For parodies of the "Here's Johnny!" line, see "Here's Johnny!" Homage.
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Film - Animated
- The Iron Giant: The man selling Dean his tractor because "it's got a large bite out of it" is based on Floyd R. Turbo, one of Carson's characters. He's listed in the credits as "Floyd Turbeaux".
Film - Live-Action
- Fargo: After Carl and Gaear have sex with two prostitutes in a hotel room, we see all four of them watching The Tonight Show.
- The King of Comedy is about a wannabe comedian (played by Robert De Niro) who's obsessed with talk show host Jerry Langford (played by Jerry Lewis). Langford is obviously an expy of Carson, and Carson was even offered the role. He turned it down, but Carson's producer Fred de Cordova plays his own Fictional Counterpart in the film. Then it went full circle in Joker, when De Niro played Carson expy Murray Franklin, whose show Live! With Murray Franklin even borrowed the color pattern of the curtains from Carson's Tonight Show.
- Jack Nicholson referenced the show in The Shining by saying "HEEERRE'S JOHNNY!", a reference to the phrase used to introduce Carson. Director Stanley Kubrick didn't recognize the reference because he was living in England at the time and The Tonight Show didn't air over there.
Literature
- Planet Earth Is Blue: When Bridget and Nova still lived with their biological mother, she'd occasionally let them stay up late to watch The Tonight Show.
Live Action TV
- All in the Family: In "Sammy's Visit", Archie recognizes Sammy Davis Jr. as being someone who was on this show.
- I'm Dying Up Here: In the pilot episode, Clay gets a shot at being on The Tonight Show, and to the delight of Goldie, who owns the comedy club Clay started out at, he gets invited to sit on the couch, which, to Goldie, is a sign that he's made it (which was Truth in Television).
- In theCheers episode "Heeeeere's...Cliffy!" Cliff sends in a joke for the show. After he's too afraid to open what turns out to be a rejection letter himself, Norm edits it to say they accepted to make him feel better. This ends with Cliff dragging him to the broadcast, forcing Norm to bribe one of the crew to write it on Johnny's cue cards, where it inevitably bombs. Notably, the episode aired one month before Johnny's retirement.
- The Noddy Shop contains a lobster named Johnny Crawfish who is a spoof of Johnny Carson. He often tells jokes to the audience, and is occasionally introduced with a parody of the "Here's Johnny!" line.
- In the Sanford episode "Love Is Blind", Fred mentions falling asleep while watching this show.
- In the Get Smart episode "Too Many Chiefs," the chief describes how a Master of Disguise once pretended to be Johnny Carson and hosted The Tonight Show for two weeks before he was caught.
- Saturday Night Live has referenced the show a couple of times:
- Johnny Carson was one of a number of celebrities Dana Carvey did impressions of (with Phil Hartman as Ed McMahon.
- One episode recreates the famous episode where Ed Ames attempted to pull a William Tell by throwing a tomahawk at a hand-drawn cowboy, only for the tomahawk to end up in the crotch area. In this version, John Belushi gives the drawing a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown with the tomahawk.
Music
- The Beach Boys recorded "Johnny Carson", an eccentric, but sincere, tribute to him and the show, on the 1977 album The Beach Boys Love You.
- 1990s Alternative Rock band Dramarama's song "Last Cigarette" includes the line "You don't have to read the headlines you can hear what Johnny Carson said."
- "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a song called "Here's Johnny" (a parody of El DeBarge's "Who's Johnny") for his album Polka Party! It's an ode to Tonight Show announcer Ed McMahon, with John Roarke (of the TV series Fridays) doing an impersonation of McMahon's voice and laugh.
Western Animation
- Dynomutt, Dog Wonder: In one episode, Dynomutt does a parody of Carnac the Magnificent.
- The Hair Bear Bunch: The bears put on a scam on Peevly through role-playing, calling themselves Hair's Mighty Art Players (in "Rare Bear Bungle") or The Mighty Hair Bear Performers ("I'll Zoo You Later"). This is a nod to the Mighty Carson Art Players from The Tonight Show.
- Histeria!: Lucky Bob is known for using Ed McMahon's catchphrases from the show, including "Hi-yoooo!" and "You are correct, sir".
- The Simpsons: In "Homer's Barbershop Quartet", which takes place in 1985, Chief Wiggum gets kicked out of The Be Sharps and later watches talk shows poking fun at his expense. One of them has Johnny Carson doing a "Carnac the Magnificent" routine.Carson: Gilligan, the Skipper, and Chief Wiggum. (opens envelope) Name three castaways.
