Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Late Night Host Smackdown

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Posted by Alex Edwards (Member # 5413) on 01-15-2010, 07:12 PM:

So with all the coverage Conan vs. Leno has been getting I was wondering what various film people thought of the battle. I'm a Conan fan but as long as he's on a network I'm fine.

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 01-15-2010, 11:34 PM:

I've been watching TV since the late 40s including the Tonight Show from Steve Allen on (no relation). Conan is the most unfunny "comic" I have ever seen and stopped watching him even when he was on his late show. He should have stuck to writing the stuff and let someone else deliver it. Letterman will defeat him hands down.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 01-15-2010, 11:50 PM:

I gotta agree Robert, the guy may be a great writer and may have inventive material, but he should never have come out in front of the camera. His delivery is awful, his personna even worse; there is just nothing comical about his weird and nearly spastic facial contortions. His antics during the interviews are unfunny and and at times downright juvinile. And he seems to make many of the guests visibly uncomfortable. He trys to hard....what humor there is to me always seems forced and strained. Of course nothing will kill humor faster than trying to force it. He make ME uncomfortable watching him.

Better he should go back to writing behind the scenes on SNL and spare the rest of us.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 01-16-2010, 12:08 AM:

I don't know how anyone can see Leno as being funnier than Conan. Sure, maybe Leno's delivery is more polished, but as the old saying goes "You can't polish a turd." I'll take well-written material performed so-so over a practiced hack any day.

Also, with the execs not liking the drop in ratings, they should consider that the first couple years of Leno's time had a drop as well. It took him a couple years to get ratings back again.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-16-2010, 12:15 AM:

I'm probably in the minority, but I like Conan O'Brien's dry sense of humor. And his brand of humor owes a lot to David Letterman.

IMHO, Jay Leno seriously screwed up and overestimated his sense of popularity. He assumed all his late night viewers would follow him to prime time and then gather additional viewers as well. That didn't happen. And it certainly wasn't going to happen with Leno changing things around to a shitty new format. His prime time show was just plain awful.

NBC goofed BIG TIME as well. A bunch of short-sighted, greedy, penny pinching network executives dreaming up new ways to have as few "scripted" TV shows as possible yet expect to retain all the viewers or even gain more.

America is fucking tired beyond all hell of "reality TV." All that "unscripted" programming is driving viewers away to their DVRs, various cable channels, the Internet, outdoors or even to the confines of a novel printed on dead trees. Those MBA bastards gathering on the 6th floor of 30 Rock need to be strung up by their ankles and whipped severely as punishment for stupidity.

"Oh, but real TV shows with real actors, plots and production value cost too much money and take too much time to develop and cultivate a following of viewers." Tough shit, NBC executive. That's the TV business: YOUR job. This is how it has always been. If you want to be a bean counter, go a few dozen blocks south to Wall Street.

Whether someone likes Conan O'Brien or not the fact remains O'Brien stuck it out for umpteen years waiting patiently for Jay Leno to pass the reins of the Tonight Show along to the next guy. Why should O'Brien get screwed over for the mistake of someone else (Leno & NBC executives)? Oh well, NBC has screwed the "late night" guy before, hence the reason why David Letterman is at CBS instead of NBC these days.

I think Leno is done. Fucking Conan O'Brien over and sticking Jay back into the 11:30/10:30CST time slot isn't going to work. NBC got away with the act the last time when they gave The Tonight Show to Leno and sent Letterman packing to "Black Rock." This time I don't think the ploy is going to work. I expect NBC to give The Tonight Show back to Jay Leno, but I think a lot of the viewer base will leave.

Once Conan O'Brien is screwed by NBC he'll probably try to get something launched at Fox. That would sort of bring Fox "full circle" since the first network show Fox had was a late night show with Joan Rivers. I think O'Brien will do better, but he'll be damaged by this crap as well.

