"The first year that we were nominated for an Emmy [for Late Night with David Letterman]," NBC producer Peter Lassally recalled, "we took over the patio of a Malibu restaurant because we were 70 or 80 people and we took over ten or twelve tables. And somebody told me that Johnny [Carson] just happened to be in the restaurant that night.
"So I went over to him and I said, 'God, it would be so nice if you could just say hello to Dave and meet some of the people. It would mean a lot to them if you could just say hello.' So at the end of his dinner, he came over and said hello.
"I had mentioned that it was the staff so he came over and he was very gracious and sat down at the table with us and then he left. And at the end of the evening we went to pay the tab and the maitre de said, 'Mr. Carson has already taken care of it.'
"And we thought, 'Oh my god, how generous! It's unbelievable.' So the next morning I called him and I said, 'That was so nice of you. How generous you are. It's incredible.' And he started to laugh -- he laughed his old Johnny Carson way -- and he said, 'You know, I didn't know that all those people on that patio were with you. I thought it was just the people at the table!'"
The bill? "About ten thousand dollars."

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