The Many Guest Hosts
Throughout the run of The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, there were many guest hosts. Joey Bishop was the most frequent guest host, appearing 177 times as a guest host! Joan Rivers also hosted many times, as well as Frank Sinatra, David Letterman, and Jerry Lewis.
He Declined At First
Although being the host of The Tonight Show was his defining career-move, Johnny Carson actually first declined the job. NBC asked him to take over for Jack Paar who was planning to leave the job, but Carson was worried about interviewing celebrities for over an hour per day. Eventually, he took the job and it changed his life.