Conan supporters gathered outside NBC stations across the country to protest the move of the Tonight Show from 11:35 to 12:05.

If there is any real blame it should go to Conan’s attorneys who didn’t think of writing a specific time slot for the show into his contract. Yet Conan’s supporters insist that Jay Leno is at fault.

Jay is being caricatured as a cry-baby by Conan supporters. In my opinion, Conan is the one being immature, acting like a sixteen year old, who can’t believe his parents are taking the car away … after he wrecked it.

Few remember that Conan isn’t a pacifist. When his contract was up for re-negotiation back in 2003, he told NBC that he wouldn’t sign the contract until the Tonight Show seat was added to the contract. Jay never really raised a stink about being forced out, because he remembered how he got the Tonight Show in the first place. (more…)

NBC CEO Jeff Zucker

In a move that bodes well to strengthen TV programming overall in both primetime and late night, NBC has confirmed that Jay Leno will be moved back to his original 11:30 slot and his 10 p.m. show canceled on February 11, as rumored over the past week. USA Today reports:

Under the new plan, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon would move from 12:35 a.m. to 1:05. (Carson Daly’s talk show, which now follows Fallon, would be canceled, though Daly would remain under contract at the network.).

O’Brien, however, decided not to agree to the changes, in a public statement:

I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction.

Thus Leno will return to the Tonight Show in its usual time slot, and O’Brien will move on to presumably greener pastures. (more…)

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Just released statement from Conan O’Brien:

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35.  For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news.  I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting.  The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show.  Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot.  That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it.  My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction.  Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter.  But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more. (more…)

I first met Jay Leno back in the early 80’s. I had gotten my first television gig as a reporter on WJBK in Detroit working for the local version of PM Magazine.  At that time Jay was the hottest comic on the booming comedy club circuit and he was coming to the Comedy Castle. I called his publicist and asked if Jay would be interested in doing an interview with me. He graciously consented and we did a few funny bits and a short interview. My cameraman went nuts with the taping that night, I needed thirty seconds of Jay on stage and he taped almost the entire set. Jay was a little miffed but he never held it against me. A few years later we met again in Hollywood and he invited me over to “the house.” I got to go to Jay’s a few times and got a personal tour of the cars and bikes he was keeping there. Through the years whenever we ran into one another, usually at the Comedy Magic Club in Hermosa Beach when we were working together, he was always quick with a comment to let you know he remembered the last time you had talked.

The recent war of time slots and words between Jay Leno and NBC brings two thoughts to mind. First is that Jay should adopt the old hook of Rodney Dangerfield because he isn’t getting any respect. Second it reminds me of one of the most brilliant and simplest things ever written about show business. One of my favorite books about show business is “Adventures in the Screen Trade” by the great screenwriter William Goldman. Perhaps the most significant insight he gives about show business and especially those who try to run things is that, “Nobody knows anything.”

This has never been a more perfect example of this than in the recent actions by the geniuses running NBC Television. Starting about two years ago the top brass at the peacock network made a decision that the smug hipness of Conan O’Brien was more important than the steady high ratings and common man touch of Jay Leno. Jay’s real sin was that he was getting older. His shock of black Elvis-like hair had gone salt and pepper and then gray. He wasn’t the young hip motorcycle guy with a beef, he was a late middle aged guy who told great jokes and had great numbers. Not good enough! (more…)

So many in the media are delighting in the stupidity of the “Jersey Shore” cast. Just recently, Jay Leno had them on a quiz bowl, and the audience – buoyed by their own perceived superiority – chortled at their various mistakes.

But I ask: who’s dumber: the “Jersey Shore” cast, or those who call the “Jersey Shore” cast dumb?

The answer is the latter, which I think means “paddlefish.”

First off, when did these kids ever pass themselves off as smart? Did they ever say they were members of Mensa? Of course not: the only pompous jerks who tell you they’re in Mensa – are in Mensa.

Also, it’s not like these kids ever showed up in front of the cameras, clutching their diplomas from Cornell’s agricultural college – like some MSNBC hosts are known to do. No, they’re only proud of their abs. So what. None of that stuff affects you. The fact that they’re honest about their shallowness already puts them on an intellectual level higher than Sean Penn and Gynneth Paltrow, combined. (more…)

David Letterman has been much in the news lately due to his fondness for the flesh of young female staffers, and the alleged blackmail plot regarding his exploits in that direction. It seems that old Dave is a bit of a lech who — like many powerful and wealthy individuals — uses his high social status to gain access to the sexual organs of women who would not look at him twice were he not so illustrious a figure. And so the furious debate rages in the papers, online and on cable news — will Dave survive the scandal? Will his audience follow him? The mystery for me however is much simpler — how did Letterman ever achieve the status he enjoys today? 

