"Suddenly Seymour" by Ellen Greene

I was among the millions of regular viewers watching The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson one random evening in February 1987 when Ellen Greene emerged gingerly onstage from behind the famous curtain and, after a charmingly starstruck interview with the great man himself, proceeded to blow the roof off the joint with her rendition of Suddenly Seymour... Much of the strength in her performance of the show-stopping number from Little Shop of Horrors is due to an incredible talent, but it didn't hurt that Greene had sung the song so many times during her stint in the musical's Broadway run.

The work of the late composer Alan Menken and his widower, the lyricist Howard Ashman, Greene is here accompanied by Michael Leslie - who once played the voice of Audrey II, the killer plant voiced in the movie version by Levi Stubbs; the video is posted here now on the occasion of Miss Greene's birthday, which the Pop Culture Institute is pleased to celebrate.
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Johnny Carson as Carnac the Magnificent

Probably the most beloved on Johnny Carson's recurring characters, Carnac the Magnificent, delights and disgusts the audience with an array of corny jokes, aided and abetted by his trusty sidekick Ed McMahon.
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In Memoriam: Johnny Carson

In a parallel universe, Johnny Carson could have become a beloved sitcom star; had Sheldon Leonard not gotten his way, Carl Reiner would have cast Carson opposite Mary Tyler Moore in a little sitcom about a comedy writer, which Carson actually was at that time.

Fortunately, Leonard got his way, and Dick Van Dyke was cast instead. Head of the Family became The Dick Van Dyke Show, TV history was made, and by way of a consolation, Carson took over after Jack Paar quit The Tonight Show in October 1962.

Alongside his old chum Ed McMahon (whom he'd met while working on Who Do You Trust?) Carson went on to make some TV history of his own, hosting The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 incredible years, first from New York City and then, after 1972, from the NBC Studios in Burbank.

Carson's extraordinary run finally ended in May 1992, when he retired from show business to play tennis and spend more time at his Malibu home with his fourth wife, Alexis. He made one more high-profile appearance, in May 1994, during one of protege David Letterman's week-long trips to LA; born on this day in 1925, Carson died in January 2005 from a heart attack worsened by emphysema, complications arising from his lifelong cigarette habit.
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