If you want to be the top banana

In an exclusive excerpt from You Look So Much Better in Person, the Today show’s Al Roker celebrates the top virtues of being No. 2.

Years ago I got to interview Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson’s forever sidekick, at his sprawling 1930s Mediterranean-style mansion in Bel Air. Ed greeted me on one of the two terraces off the back of the house that offered a sweeping view of Century City.

While the camera crew was setting up for the interview, Ed gave me a tour of the interior of his home. It felt like we were walking through the museum of broadcasting. As he guided me through a series of never-ending rooms, Ed pointed out pictures of himself with athletes, movie stars, and presidents. He might have been best known for saying “Here’s Johnny,” but he parlayed the fame that came from sitting next to the biggest late-night star in the world into a successful career as both a commercial pitchman and TV star in his own right. Ed was always just one seat away, because Johnny was the real star of the show after all. “I’ve made peace with the fact that I wasn’t the star. Johnny was the star.”

Better Off Ed: Few understood the second banana role better than Johnny Carson's former Tonight show sidekick Ed McMahon.

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My former Today show colleague Willard Scott echoed a similar sentiment one day. “Al, we do the weather and that gives us second-banana status. There’s nothing wrong with being the second banana. I mean, I think the second banana is a pretty sweet deal! You can build a really successful career and not let it take over your entire life! There’s less pressure! You don’t need to know who every congressman is, or who are the senators of South Dakota.”

After sharing this great bit of career and life advice, it wouldn’t have been at all unusual for Willard to take off his toupee, toss it haphazardly in a desk drawer, and put on a Carmen Miranda fruit hat before doing the weather forecast. See! Second bananas have all the fun!

I am not the top banana at The Today Show, and this is a beautiful thing as far as I’m concerned. Co-hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb are the Top Bananas. They are the captains who steer the ship and they are the face of the broadcast. Both of these ladies are serious, tough journalists. Between the two of them, these fierce women have interviewed presidents, senators, presidential candidates, celebrities, icons, and giants of industry.

Morning Glory: The author points out the Today show stars, Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb.

Nathan Congleton/NBC

They’ve covered the toughest topics with grace: Sandy Hook, the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the Boston Marathon bombing to name just a few. And I know I play a big role on the show, especially as record-breaking high temperatures, deadly heat waves, fires, massive flooding, and hurricanes have meant that weather and climate change are bigger newsmakers than ever before. The weather sometimes takes the top-banana news status if you will. But, ultimately, while they let me interview the occasional celebrity, I’m not the news guy. I don’t interview the big newsmakers (the politicians, analysts, and pundits) and that’s fine.

I’ve always fancied myself to be the George Wendt of The Today Show. To refresh your memory, Wendt played Norm, the bar regular/accountant on the hit television show Cheers that ran for over a decade.

Norm’s character is the pleasant, warm and fuzzy guy who people are generally happy to see. When Wendt’s character entered the bar, everyone would shout out “Norm!” Then he’d take his usual seat at the bar and order a beer that was added to his never-ending tab. Wendt had at least one really great line on each show:

“How’s life treating you, Norm?”

“Like it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I’m wearing Milk-Bone underwear.”

Wendt delivered some great zingers, and he was nominated for six Emmys for outstanding supporting actor too. All of that sounds like big success to me, even though there were bigger bananas on the show. It doesn’t matter that you’re not the star; it matters that you’re part of the constellation. Dream big, set huge goals, and by all means have great expectations for yourself, but know that you don’t have to reach the very, very top to be considered a success. In fact, there’s something to be said about being the second banana. You can forge your own trails and create your own narrative without the strictures of being the top banana. If it so happens that you are at a place in your career where you’re not the top banana, I say embrace it.

If you are called to the very top of the banana hierarchy, you’ll be ready to slide right into that role.

And try being second banana at home. The reminders that I’m a second banana are plentiful around the Roker household—I can’t even avoid them when I cook.

I like to cook. I find it relaxing to chop vegetables and sear meats all in the name of preparing a delicious dinner for my family. The act of slicing an onion and the sound of a piece of meat sizzling on a hot pan relax me. When I plate a meal and set it down on the table and join my family to eat, I know all is about right with the world. Roasted chicken, shrimp salad, maybe a seared loin of lamb. These are the simple pleasures in life that make everything worthwhile.