The real winner out of this mess: David Letterman.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 01-16-2010, 12:40 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
I'm probably in the minority, but I like Conan O'Brien's dry sense of humor.

I'm not sure how you took 3 of us out of 5 constitutes a minority. [Razz]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-16-2010, 12:55 AM:

I guess I'm going by so many other people I personally know who don't like or don't get Conan O'Brien's sense of humor.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 01-16-2010, 02:31 AM:

I feel sorry for both on-air guys involved in this total fuckup by the NBC suits. I've met Leno (backstage at Caesars Palace when I was a stagehand there back in the day), and although I don't particularly like his humor, he is a genuinely nice guy. Both Leno and O'Brien are stuck in a bad situation due to their breathtakingly stupid bosses. Oh, and for the record - O'Brien for the win, no matter how this current cockup turns out.

But ever since the current schedule started, I've watched neither of them. Being something of a news junkie, I'm usually watching local news at 10pm (KVBC3 on VegasTV) and 10:30 (Fox5) and 11 (KLAS8), and Nightline at 11:35. Letterman comes off as stale and Kimmel continues to make me ill. I just concentrate on my job search or GhibliWiki projects during those timeslots.

One thing I make sure not to miss though is Craig Ferguson at 1:35. Refreshingly funny, at least to me (us pilots gotta stick together).

Man I wish I could get a job as a suit and get paid what they get paid and have my golden parachute and not have to worry about the consequences of clueless decisions.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-16-2010, 07:52 AM:

I think O'Brien is pretty funny for the most part, but one thing I would absolutely change about him are the little dances and silly gestures he always does while the audience is laughing at the joke he just told. I just want to say "Calm the hell down, dude, dial it back a notch!" It is distracting from the joke he just told and completely unnecessary. Also, it looks stupid, as if he didn't have enough confidence in his joke so he must do a little dance/motion to entertain us. Other than that, he is fine.

As for Jay, I love his Headline sketches (which he doesn't write) and a few other sketches that he doesn't write like the Judgmental Bastard. Jay himself is a HUGE kiss-ass to his guests and that drives me nuts. He never, ever asks any good questions. He also is just too god damn happy. That should be illegal!

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 01-16-2010, 08:13 AM:

Oh well, I'm watching The Colbert Report at that time. Much funnier.

According to the NYT's "source" this morning, Conan will walk away with $30million. That should be enough to salve and wounds.

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 01-16-2010, 09:08 AM:

Never warmed up to Leno's Tonight Show, and although I liked Conan in New York, his version of The Tonight Show just isn't gelling to me, either. Now that Letterman has been exposed as a skeeve, he's no longer funny making fun of other skeeves.

That leaves me with Craig Ferguson, whom I feel is the funniest and most talented of the bunch today. He can do more with less then all of the rest. At times I find what he does very Kovacsian, a positive comparison I rarely make.

NBC really screwed the pooch on this one, something almost everyone predicted.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-16-2010, 11:07 AM:

Craig Ferguson is pretty funny. And he's Scottish, which is kind of a plus (I have some Scottish heritage). The only bad thing about Ferguson is he burns up over half the show with his own on camera stuff leaving time for only one guest interview and the other guest stuck in the green room all night. Kind of rude really.

For the past several months I really slacked off on watching The Daily Show and Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Although it sounds very superficial it really is difficult to stomach watching SD material when you've become accustomed to watching everything in HD. That problem has finally been solved. Both The Daily Show and Colbert Report FINALLY went to high definition production January 4.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 01-16-2010, 11:12 AM:

I'm sort of embarrassed to say that I have no idea what you guys are talking about!

I rarely watch TV. I probably don't even watch 5 hours of TV per week. There are, maybe two or three TV shows I watch on a semi-regular basis. All of those are ones my wife likes to watch. If she didn't watch TV I would probably never watch TV at all.

Since Carson left the Tonight Show, I haven't watched late night TV at all. I never liked to see Lenno sitting in Johnny's seat. I certainly don't like O'Brien sitting in Johnny's seat!

