Well, he's done it again, folks. When I returned from Italy, I found the usual pile of mail awaiting me, and one small hand-addressed envelope from Johnny Carson. In his letter, referring to a recent appearance by speaking-to-dead-folks John Edward on a popular TV show, Johnny expressed dismay at the acceptance afforded such a farce. The enclosed very generous check expressed his willingness — again — to support the work of the JREF. We are substantially encouraged by Johnny's participation, and we promise that his contribution will be assiduously applied to getting the facts out there to interested persons all over the world. It's so good to have friends, and Johnny Carson is one of The Good Guys who have reached out to us. Sincere thanks.
http://www.randi.org/jr/092702.htmlMonday, November 08, 2004
Most people know that James Randi is legally obligated to give $1,000,000 to the first person who can prove the existence of "paranormal" powers in a properly-constructed test. Not everyone knows that a lot of the money was fronted by his buddy Johnny Carson, who also started out as a professional magician. You can find hundreds of web pages about albino midget bicycle porn, but sadly, far as I can tell, www.randi.org is the only web site that carefully debunks paranormal flim-flammery, with a good sense of humor and regular weekly updates.
http://www.mcnett.org/2004/11/most-people-know-that-james-randi-is.htmlIn 1973, Carson had a legendary run-in with popular psychic Uri Geller when he invited Geller to appear on his show. Carson, an experienced stage magician, wanted a neutral demonstration of Geller's alleged abilities, so, at the advice of his friend and fellow magician James Randi, he gave Geller several spoons out of his desk drawer and asked him to bend them. Geller proved unable, and his appearance on The Tonight Show has since been regarded as the beginning of Geller's fall from glory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_CarsonFIGHTING AGAINST FLIMFLAM
Leon Jaroff
(From: Time Magazine Australia, 1986, June 13, p. 50-52.
Reprinted with permission in Investigator 3, 1988 November)
The studio audience at the Tonight show in Burbank is strangely silent, staring intently at the proceedings on the stage. A shirtless volunteer lies face up on a table, behind which stands a short, balding man with a fringe of white hair, a bushy beard and piercing green eyes. He kneads the exposed abdomen with both hands, presses one thumb down and draws it across the skin. A trickle, then a stream of blood appears. The audience gasps. Now his hand thrusts into the abdomen and, accompanied by a sickening squishing sound, pulls up a clump of bloody tissue. Host Johnny Carson grimaces. A groan of revulsion sweeps the crowded studio; one woman faints.
Again the hands plunge down, bringing up more gore and then a tubular organ, which the bearded man stares at momentarily. "Oh, no! That doesn’t come out," he apologizes, his eyes suddenly twinkling, and pushes it back into the body. The spell is broken and the audience roars, then titters nervously as he proceeds to remove additional gore. Finally he wipes away the blood, revealing an expanse of unbroken, unscarred skin.
What millions of people have just seen is a demonstration of "psychic surgery." The blood had been donated by a volunteer before the show; the "diseased tissue" consisted of shreds of lamb heart, hidden in a tray behind the table and manipulated by the facile hands of a master magician: James ("the Amazing") Randi, 59, conjurer, showman, crusader and America’s most implacable foe of flummery. The props and the techniques are those used by the so-called psychic surgeons of the Philippines, who promise miraculous, painless, lifesaving surgery to lure desperately ill people to their clinics. But what the sufferers get is sleight of hand, not surgery, and Randi’s goal is to spread that message. "These people go to the Philippines," he explains, "they spend their money, and they return home, in most cases to die."
Finally, in 1987, a skeptic named James Randi exposed Popoff's scam on the Johnny Carson Show. The reverend's wife was feeding him info-blurbs on frequency 39.17 MHz, according to an article in Science and the Paranormal magazine. Popoff listened to his wife's transmissions on a tiny earpiece. Ironically, the healer insisted the device was a hearing aid.
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=26408