I'd watch it if he were doing a show about his ginormous car and motorcycle collection. That's about the only context in which I find Leno palatable.
I don't understand his appeal at all. Likewise Larry King. It's mystifying.
The network drama has been on the way out for years, and the strike didn't help a bit. The only network that's done well this season has been CBS, with its endless parade of comfort-food police procedurals. The cable channels don't need the huge audiences the big networks think they do, so they can make riskier, more interesting stuff -- and they don't yank something after three episodes.
Why should an audience get attached to, say, Pushing Daisies when they know they'll get to see at least 13 episodes of Mad Men, each episode will be run several times, and they don't have to chase it all over the schedule before it gets put "on hiatus"?
Part of the reason why Mad Men was able to get and stay on the air is that it was kept on a fantastically tight budget. Its (then) unknown actors were paid almost nothing, the producers/creators did a lot of the writing and hired unknowns, and the incredible art and set direction was also done on a shoestring.
The hourlong drama will survive, but its costs will start to approach reality TV, and shows may have shorter runs (since it will be harder to compensate casts and crews once a modicum of success comes in). Since this means that our TV will look more like British TV,with some intellectual drama and some truly unbelievably cheaply made and performed trash, I'm fine with these changes.
Did anyone else read the recent Rolling Stone Letterman interview? I thought it was pretty interesting.
I love British short seasons and short runs. Umpteen seasons of numpty-odd episodes apiece is not actually so great for storytelling.
7- I totally agree. Our American longer runs are basically a historical product of the networks' needs to package advertising sales, but the growth of reality and ever-expanding cable means that more short runs and short seasons are likely to be in our future, although, like now, most very successful series will go on until they can stop selling ads, which is usually at least 2 seasons after the creativity dies.
In don't even own an overrated Italian guy with a malformed chin.
So instead of Law & Orders 5 nights a week we get Leno? As long as Orbach's still dead, who cares?
That said, my thinking on this is pretty much Becks' - who the hell wants to watch Leno at 10 pm 5 times a week? Also, won't this turn into a giant stepping-on-Conan's-toes? Seems to me Leno will still get the "big" interviews.
Damages
What? That show was terrible!
8: But the 100 show threshold for syndication is huge, too. If you can hold out 3+ seasons, you're basically set indefinitely.
most very successful series will go on until they can stop selling ads, which is usually at least 2 seasons after the creativity dies.
Unless you get grandfathered in, as with The Simpsons.
I miss sit coms. I only watch dramas now, but I used to really enjoy sitcoms. There seem to be more hour-long dramas than there were in the late 80's and 90's. Some of them on ABC have started at the 9 o'clock hour (Ugly Betty, I think, and definitely Private Practice).
12: still is terrible, I guess.
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is the only thing I watch anymore. Because poop never stops being funny.
Or, worse, 9 PM in the Midwest.
Thanks for feeling our pain.
Speaking of crappy police procedurals, we're watching Law & Order, and they just mentioned the Mineshaft!! (As in the New York bar that no longer exists.)
I hate Leno with a deep passion. But the reason NBC is putting him on is that he'll be an OK ad draw at 10, can charge rates higher than they were getting at 11:30, and costs them way less than putting on any other programming. May well be a smart business move in a deep recession.
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is the only thing I watch anymore.
Christ, we really are the same person.
Trendy aging people who like the advanced humour of that Jay Leno person but are somewhat troubled by the edginess of that David Letterman fellow will be happy to have the chance to go to sleep an hour later. So: hit.
And the young, annoying hipster types will get to stay up later than the old folks and watch Craig.
Meanwhile larvae such as Becks will go: huh?
max
['Your graying future.']
13 -- Syndication deals are WAY less lucrative than they were even five years ago. Growth of DVDs, Tivo, internet, declines in advertising, etc.
Do trendy people of any age like Leno?
In other entertainment-industry related news, I'm staying late at work because my wife is having a business meeting at home with the writer of B/ill and T/ed's E/xcellent A/dventure. Get out of my house, dude!
My only ever paid acting gig was as a pale imitation of B/ill in an industrial video for a commercial art school. "If you don't go to the Institute of Design, you'll have totally bogus future, dudes! Step inside my time travel booth and take a look." I got $150/day for a three-day shoot, and then blew it all when the State of Pennsylvania sent me a $450 bill for the guardrail I broke my car on falling asleep driving.
Oh yeah, it was called "B/ill and T/ed's Educational Adventure."
25- Wait, this wasn't shown on local commercials in LA in the late 80s/early 90s, was it? Some commercial like that is totally stuck in my memory.n
10pm? Midnight? I have a DVR; much like I don't know anybody's telephone number, I don't know when anything's on, or what channel. Who cares?
Do trendy people of any age like Leno?
No. And they never have.
27, no, it was a school in Philly.