On rare occasions, I might watch Furguson. He's all right. But, best, he's not sitting in anybody else's seat. He's got his own damn chair and he seems to fill it well.

If more people would sit in their own seats and make a name for themselves and stop trying to copy things that other people are doing, maybe I'd watch more television. Instead, I just surf the internet. When I get bored with that, I just go out to the garage and tinker with something.

Television is dead, AFAIC.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 01-16-2010, 02:37 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Jay Leno seriously screwed up and overestimated his sense of popularity. He assumed all his late night viewers would follow him to prime time and then gather additional viewers as well.

Actually...

Jay had nothing to do with it. NBC greatly underestimated Jay's staying power and penned a bad contract with O' Brien that stated that if he did not get the "Tonight Show" by a certain date they would have to pay him 40 million dollars and he could "walk"

Jay was not happy at all about being removed from a show where he was #1

Jay did not want this, he wanted to continue doing the tonight show and beating everyone else. It was not Jay's idea. That is the big misconception. It was a severe mis-calculation by NBC.

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 01-16-2010, 03:00 PM:

It's not always about who's funniest. The one thing Johnny Carson did best (which we tend to forget) is interview people. It could be the biggest Hollywood star or some grandmother from middle America and Johnny always conducted a great interview. The only person on late night TV who can do a respectable interview is Craig Ferguson. Beyond that, Ferguson can be funny just grinning at the camera and playing with sock puppets. Nobody else on TV can do that!

Have you seen William Shatner's interview show? Surprisingly, he's also a fantastic interviewer.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 01-16-2010, 03:57 PM:

A friend posted this elsewhere

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/01/15/why-some-comics-arent-laughing-at-jay-leno-essay/

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-16-2010, 05:32 PM:

Very interesting article.

Regarding Leno, I thought he wanted to leave The Tonight Show voluntarily and perhaps even retire. The guy has a fortune, isn't getting any younger, so why not go on a long-ass vacation and enjoy those riches? After all, you can't take a fortune with you once you're dead.

I had a "WTF" reaction for NBC's announcement Leno would move to prime time 5 nights a week. That's a huge block of programming being eliminated in favor of an untested talk show concept. When the show turned out not to work it's no wonder many NBC affiliates across the country revolted.

The affiliates are the real reason why Leno's prime time experiment has come to a quick end. The ratings of their late local newscasts were getting badly impacted and resulting in decreased ad sales. The lower ratings also impaired the lead ins to Conan's version of The Tonight Show and other NBC late night shows.

Local TV stations are already having a tough time, but I think times are going to get even tougher in the years ahead. DVRs have done enormous damage to the traditional model of TV commercial sales. National networks are offering many of their shows online. In the years ahead more may offer HD quality downloads or video streams of their shows. This damages the local TV station's business because you won't see any local ads from that station on those downloads. In this challenging environment any network affiliate has to fight very hard to keep their business. That also means being extremely vocal when the parent network bosses make really stupid, short-sighted decisions.

Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 01-16-2010, 06:12 PM:

The real losers here are the Comcast shareholders who now (as owners of NBC) get to pay for the hubris and mistakes of Zucker and other incompetent and overpaid NBC execs.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-16-2010, 07:05 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
The only bad thing about Ferguson is he burns up over half the show with his own on camera stuff leaving time for only one guest interview and the other guest stuck in the green room all night.

That makes him a winner in my book. The guests are always boring on any talk show. I do think his accent is way too thick, though.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-16-2010, 08:48 PM:

NBC just screwed up bigtime five years ago -- they figured Leno would be running on fumes by 2009 and it didn't happen. I suppose Leno thought he'd be ready to do something else by '09 and then that didn't happen either.

I think Letterman is a better interviewer than Ferguson or Leno, especially when interviewing a political or news figure. He isn't afraid to ask tough questions and he also asks the questions the 'average joe' would ask.

