From the Central Valley, Here’s Johnny-

TV Icon Carson Performed in Bakersfield in 1957

A newspaper advertisement promoting Johnny Carson’s appearance at the Maison Jaussaud French restaurant and nightclub in Bakersfield.  Photo: Kern County Museum archive

Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show for thirty years until retiring in 1992. Many considered him the most popular television entertainer of his era. He’s still revered by many talk show hosts as the gold standard of the genre.

This funny entertainer's career formed in California, and the Central Valley city of Bakersfield played a small role at a critical point.

In 1957, Johnny did several performances at a restaurant and nightclub on the former Highway 99 in Bakersfield.

Johnny was trying out a comedy act to see if his career might take him in that direction. 

“It was a dark time for Johnny,” comedy writer and Carson Podcast host Mark Malkoff said.  

It was a dark time because the young performer’s primetime variety show on CBS TV was canceled after just one season. 

Johnny’s agent pushed him to try stand-up comedy in clubs. 

“He was still under contract with CBS,” Malkoff said.  “But neither the network nor his agent at William Morris had anything for him.”

A review of Johnny Carson’s opening night at the Maison Jaussaud French restaurant and nightclub from 1957.  Photo:  Kern County Museum Archive

The purpose of playing Bakersfield was to try out the act.

It was similar to how a musical heading for Broadway might do out-of-town performances to work out the bugs before the show is performed in New York City. 

Bakersfield, in Kern County, was near enough to Hollywood so that he could try comedy bits away from the watching eyes in the entertainment capitol.

Local newspapers from Bakersfield at the time mentioned Johnny playing at the Maison Jaussaud French restaurant and nightclub. 

The headline in one clipping from the Kern County Museum archive reads COMEDIAN NOW PLAYING AT MAISON JAUSSAUD and refers to Johnny as “one of the bright young men of show business.” 

The article was written after Johnny’s first performance.   The clipping described the effort as “a solid hit…with patrons.” 

   But, as historian Mike McCoy from the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield describes the experience, Johnny was not thrilled about playing there.

“Johnny once quipped, ‘I spent a Bakersfield one night,’ McCoy said.  “It was not a place he liked.”

The former Maison Jaussaud French restaurant and nightclub in Bakersfield is now a casino.  Highway 99 went through Bakersfield on this street (Union Avenue) until a larger highway was built years later to the west of downtown.  Photo of the Maison from the Kern County Museum archive. Casino photo from LiveBako.com. Montage by Steve Newvine.

Carson grew up in Nebraska and found performing magic as a means to overcome his shyness.  As early as junior high school, he wanted to write and perform comedy.

After getting his college degree in Radio Communications, he entered the Navy.  When his hitch was up, he worked at an Iowa broadcast station where he experimented in the relatively new TV medium.

Soon, he was in Hollywood, where he found work as a comedy writer.  That experience led him to host a local TV show.  By 1955, he landed a weekly CBS variety series.  The Johnny Carson Show ended after one season, leaving the young star wondering what might be next.

  For Johnny, the Bakersfield shows achieved the goal of giving him stage experience, but he did not care for the small southern California city at the time.

   “I think it reminded him of his struggle on the way up,” says Mike McCoy.

   After Bakersfield, Johnny headed back to New York, where his agent tried to book him on game shows and New York-based talk and variety shows. It was on these programs that his comic persona began to mature. Soon, he was offered a game show hosting job. By 1962, he began his tenure as host of the Tonight Show.

The rest is part of a remarkable career as the face of late-night entertainment for four decades.  The Central Valley city of Bakersfield was part of that entertainment legacy. -

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He is grateful to the Kern County Museum for information and photographs of Johnny Carson’s performances in Bakersfield from the late 1950s.  He also thanks Mark Malkoff, host of the new podcast Inside Late Night.

Steve is writing a book about Johnny Carson and comedian Jack Benny that will be out in November.

His California books are available at the Merced County Courthouse Museum gift shop or Lulu.com.