I wonder if another network would've wanted him if NBC had refused.
I wonder if another network would've wanted him if NBC had refused.
If? Leno gets better ratings than Letterman and almost certainly would have beaten Conan as well. I'm sure someone would have wanted him.
Have you ever had the experience of having sex with someone you've never had sex with before, and so you're banging away and suddenly you're SURE you've had sex with this person before?
Ok, well, I haven't either.
max
['But I think of a few cases where I wouldn't mind, exactly.']
i never watch any of them, just remember i thought once that Conan's hairstyle does not suit him, he would look better if he had long hair until like his jawline
i was looking for the male movie idols, still don't like any of them
3: You're talking about last night, aren't you?
I'm so hurt.
Is that website saying Orlando Bloom had the buccal fat removal?
O'Brien's hair gives him something distinctive that he can make fun of, for example by comparing himself to Finnish President Tarja Halonen. He doesn't need to actually lo9ok attractive.
i thought his family name was Conan
He doesn't need to actually lo9ok attractive
anybody needs that imo if there is some room for improvement
well, if he's that witty-funny i'll start watching him maybe (coz recommended by CN!)
I think you may just find him to be bizarre and random and silly, rather than funny.
Try Craig Ferguson as well.
(although both are on from 12:30 to 1:30 AM, very late)
my understanding is that Leno thought he'd want to retire, so a few years ago NBC signed Conan to replace him. Then recently Leno changes his mind...
My understanding is that Conan threatened to leave if they didn't give him The Tonight Show in a timely manner and so they decided to give it to him X years in the future on the assumption that Leno would be ready to retire, but then Leno doesn't want to retire (mostly because, it seems, he is some kind of insane workaholic).
Giving Leno 5 hours a week in primetime represents the NBC suits lack of faith in their own ability to produce 5 better and/or more profitable non-Leno hours of television. So, yes, Friday Night Lights will probably pay the price (haven't seen it, is it good?).
I only see Jay Leno when they put clips of him on the taxicab TV. His headline bits are harmlessly amusing for the people who want to copyedit the world (i.e. me).
I bet I can find five primetime programs on NBC that neither I nor anyone I know would miss.
ER, Lipstick Jungle, The Biggest Loser, Superstars of Dance, Momma's Boys.
I hope that's equally easy for people who make the decision.
Conan is an Irish/Gaelic name, very unusual in the last 1000 years or so. I have never heard of another non-fictional person with the first name "Conan" in my entire life. And neither has Wikipedia.
I have never heard of another non-fictional person with the first name "Conan" in my entire life.
Isn't the barbarian co-NAN (rhymes with Anne) and the talk shot host co-NIN (rhymes with gin)?
Didn't we already have this thread a few weeks ago?
8: If Read didn't like silliness she wouldn't be here.
The talk show host accents the first syllable! Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (well, everyone I've ever heard refer to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, anyway)
As Leno's audience gets older, he moves up. Like Letterman! And O'Brien! Leno's audience is older than Letterman's (I assume?), so he moves up even farther.
As our world shifts again to accompany the Boomerz - like the restaurants making food more spicy to accommodate their dampened palates.
13: I can't tell if you're being serious or not.
15: Damn, I'm bad with stresses. Isn't it CO-nin? Or, using IPA (which I don't understand, really, but at least it's unambiguous), isn't it "koʊnɪn" rather than "koʊnæn" (ignoring the stress)?
What kind of talk show host can we talk about who isn't old news? Spike Feresen? Craig Ferguson? That blonde woman?
13: Didn't we already have this thread a few weeks ago?
17: 13: I can't tell if you're being serious or not.
17, 13 to 3.
max
['Was that YOU, rob? Whew! That's a relief!']
Did you ever think Bugs Bunny was attractive when he dresses up as a girl bunny?
I feel like I've jumped the shark as a front page poster.
It's okay, heebie. You're posting for two. This sort of thing will happen.
16.3:This boomer has never watched a complete episode of Leno, Letterman or is it O'Brien? and has barely seen an excerpts or partial episodes.
Essentially without content or value, I have always considered them mechanisms of mass-culture participation for its own sake.
I've always thought of those guys as sleep enhancers. Low intensity distraction that you don' worry about missing the end of.
Did you ever think Bugs Bunny was attractive when he dresses up as a girl bunny?
Well, actually, I thought Bugs was pretty cute when he was dressed up as a Valkyrie.
Anyways: don't let it throw you Heebster! Get right back in there and post again!
max
['Seriously. It's what ogged would do if he wasn't dead.']
@18
I can't tell whether it's CO-n(schwa)n or CO-n(short i)n for the talk show host, and I think it's co-N(midwestern diphthong a)N for the barbarian.
I think 24 and 25 are pretty much right. I realize that comity between McManus, Emerson and me likely means that the apocalypse is near, but the lameness of late night broadcast television is something we all should be able to come together on.
