TV'S COMIC KING USED POWER IN AID OF TALENT.

Byline: Phil Perrier

MY mom called and woke me up yesterday morning. ``Johnny Carson died.''

``Oh no,'' I said.

This one hurts. This one matters. Johnny Carson was more than just some guy on TV; he was part of us.

My big brother Michael introduced me to Johnny. He said there was this cool show on way late at night, hosted by a very funny man named Johnny Carson.

I was 8 years old when I started watching ``The Tonight Show,'' in 1972. The show had just moved from New York to Burbank. I fell in love instantly. ``The Tonight Show'' opened up a world to me. Today I live in Los Angeles and make a living writing and telling jokes, and it all started with those magical nights watching Johnny.

He made it look so easy. Even when his monologue was dying - which was most nights, it seemed - he saved it by poking fun at himself and how badly he was doing. Always the twinkle in his eye, never taking himself too seriously. He joked about Nixon and Watergate and Patty Hearst and Dolly Parton and everybody worth talking about. In fact, people knew they had made it when they turned up in Johnny's monologue. Walter Cronkite told us the news; Johnny Carson put it in perspective.

After the monologue, if we were lucky, Johnny would do a sketch; Carnac the Magnificent, Aunt Blabby, Erwin Mainway, Floyd R. Turbo. Silly, irreverent and always unmistakably Johnny.

Then came the guests.

And what guests they were. A who's who of comedy in the 20th century: Groucho Marx, Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield, Alan King, George Gobel, George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and on and on. Once in a while, Bob Hope would just stride out unannounced, and Johnny would turn him loose.

Johnny loved comics and set them up better than any other talk-show host in history. He gleefully relinquished the spotlight. It was as if the only thing Johnny liked more than getting laughs himself was serving up huge laughs for the great comics he had on his show. And, for decades, an appearance on ``The Tonight Show'' was the ultimate career boost for comedians.

Johnny had the power, and he loved bestowing it on the deserving. Joan Rivers, Jerry Seinfeld, Drew Carey, Garry Shandling, David Letterman, Jay Leno. They all got the wink from the master.

I'll never forget the night a 19-year-old from New York named Freddie Prinze walked onto ``The Tonight Show'' stage for the first time and blew the room away. Prinze became a star that night.

Johnny was at his best sitting at his desk playing Father Confessor to an odd array of regulars. Charles Nelson Reilly, Orson Bean, Burt Reynolds, Robert Blake, Zsa Zsa Gabor - they all were at their best with Johnny, with his easy Midwestern charm, his gentle wit.

It looked so simple; yet for three decades nobody else even came close. No other late-night talk show ever even approached ``The Tonight Show.'' There was no room for anyone else. Replacing Johnny in our affections was as impossible as trading in our dad for a new one. Johnny and Ed McMahon were all we needed, all we wanted.

While he came into our homes every night for 30 years, there were parts of himself he never revealed. He remained fiercely private. But then he came from a time and a place in which airing dirty laundry was as unthinkable as slapping your momma. Multiple divorces, the death of his son in a car crash - these were things he largely kept to himself.

Johnny gave us only what he wanted to give us. He gave us only his best.

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JOHNNY CARSON