Johnny Carson Show, The
- Synopsis
- US late-night talk/variety show. In this episode (3 minute sketch) Carson, dressed in Renaissance garb, imagines Shakespeare as written for television and plays Hamlet, reciting, "To be or not to be" and "Alas, Poor Yorick" soliloquies, but Shakespeare’s words turn out to be aggressive product placements for series of commercials: "sleep no more" inspires a plug for Sominex; "The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks/That flesh is heir to" leads to an ad for Aamco; "ay, there’s the rub," turns out to be a set-up for promotion of Mentholatum Deep Heat Rub." Yorick, in turn, is warned not to leave Denmark without his American Express Card. [Cited in Carson’s entry in American Icons: An Encyclopedia of the People, Places, and Things that Have Shaped Our Culture, edited by Dennis and Susan Hall (Westport, CT: Greenwood 2006).
- Series
- Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The
- Language
- English
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Film
- Technical information
- Colour / Sound
- Notes
- The Shakespeare item is contained in the DVD THE ULTIMATE JOHNNY CARSON COLLECTION from amazon.com.
- Subjects
- Media studies
- Keywords
- advertising; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); television advertising
Credits
- Cast
Johnny Carson
Production Company
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