Ferguson is so goofy, he won't let a guest get a word in edgewise sometimes. His solo comedy spots are the best part of his show.

As far as comedy, my favorite Letterman guest is when Jack Hanna comes on with the animals. Those segments are every bit as funny as Joan Embery's spots were in the Carson days.

As others have noted Leno is just a kissup. The monologue is the best part of his show.

Conan will come out OK in all of this. The big loser is going to be Leno, and the "Tonight Show" franchise -- one of the biggest moneymakers in TV history -- will probably wind up going down too.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 01-16-2010, 09:41 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Regarding Leno, I thought he wanted to leave The Tonight Show voluntarily and perhaps even retire.

I remember him making the announcement in 2004. The execs had a meeting telling him essentially "We want you for another 5 years and we want to give Conan the show after that since other stations are wooing him."

He added bits about wanting to avoid the hurt/anger with stuff like what happened between him and Dave, but it sounds like it was originally a corporate decision to give the show to Conan.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-16-2010, 10:54 PM:

That announcement is right here:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/6d1caacad1/jay-s-2004-announcement

I was always annoyed how whenever they came back from a commercial, Jay would be dancing and bopping around to the (horrible) music like he was super-hip. His band is only marginally better than Letterman's ultimately shitty band. Conan's band is by far the best.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 01-17-2010, 09:42 AM:

"...But I realized, I'm not spending enough time with my cars."

Funniest Leno line ever.

I HATED Leno's "Tonight Show". I was a regular Carson viewer since about the age of four. Letterman should have gotten the show. Period. I watched Leno initially, but just got angrier and angrier. I watched Letterman on CBS for awhile. And I watched the absolute train wreck that was Conan O' Brien, who delivered some of the most embarrassingly bad television in the history of the business in his first couple of years. It was mind boggling that they kept him on the air. Eventually, I quit watching late night completely.

But Conan got better. Good enough to use the leverage of other networks wooing him to force NBC's hand to ask Leno to retire. But Conan wasn't really going anywhere...he absolutely wanted the Tonight Show. Make no mistake about it...Conan started this whole mess.

When NBC's hand was forced, my opinion was that NBC should let Conan go. He either wouldn't, or he'd go to another network at 11:35 and fractionalize his and Letterman's audience. Leno's fans don't watch Conan...Leno's fans watch him and "Wheel of Fortune". NBC would be the clear winner.

The problem now is...I like Conan's "Tonight Show". He's actually got me watching late night again. And I've become a big Ferguson fan as a direct result.

So I guess I wish Leno really would retire and NBC would let Conan's Tonight Show grow. But it's probably best for NBC if they keep Leno, assuming his audience can be trained into the habit of tuning in again.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-17-2010, 10:30 AM:

Choice of signature theme music for these shows is critical. The music chosen for Leno's recent primetime show is godawful. I've watched the show a few times and I wouldn't be able to hum that song if someone was holding a gun to my head.

I hate how Leno high-fives the chosen few in his audience when he takes the stage. That gimmick is very old. Just stop it.

Leno's monolog delivery always bugs me because he's so obviously reading cue cards held just below the camera, more obviously so than his competitors.

Do not dismiss the possibility that all or at least parts of this controversy were deliberately cooked up by NBC and certain participants to boost ratings.

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 01-25-2010, 09:29 AM:

quote: Greg Anderson
It's not always about who's funniest.

Exactly right. Leno has never been funny; not as a stand-up or host or anything. But he's safe. And the writers work with that. His down-to-earth, milk-toast presentation appeals to an older audience. Masturbating bears and insulting dog puppets appeal to a juvenile sense of humor typically found in drunk college boys. That's why Conan didn't get, and would never have got, the ratings. He didn't appeal to a wide enough audience. He was a funnier person than Leno, no doubt about it, but he has a much smaller demographic.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Fucking Conan O'Brien over and sticking Jay back into the 11:30/10:30CST time slot isn't going to work.

