In Ed McMahon’s memoir of his years as Johnny Carson’s second banana, “Here’s Johnny,” you won’t get any “Larry Sanders Show”-like admissions of ego or backstage backbiting or backstabbing. What McMahon delivers is a homage to his boss, by performing one last time the second banana’s job of making the comic lead look good.

McMahon recounts incidence after incidence of Carson’s quick wit, pulling together the highlights of their 30 years together on “The Tonight Show” for a reader in a lot less time than it would take to find them all by pouring through hours and hours of shows.

McMahon does this with the humility befitting his role, crediting Carson repeatedly from rescuing him from either a low-wattage TV host career in Philadelphia or something menial outside of show business entirely. He writes about their duo “still not knowing what they’re doing 20 years in,” when any comedian influenced by the show over the years will tell you this is far from the case.

While McMahon comes off a little peevish at times, when he decries today’s comedians for being dirty, or slams the television universe of today as filled with untalented or unaccomplished performers and shows, it is true that no show will again capture the audience share “The Tonight Show” did, simply because of the exponential proliferation of channels.

The book closes with a poem in tribute to Carson that is so mawkish, it’s more embarrassing than anything Jimmy Stewart used to read on the show. While it’s admirable that McMahon is so loyal, if he’s touting that this book tells a lot that couldn’t be told before, it falls short of this claim, not because it lacks dirt, but because it lacks much indication of what made Carson’s wit tick.