The fact that the late night talk show evolved at a time when people had few entertainment options comparable to TV should tell you something. Shows knew they had a large audience that wouldn't go anywhere as long as you didn't threaten them.
I find Leno far funnier than Conan. Every time I watch Conan I end up frustrated at his interminable self-deprecating interludes that end up composing over half his monologue. The guy is just plain irritating. Craig Ferguson, OTOH, is brilliant.
"Let's take it as axiomatic that Jay Leno is not funny."
Done and done. (Although Leno used to be funny. Back in the (19)80s.)
My sister swears that reading Leno's autobiography made her feel all kinds of warm'n'fuzzy toward him. Apparently it's heavy on the stories about before he made it big, when he was trucking around playing college-town gigs to hung-over frat boys.
I dunno, I feel kind of amiable towards him myself, but that might change if I watched his show regularly. He could be doing more with the bully pulpit (a la the Daily Show), but eh. His talents are what they are, in the direction they're in, and television is a much more many-hands model than having your own newspaper column, so I don't hold him as responsible for the use of scarce real estate.
Craig Ferguson, OTOH, is brilliant.
I've mentioned this before, but his early stand-up (in Scotland), as a ranting social inadequate called 'Bing Hitler' is well worth watching. I've not looked but it's probably on youtube these days.
the most hilarious thing about Craig Ferguson these days is his teeth.
(and also, in a better world, it would have been Gerry Sadowitz hosting top ten TV programmes in the USA).
Bing Hitler. Sounds a lot like a... Craig Ferguson monologue.
max
['Bing!']
The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson isn't exactly one of the top ten programs. It's on at 12:30 AM, or what you would call "0030", for example.
Although 2.13 million viewers per show is quite a lot.
I can't quite put my finger on what it is about Leno that makes me dive for a remote any time his face appears on the screen, but I suspect I'd be less annoyed by a Gilbert Gottfried or Carrot Top talk show. I have just accepted that Leno, like Larry King, Nancy Grace, and QVC, is one of those things about television I will never understand.
39 - Your response to Leno is my response to Conan. He's fingernails on a blackboard to me.
Leno I don't find funny at all, but he doesn't really bother me. Conan irks me, though I can't quite figure out why. Too much the smug fratboy, I guess, I don't like his knowing smirk.
1. ER was ending anyway, because it had run its course.
2. The guy who was on the late late show before the guy before Ferguson was so incredibly boring, not only not funny, but actively boring.
Tom Snyder? I don't think he was even supposed to be funny. As a youth, I always got him confused with Charlie Rose.
ER was ending anyway, because it had run its course.
I think it did that about umpteen seasons ago, and it didn't end then.
44: The only hope is that ER might have a bunch of spin-offs, a la Law and Order. Then it'll be fine!
ER: Non-emergency Victims Unit
ER: Medical Intent
And how could I forget?
Law and Order: Triage by Jury
surely ER: Tales of the Finance Department?
It's safe humor, but Jay gets a few off each night, IMO. And because the writers are trying to be safe, it's a good look at where the lines are thought to be. 'Jaywalking' is scary, though.
Craig Kilborn did just abruptly drop off the map, didn't he. He's still alive, right?
re: 36
Hah. We can but dream.*
* It's hard to believe the BBC even gave him a show all those years ago ...
I think what irks Apo and others (like me) about Leno is that the man never seems to truly care about anything. I submit that truly great comedians -- Rock, Carlin, Pryor, Kinnison, etc. -- must actually care about something enough to be outraged by it, in order to be funny. They don't have to be "angry comics" per se, but there must be something that motivates them enough to give a damn and do a monologue about it.
Leno, OTOH, just runs through whatever his writers cranked out that day, without any sense that he really cares about any of it. Sure, the other late-nighters, Letterman and Conan, are in the same basic position, but they have flavorful enough personalities (Letterman: cranky and bemused; Conan: insecure and self-deprecating) that they can get away with it. A Leno monologue is like comedy Muzak.
50:
ER: Med-Mal would kind of merge the ER and Law & Order audiences. Or maybe I'm the only person who finds medical malpractice cases interesting. Lure of the forbidden and so on.
30
The fact that the late night talk show evolved at a time when people had few entertainment options comparable to TV should tell you something. Shows knew they had a large audience that wouldn't go anywhere as long as you didn't threaten them.
This seems true, of all TV shows. I mean, didn't all TV shows evolve when people had few entertainment options comparable to TV*? No wonder we take it for granted that TV shows suck.
* "Comparable to TV": let's say, visual, mass-market and in the comfort of your own home. The "mass-market" part might exclude home video, but even then you had a few decades between TV broadcasts and the sale of the Betamax. If we don't consider home video a separate medium from TV, then there was nothing comparable to TV until the Internet.
53: Nailed it! Also, Jay has got to be the WORST interviewer ever! He cranks through the guests just like he cranks through the jokes. Letterman is Bob Costas by comparison!
