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Carson retired in 1992, amid a growing Shakespearean intrigue behind the scenes at NBC. Said matter lead to the Late Night Wars with Letterman leaving for CBS, and Leno taking over the Tonight Show amid bad will which, while it diminished over decades, lingered in the background and erupted in similar fashion when Conan O'Brien took over the Tonight Show. Carson had been an institution. His power on the public and his power at NBC was astounding, and something another host has not been able to approach. The threat of Carson leaving, up until 1992, could undo whole corporate administrations at NBC. And he understood and used that power. Though challenged by the emergence of Arsenio Hall, he was never usurped. And though aging, he was not diminishing.

Critically, the general consensus is that there has never been another host like Johnny Carson. That may be a matter that Carson stayed on for so long that when he left, there was no one groomed and experienced enough to truly replace him. All hosts are compared to Carson, and generally found wanting for the comparison. Carson lived for over a decade after his retirement. And that leads to the question at hand. What if Carson had remained with the Tonight Show up till the end, when he discovered he was terminally ill in the early 2000s?
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