CURTAILING HER HABIT

On December 19, 1973, Johnny Carson walked through those memorable multi-colored curtains, and began his comedic routine.

“In a time when we are dealing with a shortage of gasoline, and grocery bags, it has recently come to light that there is an acute shortage of toilet paper.”

Well, as a result of his somewhat exaggerated monologue, the multitudinous viewers of his program flooded America’s grocery stores, and filled their shopping carts with more toilet paper than Noah stashed on the ark. (And, of course, that ole boy was contending with a whole lotta messy animals, and a whole lotta,… well, you know).

Johnny Carson had “put the fear of the Lord” into millions of his committed fans, and the toilet paper section of the nation’s grocery stores quickly became as scarce as watermelons in Antarctica; not unlike the hoarding, and resulting dearth of the white, fluffy stuff that we are facing in our nation today.

I just saw a short video clip of a woman from that time period. Without so much as a faint smile, she quips,

“I’m used to going when I need to go. I guess I’m going to have to curtain my habit!”

And you only thought this was the first time we have dealt with a shortage of such an humble, but contrastingly precious commodity. Recently, I ran across a photo on social media taken one Halloween. The picture depicts several oak trees in front of a home, and yards and yards of toilet paper adorns each tree. Beneath the photograph is a caption.

“The value of your home just went up!”

But to digress a bit.

As you might imagine, Johnny Carson was nothing short of flabbergasted that his comedy routine had sent America into a tizzy of toilet paper hoarding. And a few days after millions of rolls of the stuff, well, rolled out of every supermarket in the country, he issued a humorous apology.

“A woman comes in from the grocery store, and as she steps into the door, she shouts,

‘Honey, I picked up your favorite brand of coffee.’

“To which her husband exclaims,

‘Forget the coffee. Give me the grocery bag!’"

Carson continued speaking.

“Listen folks, seriously, I don’t want to be known as the man who created a toilet paper shortage in this country. Settle down! There’s plenty to go around.”



I think if Johnny was afforded the opportunity to rise from the dead, and spend two minutes on that stage today, he would say very much the same thing.

by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending

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