Johnny Carson hosted The Late Night Talk Show for almost three decades with his co-host Ed McMahon. In many ways, Carson’s Tonight Show can be considered a variety show with musical guests, celebrities, and interviews. He took over the show from Jack Paar, dominated the TV, and is still known as the “King of Late Night TV.”
His guests always felt comfortable while talking to him. In one of the episodes of The Tonight Show, he invites the legendary soccer player Edson Arantes do Nascimento, also known as Pele. Carson makes sure that he tells his audience about Pele’s achievements before he meets him.
He shows them a newspaper headline where Pele converses with Richard Nixon at the White House. Not just that, he showers praises about how Pele dominates the athlete world and is an icon. He tells everyone that 800 million people came to watch his match when he played for the Brazilian club.
Pele came to St Louis, Missouri, because 15 thousand children wrote him letters, asking him to meet them. Carson tells everyone that Pele is not very good at conversing in English & neither is he in Portuguese. He later adds that he did not speak any Portuguese. This makes Ed McMahon and the live audience burst out in laughter.
However, he says that Spanish is a kindred language, so he will have a small interview. Then he will ask Pele to demonstrate his fantastic skills to the audience. Finally, Carson happily invites the soccer ambassador on stage and greets him with a smile and a handshake.
During the interview, Carson tries speaking in Portuguese but gives up mid-way. Although the conversation is kept short, the 2 of them still manage to talk about Pele’s professional career. After that, Carson asks the soccer champion to demonstrate his soccer skills on the show.
Pele ensures he shows Johnny some of the skills for beginners and impresses him deeply. One of Carson’s fans comments online, saying, “This is an example of why Johnny Carson was such a class act. He didn’t need to prove himself to anyone. Still, he took his job so seriously that he made this interview work and interesting despite the language gap.” While a soccer fan says, “You know Pele was probably the greatest ambassador of football/soccer ever.” Well, they are both legends in their fields; that is one thing no one can deny.
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