I definitely have to give Johnny Carson his credit, as he will always be known as the king of late night. But, it's obvious this is a generational thing and a lot of people are operating off of the "out of sight out of mind" mentality so for us youngsters (I'm 21), it's hard to vote for Johnny when his reign of late night ended when most of us were too young too be allowed to even stay up to see his monologue.
However, I do remember watching some of last shows when I was in about 3rd grade. I was too young to understand every joke, but I still found it funny. I've also seen lots of archived footage of his "greatest moments" such as several of his best jokes from his monologues, many of his clips as Carnac and an assortment of his most memorable interviews--and also the time he stopped his show to go across the hallway to yell at Don Rickle.
Johnny was without doubt, the class of late night, and set a standard for hosts that will be very hard to be match, let alone raise. However, the poll asked who was the funniest late night host, and for that I'd have to give it to either Conan or Letterman (and Jon Stewart also deserves some recognition, despite being of a slightly different format). I know it may come off as a generational thing, but my humor has always been more about absurdity and just plain silliness (with intelligence too, of course...but the "weirder" the better). Carson's style of humor seemed to be much more traditional, kind of like what Leno tries to do, except without the comedy. Letterman brought a new, goofier sensibility to the comedy, and Conan just took that a step further (and has even been referred to as "Baby Letterman").
Carson was and still is the standard for late night talk show hosts. Without him, the entire genre would be nothing like it is today. But, just purely for the humor and comedy in the shows, I'd give my vote to Conan or Letterman.
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To be great is to be misunderstood. -Emerson
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