Damages is deliciously trashy. Not quite Gossip Girl trashy, but impressive.
23,29: I guess despite his original time slot he's just never really been the answer for the Night People.
Speaking of Leno, via James Wolcott here is an interesting clip of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show simultaneously being a total dick and yet kind of awesome (from about 2:00 in), and with a dollop of very peculiar racism in the mix as well.
Ok, I've escaped my wife's assignation with Bill and Ted's writer guy by heading to Cinemabar in Culver City. Angelenos, this is clearly the best bar in LA, and I will reject all arguments to the contrary.
What kind of meeting is this, that you're banned from the house for the duration, Mr Halford?
Wow. That's really funny, except for the parts where he is totally, randomly racist. I don't know how I missed that as an infant.
Dude, theyr're writing some kind of b/ogus journey together inb our 2000 sq ft craftsmabn home, which I believe involves some reworking of a J/ohn H/uston film. Fuck this, I'm going to liveblog unfogged in a dive bar for possibly the 14( h time,
Ok, I just got told that I'm "soft" for a combination of myy unworked hands and typing on my Blackberry. Fuck you, unfogged, says mew and soem random tough dude sitting next to me.
39: best bar in LA, eh? You'd best be drunker'n that to prove it!
Fuck this noise I'm in on the brawl. I just met some fishtanks salesman whose like awwwwww yeah I sold some dude this fucking clean tank so fuck you.
which I believe involves some reworking of a J/ohn H/uston film
GOOGLEPROOFING CANNOT FOOL THE DEAD, FOUL PLAGIARIST!
robert halfors is the new btock lamerf.
Oh jesus christ delete all saviors Beck and W-lfs-n.
Oh, don't worry. I'm sure it'll get deleted in good time. Keep commenting!
Yeah drunk bKentucky dude cousin at next seat says fuck rat orgasm ontellectuals and vive AWB's good common sense so like fuck yeah.
You should ask if he likes your band.
"The good Lord made us man and woman, but Smith and Wesson Beck and W-lfs-n made us equal"
49: as best I can gather, you're a savior, and thus marked for deletion?
God jesus I fucking loathe fucking fuckface racists. Dude next seat eays he likes music but hates Obama fuck you even at redneck simulacram hipster joint racost fuck$
Are you sure he's not just a simulacram of a fucking fuckface racost?
No good lord BW delete all this, except potentially hilariouus redneck unfogged interlocutors.
he likes music but hates Obama
Even the most hardcore racost fuck$ has to admit the President-elect has an angelic singing voice.
Is it just me, or does this bar sound kind of awful?
I like music, but I hate all this Obama stuff that's on the radio now instead of rock.
Is it just me, or does this bar sound kind of awful?
No, you sound awful, too.
(I keed, I keed.)
Download it and tell me why anyone would say anything good about this sort of thing except strictly for its relevance to a few anthropologists.
58: I'm harmonizing fine, it's the bar that's flat.
Jesus fucking fuck philipinos. Now delete
I think rob is drinking concentrated ToS.
Robert halford revealed as the ToS. I knew the trolling was coming from inside the house.
62: Bitters; tall; no rocks; in a to-go cup.
Hey Sifu, you know about thay complicated math homework? I'm eatsted as shot but have no clu wtf you're talking about.
I believe I can still outargue, and outpunch in the nads, the TOS. I welcome the opportunity.
So nid, in your search for world music, what specifically led you to the "20 minute didgeridoo opus" section?
65: I have no clu wtf you're talking about, as well!
This album (borrowed from the local library, which I just discovered has a massive "International" section in the CD department) has 8 songs on it. All of them have the same music, such as it is; the same vocal melodies in random combination; and as far as I can tell, the same lyrics. I really have no idea what the anthropologists are going on about in the liner notes.
"Green Frog" is the longest of the 8 songs.
This is up there with some of those one-man Norwegian black metal bands for the most unbelievably (literally, not believably) repetitive thing I've ever heard.
Oh, check it out, one of the top Google results is at Jstor.
Actually I rather like this song. It's droney and trance-like; you were expecting maybe snappy didgeridoo melodies with fun, sexy lyrics?
ALL 8 SONGS SOUND THE SAME.
Want me to upload the others?
Also, it rubs me the wrong way that the ethnomusicoanthropologists don't even know what the lyrics mean. They just write them phonetically in the booklet. Although they know what the titles mean in English.
Wow. Rapidshare's indication that I have to wait "Still 30 seconds" for being a free user is rather ineffective as a marketing technique.
I'm looking for music I have that's weirder and more abrasive (which shouldn't be hard.. this is kind of mellow and nice).
Weirder and more abrasive?
I liked the clips of Noism that "Cerebral Metalhead" put up a couple days ago.
It sort of sounds like it might be a dirge. I wonder what it's about.
73: You can have this for free, I'm told. They're just that decent as people.
