show we thought we were just saying good-bye to the audience. we should have said good-bye to the studio. you play something, and i ll have a sip of bourbon. you can stop now. having those hosts on late night provides a sense of normalcy for a lot of people. but when they re forced to shut down altogether, i think it really kind of shook americans. i live close to a hospital, and next to the hospital were these tents where they kept dead bodies because there was no more room in the morgue. it knocked the comedy out of me to see that. what got me back in was being, like, oh, well, if i feel this way, a lot of other people feel this way. so i d better get back to work. i m in a room in my house. my camera operator is my wife.
sensation. we started hearing about coronavirus in february 2020 as a thing, and everyone was saying, oh, it s like the flu. it s not a big deal. that s right. japan has canceled school for a month. quick, america, now is your chance to catch up in math. come on. i went to our production team, and i said, hey, do you guys have an emergency backup plan for, like, if we all have to go home or not have an audience? steve allen started the original the tonight show. he was just playing piano. that s what these shows used to be. wow. and can be again. thanks to coronavirus. social distancing, pack your things and go just know that i ll be waiting for you to come back to the show we thought we were just saying good-bye to the audience. we should have said good-bye to the studio. you play something, and i ll have a sip of bourbon.