Ed McMahon, everybody's friend, gets a big sendoff not because he dripped with talent or paved new entertainment paths. He gets the good goodbye because he was everybody's friend.

You knew McMahon. He was your fun uncle, who always had a story at Thanksgiving; your golfing buddy, the guy at work who'd listen to your grousing and find a bright side to divert you.

He'd lend you 20 bucks till payday, or maybe more, for longer. Or he'd get you to lend some money to him. It was great to get $10 million from American Family Publishers, "the only sweepstakes with my picture on the envelope," he told us for years, but having your old friend Ed drop by with the check was sweet icing on the cake.

Some disagree about the lack of talent.

"He had a great gift," Don Rickles told Entertainment Weekly. "He was a magnificent straight man. People like him don't exist anymore."

But it was McMahon's self-effacing, easygoing volubility, a trait he nurtured growing up in a family that rarely put down roots long enough for anybody to make real friends, that made him one of TV's universal buddies.

Norm on "Cheers," Doug Heffernan on "King of Queens," and other lesser sitcom pals were imaginary characters. McMahon was the real deal.

"At every gathering, he could walk in and own the show," Skitch Henderson, "Tonight's" first bandleader, said in the same Entertainment Weekly profile. "It was fascinating to me because Carson was such an inverse soul, and Ed was 100 percent the opposite. Ed treated everybody with love."

With a superb announcer's voice, he was gracious to all the contestants on "Star Search" (take a memo, Ryan Seacrest), and he made it clear that the tricks on "TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes" were all in fun.

McMahon was as famous as anybody on TV when he took those gigs in the '80s, jobs that only a regular guy in his position who was devoid of pretension would even consider.

McMahon, whose "H-e-e-e-e-e-re's Johhny" was named TV's No. 1 all-time catch phrase by TV Land, was the perfect foil for Carson, big and outgoing where Johnny was skinny and shy.

McMahon laughed a bit too loudly at his master's jokes, sparking the proceedings with "Hi-yo!" and graciously serving as Carson's all-around bolster.