20 Things You Didn't Know About The Shining
15. Its Most Famous Line Was Completely Improvised
Anyone younger than 50 might not know this, but the classic line "Heeeeere's Johnny!" was actually a reference to a past era of The Tonight Show, when it was hosted by Johnny Carson. As you can imagine, this wasn't exactly what Kubrick intended Jack to say when he knocked down the bathroom door.
The line was completely improvised by Nicholson, who got caught up in the moment during his method acting and said the eponymous line during one of the earlier takes. But it worked so well for the character, helped greatly by Nicholson's masterful performance, that Kubrick just decided to keep it going forward.
As a result, nowadays we associate the line more with The Shining than with The Tonight Show. Which makes me wonder if the same would have happened if Jack referenced other talk shows like Homer did in The Simpson's brilliant spoof of this scene. We'll likely never know for sure until I can finally get that dimension hopping machine working (i'm going to find a version of America WITHOUT murder hornets, god dammit!) but this is still a damn good scene and line regardless.