love it and we ll give you an award for it. carson: and so it has come to this. fallon: i thought that johnny carson came with the tv set. leno: what the hell were you thinking? ray: dave was the new johnny, for me. letterman: i m not exactly a computer. slow down. meyers: it felt. edgy before i was probably old enough to appreciate what edgy was. man: you better be as good as letterman. o brien: i ll give it a shot. o brien: my heart dropped through my butt. it exited my butt. stewart: holy [beep] [beep]. noah: this is madness. absolute madness. kimmel: it makes every hair on my body stand up. kimmel: we re on! kimmel: but nobody s a late night host until they are one. clinton: tomorrow we will drown out the negative voices that have held us back for too long. reporter: after a night of fires, looting, and violence, five people are dead. katie: the end of an era. after ruling late night television for 30 years, johnny carson steps down tonight. [distant applause]
11:30 show. and then the battle began. david letterman started getting offers from other networks. letterman was the king. you are pretty cocky in the middle of this negotiations. you have that kind of mid negotiation multimillion-dollar glow about you. there were still a number of people within nbc who felt strongly that it was a mistake to let dave letterman leave. they agonized over the loss of david letterman. they still have letterman under contract for more than a year. and they said maybe we should reconsider the original decision not to give dave the show. before david letterman jumped ship from nbc, they wanted to make one final move to try and get dave. they offered him the tonight show, but he s only going to get it in a year and a half when jay s first contract is up.