In the '60's and early 70's my mother would put me in front of the teevee to watch Carson while she smoked her Old Golds and drank rum and coke. It was way obvious Carson was turned on by Rivers. Joan Rivers knew how to do teevee. She always upstaged everyone who was on no matter who. She pushed the format just with her physical energy which went beyond charisma to riding the edge of just what the camera could contain in a little square. She always pushed the censor's barriers and really her main target was bourgeois values - a 'housewife' type who attacked it all. In a way she was more macho than any of the male jokesters. And she was never hard to look at either. Bashing everything no-holds made her right in tune with the late '60's and in part that is what made it easy to admire her. I think by the 80's and certainly the 90's a lot of other people in the showbiz world had caught up to her and somehow her success in becoming a brand and self-contained enterprise lessened her cred as someone who couldn't give a shit about what other people thought. And she never learned what her limitations were -by the time she was doing red carpet commentary with her daughter it was obvious it was all about the paycheck. But one thing hasn't changed with her and that is her live act. Messy Bonnie listen up.