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♪ Music ♪
Johnny Carson: "you're from Fremont, Nebraska.
Albert: Uh-huh.
Johnny: You know I used to live in Nebraska?
Albert: Yeah.
Johnny: You know, I lived in Norfolk, Nebraska.
You know where that is?
Albert: No.
Johnny: Oh
Kent Warneke: Norfolk has had such a long
history with Johnny Carson.
During his performing years, after he passed away,
there's been such a bond there.
Sarah Rowse: For me it's kind of
"oh you're from Norfolk, Nebraska?"
"yeah."
"what's that about?"
And I'm like, "it's the home of Johnny Carson!"
Kent Warneke: As editor of the newspaper here,
I decided to write an editorial suggesting that perhaps it was
time to create a Johnny Carson comedy festival.
Eddie Brill: They said we'd like you to possibly work on this
festival and it's in tribute to Johnny Carson.
Well when I saw Johnny Carson...
"send" you know "yes, yes yes! send.
Click.
Call me!"
Eddie: We're full. Look at this.
We're full!
We have every seat taken in the theatre.
How beautiful is that?
Kent Warneke: The impetus for the festival is to pay tribute
to Johnny Carson's legacy and to honor that
so people remember that.
Eddie: Johnny was the guy who said stand-up comedy's an art,
and I'm going to make it important.
So all of us owe that debt of gratitude to him.
Eddie: What we've done is we've brought 20 of
the best comics in America.
These are not amateurs, these are people just on the cusp of
amazing things for their careers.
Eddie: It's easy to book the best comedians in the world.
Cuz they're easy to find, it's easy to find their agents,
and if you have money you can book them.
The hard part is to find someone who's developing.
Who has a spark and you can find them when they're young,
and then take them to the next level.
And that's kind of what we're doing here.
Ryan Hamilton: People tell me I look like a white Chris Rock.
Do you think that's true?
Or the illegimate son of Jerry and Elaine.
That's the other option that it could be.
Karen Rontkowski: I gotta tell you,
my kids were so bad in walmart today,
I actually pulled a fly swatter off the shelf
and I spanked them.
And just as the fly swatter hit their butts, I thought,
'I don't have kids.'
Ross Bennett: I went to a funeral the other day.
This guy died in a parachuting accident,
eh the parachute didn't open.
And during the eulogy, the guy said,
"we're all going to miss Charlie.
But at least we know he died doing what he loved."
I don't know.
I think there was a very good chance that Charlie did what he
loved until about a minute before he died.
Eddie: Each comedian has a host family that's willing to take
them around, take them to dinner and take them to the shows.
I mean, there isn't another festival in the world
that has that kind of relationship with its community.
Karen Rontkowski: The way the whole town comes out and it's
like a big deal, really made it feel like they were a part of
the whole competition.
Kent Warneke: It's not every community that gets to do a
festival that gets this kind of recognition for your community.
Because of that connection to Johnny Carson and the way the
festival is attracting the kinds of names that, at one point,
we would have never thought possible.
Louie Anderson: People went to bed at night with
Johnny in their house.
That's a huge thing, you know?
I'll watch Carson till I fall asleep,
or I'll watch Carson till it's over,
or I'll watch the comedian and then I'll go to bed.
You know I heard it my whole life.
We all did it.
Johnny Carson: That's a funny young kid.
Louie, come out here and take another bow.
Louie Anderson: I could go on and list maybe a couple
hundred solid, great comedians that Johnny was responsible for
introducing to the world.
And so when I got to go on there,
I couldn't believe that I was now a part of that.
Eddie: Nowadays there's Letterman, Leno, Conan, Kimmel,
uh, Fallon, everyone, and internet and so much.
So, you don't have the whole world watching you at once like
everyone watched Johnny Carson.
Ryan Hamilton: I remember sneaking out from bed,
peeking around the corner while my parents were watching the
tonight show, so I could stay up and watch it.
Johnny: "You know, I grew up in Norfolk, Nebraska,
and I got a letter the other day from a guys says 'you've been
pronouncing it wrong all these years'
and I grew up there.
I've been saying Norfolk, like Norfolk Virginia,
and it's nor fork, named after the north fork river."
Ed mamahon: "I see..."
(audience laughter) "I've learned so much on this show..."
Johnny: "The reason I put that in some people might be
dialing around and think they're watching PBS."
(Audience laughter)
Louie Anderson: That was the guy that was the person
and he loved this town.
And he loved it here.
And you knew he was from here.
You knew about Nebraska, not just because it's
a unicameral system.
(Audience laughter)
But because of Johnny Carson.
Louie Anderson: I wish I would have known how he was when
I was younger that's my true regret.
I wish I would have leaned over and said,
"man you really did a lot of stuff for people."
Louie Anderson: Second place, Karen Rontkowski!
(Applause)
and the winner, Mr. Ryan Hamilton!
(Applause/Cheers.)
Ryan Hamilton: When people talk about the legacy of Johnny
Carson they also talk about how gracious he was to comedians.
And so to be here and to part of that in terms of just like.
Comedy, it feels really good.
And to be reminded of that here in this community all the time,
it's great!