lucille Ball, and that these two cultural institutions are working together to preserve comedy history is very exciting. Time goes by so quickly and people forget how good these two performers really were. The preservation of their careers and legacies is so very important,” stated Jeff Sotzing, nephew to Carson and president of Carson Entertainment Group. “I am honored to be a part of this new partnership and look forward to seeing it keep comedy alive.”
A new exhibit will debut in Nebraska in 2021 that will trace the path that Johnny took across the years from Norfolk to New York City to California and back again, as Norfolk celebrates and remembers one of its favorite sons for his enduring legacy in entertainment. The opening of the expanded gallery will kick off the milestone 30th anniversary year of Johnny’s return to his beloved hometown to film his Emmy Award-winning NBC special “Johnny Goes Home.”
In 2022, the National Comedy Center will celebrate the 60th anniversary of Johnny Carson’s legendary run as the host of The Tonight Show with a new multi-media exhibit: 30 Years of Late Night Television, 30 Years Later- in Jamestown, New York. The exhibit will feature never-before-seen documents and creative papers (including Tonight Show monologues personally annotated by Carson), rare artifacts and wardrobe, and archival video from Carson’s storied television career. Curated selections from The Tonight Show will present a comedic time capsule of world events for three decades, including legendary monologues, classic Carson characters like Carnac the Magnificent, Floyd R. Turbo and Art Fern, and historic performances by many of stand-up comedy’s greatest talents — often seen in their earliest national television appearances. As the National Comedy Center develops its 60th anniversary Carson exhibit, its archival team will be reaching out to former production staff and crew for Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show for additional archival material, as well as to guest stars and stand-up comedians who made notable appearances, in order to create the most comprehensive presentation of Carson’s Tonight Show legacy ever assembled in exhibit form.
The National Comedy Center exhibit will not only showcase Carson’s career, but highlight The Tonight Show’s formative and pivotal role as the most influential platform for stand-up comedy during the three decades that Carson served as the show’s host.
The Carson Exhibition will join a long list of incredible archives that have been donated to the Comedy Center by comedians or their family members. Exhibition partners include Kelly Carlin and the George Carlin estate, George Shapiro and Jerry Seinfeld, the Andy Kaufman Memorial Trust, Dan Aykroyd, Alan and Robin Zweibel, Joan Dangerfield, The Lenny Bruce Memorial Foundation, Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, The Harold Ramis Family, The Garry Shandling Estate, George Schlatter, Bill Marx and the Harpo Marx Family, the Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams estate, Desilu Too, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Corporate Archive, and many more.
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