Here's Johnny! (Ed Mcmahon)

[**] ISBN: 159859088X (CD) 9780786285785 (hardcover)

This was enjoyable, but I was hoping for so more. Over the course of four-plus hours, Ed regales the listener with memories of Johnny Carson. Often these are new and funny (which is what I expected), sometimes only one or the other, all too often they are neither.

It's obvious that Ed Mcmahon has a high regard for Johnny Carson and he wants to make a convincing case for us to like him, too. Here and there, there are genuine insights into the man that was our late-night master of ceremonies for thirty years. Ed also shares some interesting background on his own journey into television and how he and Johnny were thrown together. Most of the time, however, we are left bobbing on the surface wishing we could see beneath the water line.

How many times must Ed remind us he was a side-show barker? A marine? A mini-celebrity in Philadelphia local television? Why must he tell us the well-known Ed Ames "hatchet throwing story" at all, much less two times or more?

I still have fond memories of Johnny and Ed. They were the "forbidden fruit" of after-bedtime television when I growing up. In this audio book, Ed adds a few more good memories. I just wish he would have added more.