What wasn't working was O'Brien as the host of The Tonight Show. Like you said, so many other people don't get his sense of humor. He didn't get screwed, it was just business - and I would love to get screwed with a $40 mil payoff. NBC looks foolish, but you can't fault them completely. Letterman was beating The Tonight Show badly for the first time since the infamous Hugh Grant interview and NBC wasn't pleased. They called up a guy from the minors that couldn't play in the big leagues, so they sent him back down. Happens all the time.

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 01-25-2010, 01:00 PM:

How is that any average guy who watches TV could see this coming for years already but the "experts" who actually run the network didn't? And none of the bosses at NBC lost his job. Incredible.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-25-2010, 02:40 PM:

quote: Chad Souder
Masturbating bears and insulting dog puppets appeal to a juvenile sense of humor typically found in drunk college boys.

Yeah, why is it that to be funny to today's youngish audience, something has to be borderline-filthy? What ever happened to "just plain funny?"

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 01-25-2010, 02:59 PM:

Exactly! When was the last time you ran a comedy movie that wasn't either A) a "family" movie which only tried to appeal to the 8-year-old-and-under crowd or B) An "edgy" movie which was either "borderline filthy" or full-on filthy? Doesn't anyone know how to be just plain funny without trying to be "shocking"? I seem to recall that Jay Leno was a lot less filthy before his parents died and/or before Lorena Bobbitt and Bill Clinton turned him into a "penis joke machine."

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 01-25-2010, 03:32 PM:

It wasn't about who's the better performer, strictly ratings. Leno finished "Tonight" with higher ratings than Letterman and by the end, Conan's ratings were less than half of Letterman and still falling, the affiliates were screaming, something had to change. Conan had the opportunity to prove himself and failed to make it in the big time.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-25-2010, 04:07 PM:

The affiliates weren't screaming about Conan, they were screaming about Jay's piss-poor (lower than Conan's) ratings. Jay was a shitty lead in. It would be funny to see him get booed on the Tonight Show upon his return.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 01-25-2010, 08:29 PM:

quote: Bill Enos
It wasn't about who's the better performer, strictly ratings. Leno finished "Tonight" with higher ratings than Letterman and by the end, Conan's ratings were less than half of Letterman and still falling, the affiliates were screaming, something had to change. Conan had the opportunity to prove himself and failed to make it in the big time.

You seem to forget that it took Leno ~2 years to get decent ratings. Using your Conan reasoning, Leno should've been dropped several months in.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-25-2010, 09:02 PM:

They should have let Conan stay on the Tonight Show. Leno should never have accepted their offer to take it back. He agreed to give the show up. He's such a flip-flopper, he should be in politics.

Conan took a couple of years to work into the 12:30 slot...he needed more time to find his way at 11:30.

He had what, a 2-year contract? If he wasn't performing by that time they could have brought in a different host, maybe a new guy. They could have found a more middle-of-the-road guy, he would have worked cheap and they could have created a new star.

Bottom line, NBC has a bunch of dopes at the wheel and Leno is a bottom-feeding slug in my book. They should have just canceled his show and let that be the end of it. Just the thought of what this mess would do to Conan should have been enough to make him back away from the new deal.

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 01-27-2010, 07:07 AM:

quote: Chris Slycord
You seem to forget that it took Leno ~2 years to get decent ratings. Using your Conan reasoning, Leno should've been dropped several months in.

What do you mean by "decent?" If memory serves, Leno was beat by Letterman early on, but he still had far better ratings than Conan did in his 7 months. Granted there was no Adult Swim back then stealing a massive chunk of viewers, but Leno did better in that time slot at any point of his Tonight Show career than Conan did. Conan wasn't just getting beat by Letterman, he was getting dominated. They didn't have 2 years to cross their fingers.

