text: Carson lacked the mercurial, electric personality of Paar, and his version of The Tonight Show never riveted the country's attention the way that Paar's had, but his more predictable approach eventually became part of the cultural landscape by virtue of the fact that the viewership, in a basically three-network paradigm, was infinitely more monolithic than it later became. Examples include when he played the game Twister with Eva Gabor in 1966, which increased the sales of the relatively unknown game. In December 1973, when Carson joked about an alleged shortage of toilet paper, panic buying and hoarding ensued across the United States as consumers emptied stores, causing a real shortage that lasted for weeks. Stores and toilet paper manufacturers had to ration supplies until the panic ended.
  Carson's ratings usually substantially led his timeslot, in spite of the fact that he intermittently faced a litany of other late-night competitors including Les Crane, Bill Dana, David Frost, Regis Philbin, Alan Thicke, Jerry Lewis, Joan Rivers, David Brenner, Pat Sajak, Ron Reagan, Dennis Miller, and most notably Steve Allen, Arsenio Hall, Joey Bishop, Merv Griffin, and Dick Cavett (Carson saw his friend Cavett as his real competition but Cavett was on ABC, a much smaller network at the time).
  As primetime variety shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show faded in prominence over the course of the 1970s, Carson's Tonight Show emerged as a showcase for all kinds of talent, as well as continuing the tradition of a vaudeville-style variety show. Carson's show continued Paar's tradition of launching the careers of a number of comedians, in Carson's case including Jerry Seinfeld, David Letterman, Joan Rivers, Jeff Foxworthy, Ellen DeGeneres, Freddie Prinze, David Brenner, Tim Allen, Drew Carey, and Roseanne Barr.