OK, you relativists, here's another one.
Garranan is a species of owl.
Most of these songs have very few lyrics and last about two minutes. So the 9-minute track is actually five slightly different performances of the same song.
Awesome, what is the story behind that? Exploring the possibilities of synthesizers, 30 years ago?
Sounds like Michel Waisvisz but cooler (more spontaneous).
Michel Waisvisz (all I know is what WFMU tells me)
Dude hooked a bunch of synths up to an EEG. That's all I really know.
Drunken bar update. I have now been jostled by several people, and am trying to calm incipient beligerence. I hate the Blackberry for allowing me to liveblog this.
Rob's gonna eat that blackberry.
Fear not, for drunken-bar-consultants have arrived. Advice dispensed for a very reasonable fee.
A song we got as a CD single at the college radio station and played quite often, just to marvel at the inessentialness.
Cannot find any evidence on the internet that the song, the band, or the rapper, or even the record label ever existed. So, don't spread the word too far.
Mmg, how do the scots calmdown the urge to barfight? Caus I'm feeling the need to throwdown, and avoiding the wife's phonecalls. Wolfosn, pls delete.
You got some seeerious flappers goin' on there, Sifu. Check 'em out, check 'em out, check 'em out.
If you didn't like that, try the instrumental.
The promo makes a special point to say that they decided to start off their new record label with a cover of a classic song. Well, the song wasn't that great even back then.
Ok, I've now drunk myself into the poit where I've resolve ogged's contrarianism, lb's conventional feminism, tia's aggressive feminism, pgd's traditionalism, stanley's sensibleness, fl's humor, my own lurkuriness and the comentariness, and cala's smartness, sifu's hilariousness, and w-lfs-n's smartness into one giant comprehensible ball of enlightenment. Too bad y'all can't be here to appreciate it.
re: 87
Mmg, how do the scots calmdown the urge to barfight?
You know, I have no idea. I'm not sure it ever happens.
[More seriously, I just think of all the bad things that might happen (to me) and work on inculcating a bit of healthy fear in myself ... ]
I'm glad my hilariousness is bracketed by others' smartnesses. Don't want any accidents.
Just truin to make as many enemies as possible! Fortunately for you, literally everyone here is s$arter than me, particularly Sifu.
Ok, time to take a cab home. Tune in tomorrow for hangover and shame that I've wasted the time of my smart internet. Commentator acquaintance fcommentoing$
No, I'm an idiot. If I were smart, I'd be asleep.
stanley's sensibleness
Wait, what now? You are drunk.
Look at yours. They're like monsters, stickin' out.
literally everyone here is s$arter than me, particularly Sifu.
Does sound like an interesting bar. And that trickster Sifu was there the whole time?
Conventional? Halford is banned! (as well as probably being hung over and possibly injured.)
Halford is banned!
Kobe wants to know whether you feminists will ever come up with a new trick beyond shutting down the dialogue.
90: I, however, remain inscrutable as ever to Mr. Halford.
59, 69, 71 etc: I jump in to defend the ethnomusicologists in question (because I vaguely know them). I'm wondering if nid has misunderstood the purpose of this CD, and by extension, of the Smithsonian Folkways project.
I love British short seasons and short runs.
You've never encountered Heartbeat, have you? Or Casualty, the series that time forgot? The very worst British dramas always go on... and on.. and on FOR FUCKING EVER (mostly on my parents' telly: this is one of the reasons I rarely visit). It's not all Life on Mars and The Office, y'know.
I dunno how plausible this is.
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He was making fun of Don Rickles. Rickles is always making race jokes, so Johnny walked in and started acting like Don to mock him.
I've been watching the American Life on Mars, but I think I only like it because it makes me feel young again.
You've never encountered Heartbeat, have you? Or Casualty, the series that time forgot? The very worst British dramas always go on... and on.. and on FOR FUCKING EVER (mostly on my parents' telly: this is one of the reasons I rarely visit). It's not all Life on Mars and The Office, y'know.
Fair enough! It just feels like the good dramas get more of a chance to be self-contained, or at least to have seasons with thirteen episodes or fewer. But the grass really is always greener; huge swathes of crap just never get exported, in both directions, giving a rather distorted view.
I've been watching the American Life on Mars, but I think I only like it because it makes me feel young again.
I have trouble believing it could be good, but this is probably just a failure of imagination on my part. I have a massive crush on John Simm (of the original Life on Mars), but I liked him best in State of Play.
A lot of British series that start off good run out of things to write about by the beginning of their third 8-episode season, whereas our series that start off good usually don't get to that point until the beginning of their third 20-episode season.
e.g. "Black Books"
I have trouble believing it could be good
It is hard not to like Harvey Keitel as a pre PC cop. (Pre PC: Gretchen Mol's character is routinely called "no balls").