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 01-27-2010, 07:33 AM:

I'm impressed by the fact that Johnny Carson used guest hosts often and it didn't seem to hurt his show nor his own popularity. It seems like that's the first thing Jay Leno decided he could never do... allow someone else to handle his show now and then. When I think about it now it makes Leno seem like a very selfish person.

I realize that Letterman doesn't use guest hosts unless he's too ill to work. But at least Letterman has used guest hosts.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 01-27-2010, 11:04 AM:

They should let Chelsea Handler fill that spot. Her show is much funnier than the other late night shows, plus she has a midget named Chuy...added bonus.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 01-28-2010, 12:39 PM:

Just to play devils advocate here...

So Greg are you saying that as an unselfish person you should allow me to fill in for you at your gig one day a week and pay me for it?

I know Rosie stuck her big fat mouth into this because she was upset that Jay would not let her guest host his show. The thing is though it was HIS show. He was trying to build his ratings through CONSISTENCY, and he enjoyes working. How is it selfish for him to want to work hard to build a succesful show?

Rosie does a show on Sirius/XM satellite radio and I would like to see how "unselfish" she is by giving up a portion of her time to another comedian and paying them for it. Guess what, It ain't going to happen!

And FYI I don't even watch these shows. I have no love or hate for Conan, Leno, Letterman, Kimmel or anyone (Except Rosie I hate her!) I have just heard from people who work with him that Jay is a very nice, hard working, succesful guy who never asked for, or wanted any of this and is now being made to look like the bad guy when NBC caused this mess not Jay Leno.

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 01-28-2010, 01:26 PM:

Ah, you devil! [evil]

Without being political, I’d like to use the example of Rush Limbaugh (analyzing this purely from an entertainment business perspective). Whenever he can’t do his own show, he rarely plays a rerun and almost always has a guest host. Most of his former guest hosts from the 1990s now have their own radio programs. As a result the market is flooded with conservative radio talk show hosts and there are very few with the opposite perspective. Most of those “competitors” to Rush Limbaugh know that they owe their careers to him and they will never say an unkind word about him. Limbaugh’s unselfishness when it came to guest hosts has created a huge industry and he is the undisputed “king” of it.

Johnny Carson was the same way. Johnny relished the opportunity to give young comics their “big breaks” by letting them do 5 minutes of stand-up on his show and, sometimes, letting them guest host. Johnny always seemed to be at ease in his own skin and never pushed to make an interview funny. He didn’t care if he was the funniest guy in the room or if it was someone else who made him break into hysterical laughter. It’s a rare gift. If there was one thing that Leno and Letterman would never have dreamed of in the early 1990s (when they were competing for Johnny’s job) it was bad-mouthing Johnny.

I’ve worked on sets of comedy movies where “the star” of the show, off camera, would sit stone-faced whenever someone else tried to be funny. It’s like they were giving up power, somehow, by not being the unchallenged “funniest guy in the room.” But I suppose it’s no surprise that a lot of comedians are personally insecure.

quote: Sean McKinnon
So Greg are you saying that as an unselfish person you should allow me to fill in for you at your gig one day a week and pay me for it?

If it was a day that I was going to miss work anyway, why not? Is a Jay Leno rerun really better than a new show featuring a lesser-known comedian?

I’m not a fan of Rosie so I can understand if Jay isn’t either. But maybe the wise move would be to let her try the gig and then, if she fell flat, he could have a good excuse to fire her. And if she succeeded then it would seem like a win-win, wouldn’t it? (Or maybe he was afraid that if she was too good then the back-stabbing NBC brass would fire Jay.)

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 01-29-2010, 07:37 PM:

I personally think that Jay was afraid she would stink and kill his already struggling ratings when he first took over.

Maybe he doesn't let them guest host (and maybe he should you have a point about re-runs that I never considered) but he gives opportunity to a lot of comedians for example Little Jimmy Norton From the Sirius/XM "Opie And Anthony" Show (he is very very funny) was given a segment "Uninvited Guest" on the 10pm show, and hopefully will get to move back to 11 with him.