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The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME
"First, I apologize. I know I left some of your favorite shows off this list. How do I know that? Because I left some of my favorite shows off this list. The happy and unfortunate fact is that there are far more than 100 great shows, and more created every year. Lists are incredibly important: they are how we define what matters to us, what we want entertainment and art to do, what we expect of our culture."
TIME TV critic James Poniewozik
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
Tonight was zippy with Steve Allen, unpredictable with Jack Paar andwell, still on the air with Jay Leno, but it was under Johnny that it reached its apex as a cool but comfortable late-night hangout. It's a tough balancing act to give a late-night show broad appeal: you're speaking to both the elderly and young night owls, you need to be relaxed enough to put your viewers to bed without putting them to sleep. Carson was just the right mix of ingenuous Midwesterner and urban sophisticate, in control but self-deprecating, quick-witted but not enervating. His comic style was as smooth as his pantomime golf swing, and he stayed in control even when being climbed by all manner of zoo animals. Ushering viewers from waking life to dreamland, he gave America thirty years of good nights.
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