First on LateNighter: Ever wonder what life looked like from behind Johnny Carson’s desk? Now you can see for yourself. The king of late night’s Tonight Show set has found a new home at New York City’s Paley Center for Media.
The museum was recently loaned the set from which the King of Late Night presided over the final ten years of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, including the show’s last episode on May 22, 1992.
The screen-used items on display include the iconic wood desk and powder blue swivel chair from which Carson interviewed hundreds of guests over that final decade, and the real chair and couch that those guests sat in. The museum’s display even includes the original surrounding decor of faux palm trees that sat behind Carson on the Burbank-themed set (originally intended to hide lighting fixtures used in the production).
LateNighter’s Mark Malkoff, host of Inside Late Night and previously The Carson Podcast, toured the set Wednesday with Ron Simon, Curator of Television and Radio at the Paley Center for Media (pictured above).
The show’s set has had a circuitous journey to the Paley Center. After Carson’s Tonight Show wrapped its run, the desk and couch were loaned out for display at the Disney-MGM Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida. Following that, Carson personally gifted the entire set to collector James Comisar, who spent much of the past four decades collecting and preserving a massive collection of TV artifacts, from entire sets like the Cheers bar and All in the Family living room, to props and wardrobe from shows like The Honeymooners and Star Trek.
Comisar described how he came to acquire the set during a 2022 appearance on the Late Night Playset podcast, recalling an interaction with Carson near the end of his Tonight Show run in which he asked the legendary host what he planned to do with the set after he retired. Per Comisar, Carson responded, “I have the tackiest set in Hollywood. Who would even want to see it?”
Comisar put much of his collection up for auction via Heritage Auctions in 2023, including the Carson set, which was purchased by entertainment memorabilia collector Dr. Stewart Berkowitz for a total of $275,000.
Berkowitz died in 2024, prompting his estate to loan the Carson set to The Paley Center, where it is on display alongside several of his other collectibles through June 1, 2025.
I made the 6 hr drive from western NY state to see it, was a thrill of my life and an opportunity I realized might never come around again (esp as one of the Paley folks said he thought the set may be auctioned again before too long).