Johnny Carson 1925-2005

It is well documented that Johnny Carson launched the careers of many comedians including Joan Rivers, Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. But did you know he launched "the game that ties you up in knots?" The picture above was given to me by Reyn Guyer, the co-inventor of Twister. I tried in vain to get the rights to reproduce this shot in my book, but I am pleased post it here as a tribute to the man that made so many laugh for so long. (Copyright holder wherever you are, forgive me). Here's the whole story as told in The Playmakers.

Twister hit the scene as a totally original game. Consumers didn’t “get it” when it first appeared on store shelves and some retailers refused to even stock it. Sales were so slow for the four-month period after Toy Fair that Milton Bradley decided to cut the rope on the game that tied you up in knots.

"Late in April, I got a call from Mel (Mel Taft, former Senior VP of R&D at Milton Bradley)," Reyn Guyer told me. "He said, ‘Bad news Reyn. We’re not going forward with it. It’s too risqué and Sears won’t touch it. We’re pulling the advertising.’ Well, Sears was such a key retailer back then that their decision could make or break a game. Twister was dead."

Anxiously, I asked him, "But then what about Johnny Carson? How did that happen?"

"Well, that’s the thing," Guyer continued. "Milton Bradley had hired a PR firm to pitch Twister and when they decided to discontinue it, they called their ad agency and pulled the TV spots and they called me to tell me it was finished. But for some reason, no one called the PR firm. All of a sudden, they booked it on The Tonight Show, and you know the rest."

The rest is Twister history. On May 3, 1966, Johnny Carson invited his guest, the glamorous and shapely Eva Gabor, to try out this new game with him. Ms. Gabor proved to be a good sport, which proved to be very good luck for Twister. The hilarious sight of a slightly embarrassed Johnny Carson and the refined Eva Gabor on all fours sent Johnny’s studio audience into hysterics.

Mel Taft was seated in the front row that momentous night. "I’ll never forget it," he said. "Ruth Millard from the public relations firm that had booked it was sitting next to me." Taft told me how nervous he was that Johnny would ridicule the game and that the result would be the nail in Twister’s coffin. "You never knew what Johnny was going to do. No one did. We were unsure until they began playing and we heard that roar of laughter from the audience." Soon after the show, it was apparent that the home audience had the same reaction....Over three million sets were sold in 1966.

Thank you Johnny.