In my kitchen at our home in New York, I try to keep fresh fruits and vegetables on hand. It’s possible I’ll keep delicious apples from upstate New York on the counter. Maybe I’ll even put them in a nice bowl, trying to create the illusion of a Martha Stewart–style domestic bliss. But in order to achieve that look, I have to move various papers off the counter including—The Binder.

Spot the Top Banana: The author and his wife, ABC News correspondent Deborah Roberts.

OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

I am married to a seasoned journalist who brings home a gigantic binder full of the information she needs to get ready for an interview. The Binder sitting right there on the counter is the clearest evidence I can think of as to how different the preparation is for a top banana versus a second banana. The Binder looks like the kind of thing someone would drag around if they were planning to program a supercomputer at NASA circa 1965. The Binder is daunting. It features sections divided up with color-coded tabs. I’ve never dared open one of my wife’s binders, but I imagine it to be full of charts, graphs, diagrams, perhaps even secret codes. There could be a scratch-and-sniff section for all I know, as the top banana Deborah needs to be incredibly prepared for her interviews. She must convey accurate information to the public about current events or newsmakers, and that often means asking tough questions.

As a second banana who interviews fun people like Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Eddie Murphy, I am bringing home a slim file at best. That’s because I am generally interviewing people who had a fairly cemented presence in the world before I ever showed up to interview them. I’m hoping to give people a glimpse inside their lives, not discuss who they think is likely to win the Nobel Prize for mathematics next year. People are more curious about things like a celebrity’s favorite breakfast foods, or if they prefer dogs over cats.

Big Time: Not everyone is built to be a No. 1—like Oprah Winfrey.

Nathan Congleton/NBC

Sometimes the folder contains a single piece of paper, leading me to believe it is placed in the file to make me feel better about myself. Here’s Roker’s one paragraph of notes for his upcoming interview. I guess they put it in a file to create a sense of importance, or suggest that he has real work to do? Or maybe they know I’m prone to spilling things on important documents?

I’ve now been at NBC for more than forty years. The odds of anyone being the top banana for that long are frankly on the low side. Who can sustain that level of intensity for such a long period of time? A good supporting role can keep you going for a very long time. No one is gunning to be the second banana—your position is safe! While reaching your highest goals is a wonderful thing, know that you can still make a strong impact as a second banana.

Hachette Books

And by the way, no one has ever said that you’ll never be the first banana. While you’re cast in the role of second banana, you’re honing all of your skills. Someday, if you are called to the very top of the banana hierarchy, you’ll be ready to slide right into that role. But here’s the thing—if that call never comes? That’s okay too. It’s a good thing to make peace with this. It’s important to accept your accomplishments and the success you’ve enjoyed, even if it isn’t exactly what you thought it would be. Okay, it may not be what you want, but take it from a guy who has been second banana for decades—while you’re waiting for what you want, don’t miss out on all the good things you already have.

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Excerpted from You Look So Much Better in Person: True Stories of Absurdity and Success by Al Roker. Copyright © 2020. Available from Hachette Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Al Roker is a co-anchor of NBC’s Today, an Emmy-award winning journalist, and a New York Times bestselling author. He has been at NBC for 40 years and he's the celebrated host of the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. He is also a host on SiriusXM's Off the Rails and the owner of production company Al Roker Entertainment, Inc. He recently starred in Broadway's Waitress. He lives in New York with his family.

What does it mean to be the top banana?

The top banana is the most powerful or important person around. If you are promoted to top banana at work, it means you are the boss. Besides top banana, there are a lot of other figurative ways to describe the number one person in a group, including top dog, big cheese, and and head honcho.

Where does the phrase top banana come from?

The phrase originated in the burlesque theater, from a very popular comedy skit in which the leading comedian was given a banana after delivering the punch line. The act and joke were so widely known that the term was coined to refer to the headliner, the person in the top position.

Who says top banana?

Phil Silvers in his quintessential role as Sgt. Ernie Bilko on television's “You'll Never Get Rich” (1955), later “The Phil Silvers Show.” “If you wanna be a top banana, you gotta start at the bottom of the bunch.”

How do you use top banana in a sentence?

nounSlang. a leading comedian in musical comedy, burlesque, vaudeville, etc.: For many years he was top banana on the circuit. the chief person in a group or undertaking.