16. Getting Stuck With Hope
Like it or not, the viewers and the public put Carson and Hope in the same basket. This forced Carson to repeatedly invite Hope to The Tonight Show as a guest. What Carson loathed about Bob Hope was that he came with a script. If Carson went off the list of questions, something he was wont to do, Hope would get lost. He may answer a different question, which was weird. “If I ever end up like that,” Carson told his writers after one show with Hope, “guys, I want you to shoot me.” Despite the stress of the appearances, Hope continued to make appearances on The Tonight Show.