The "bleak and impoverished entertainment landscape" while Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show, a : https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1388257875710017536

Let's start with TV shows.

All In The Family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_in_the_Family

Saturday Night Live, with actors including Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, I could go on... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live

Star Trek: The Original Series, not terribly popular in its day but now of course a cult classic which launched perhaps the biggest media franchise of all time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series

M*A*S*H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M*A*S*H_(TV_series)

Monty Python's Flying Circus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Flying_Circus

Hill Street Blues. As @TVWORTHWATCHING put it, the history of TV can be divided into before and after Hill Street Blues. The show changed TV forever. My family watched it religiously every Thursday at 9pm, followed by St. Elsewhere, another classic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_Street_Blues

There are more, but this thread needs to end at some point, so let's move on to comedians.

George Carlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Carlin

Robin Williams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams

Jim Carrey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carrey 

Eddie Murphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Murphy

Richard Pryor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pryor

(All of these comedians appears on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, most of them several times, and considered him a talented comedian.) What else is there, oh I know, how about ballet dancers?

Rudolf Nureyev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Nureyev

Mikhail Baryshnikov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Baryshnikov

Gelsey Kirkland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelsey_Kirkland

Anthony Dowell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Dowell

Sylvie Guillem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvie_Guillem

Ballet not your thing? How about Opera?

Luciano Pavarotti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luciano_Pavarotti

Maria Callas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Callas

Plácido Domingo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pl%C3%A1cido_Domingo

José Carreras https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Carreras

Leontyne Price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leontyne_Price

Not doing it for you? There was some passable composers as well.

Aaron Copland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Copland

John Cage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage 

Leonard Bernstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Bernstein