Allow me to explain. I’m not from around these parts. I grew up in Scotland, spent a decade in Russia, and arrived in the US three years ago. As something of a night owl I soon found myself confronted with America’s strange, televisual dream-world of nocturnal gibberish, and the even more perplexing national obsession with the personalities, rivalries and ratings battles that played out between the competing purveyors of this gibberish. The big one of course was Leno vs. Letterman, but who could forget the death struggle for comedic dominance between Conan and Craig Ferguson? Then there was the mystery of Jimmy Kimmel, floating around like some moth that had lost sight of the moon, detached from these wars as if no one expected him to succeed anyway. And lurking in the deep, deep darkness was the awful horror that is Carson Daly: charmless, entirely unfunny and visibly drowning in his own misery.  (more…)

*Below the fold: Watch Rush run over Al Gore … twice!*

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Rush Limbaugh: Always on message, articulate, charming, convincing…

Jay Leno: Always a gentleman.

Great ten minutes.

Now close your eyes and imagine what a smarmy, self-satisfied, adolescent punk Letterman would’ve been. Oh, wait… (more…)

Critics love David Letterman. They love him because he’s mean and liberal and does everything they demand: further the leftist agenda through the brutal use of humiliation to target any public figure (or their child) who might derail Leftist causes.

And contrary to conventional wisdom, Letterman’s not edgy. In fact, he’s just the opposite. Doing exactly what those who can criticize you want you to do is not edgy. Kissing the big Manhattan/Los Angeles bi-coastal ass of the elite is not edgy. He’s their jester; their puppet; their bitch. Worse, he’s about as funny as watching your old, half-deaf Uncle intimidate, humiliate and demean your Aunt and then smile at the rest of the family as though he’s just reaffirmed his manhood. Letterman reminds me of the Jason Robards character in “Parenthood” in more ways than you can imagine. In other words, he’s a jerk, but in a sad end-of-his-life kind of way.

Oh, and how the elite critics resented nice ole’ Jay Leno for cleaning Letterman’s ratings’ clock all those years. And now that Jay’s back eating up primetime, they couldn’t wait to jump all over him with sniffing disapproval fed through a filter of wrist-flicking dismissal.

After exactly one show the knives came out: (more…)

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Although I rarely find any interest in the entertainment industry, I am very glad to see Conan O’Brien become the head of the “Tonight Show.” His ascension to the throne continues a tradition that Johnny Carson brought forth and Jay Leno continued. The new host of the “Tonight Show” is a nice guy. (Steve Allen was as well, but many would consider he and Jack Paar to be less relevant since they came before Carson. I avoid this debate since, again, I am not in the industry.)

Yes, Johnny Carson preferred that David Letterman get his job (I watch Letterman, although less so lately), but the network saw Leno as the logical heir. Letterman is just too acid-tongued. It makes for some fun comedy, but the “Tonight Show” is about harmless and lighthearted fun. It made sense that Craig Kilborn, who was harder-edged than Conan, followed Letterman. Craig Ferguson, like Letterman, let’s his liberal political ideology affect his monologues. (more…)

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To be amazed at how low David Letterman will stoop in order to humiliate Sarah Palin means we still think of him as an entertainer, instead of what he is: a leftist ideologue willing to do whatever it takes to destroy a perceived threat to the Democrat majority. Letterman’s nothing special or unique. He’s merely joined the whole of the entertainment industry in sacrificing his place as an entertainer and legacy as an artist to wage ideological war.

Maybe our first step in fighting back is to wake up to this fact and stop being amazed. (more…)

April 29, 2009. 100 days. In case you were in a sensory deprivation tank, you probably know full well that Wednesday was the 100th day of the Obama Administration, and most of the news shows used it as an excuse to give Him the same exact grade they would have given Him for His first day in office.

That grade is completely unchanged by all the goofs and blunders made by this handsome community organizer, who was rushed into an office that was clearly over His head. Their grade was unbesmirched by the other grades given to Him by Wall Street, the President of France,  the North Korean missile launchers, or by four Somali pirates. (The same pirates who were allowed to humiliate the US Navy for three days before the Commander in Chief gave the order to shoot.)

What a great day to do another Late Night Review, and an opportunity to grade the Nation’s Premiere Satirists on their 100 days. In the time since the last review, we saw not only the aforementioned tense situations; but also an Air Force One flyover that created a panic, one heck of a carbon footprint, and a third of a million dollar addition to the deficit, all for the sake of a pretty photograph.

Certainly there must be something worth making fun of by now. We saw Obama calling for an end to privacy, giving a gag gift the Queen, and a bow to the Saudi King. We learned that He works out three hours a day (no wonder He needs a teleprompter to stay current), and thinks Austrian is a language. He again proved that Harvard isn’t so good at teaching American History, claiming He was only three months old during the Bay of Pigs. No news there, He didn’t think He was in government when the deficit occurred either. (more…)

Dear David Letterman,

I am writing this to you as a man who has been a fan of yours for 25 years, who does not go to sleep until I see the Top 10 List. I cracked up when you came to Los Angeles, and threw tacos at people on the 405 Freeway. I loved it when you sent two guys dressed as bunny rabbits into an H and R Block on April 14th one year, only to see them get screamed at by stressed out accountants. Only you would be crazy enough to have a guy dress as a bear, stop traffic, and ask a New York City cab driver to dance the waltz.

Dave, for a long time you were the best. You joked about “mailing it in,” but I never thought you did. When ABC and CBS were in a tug of war, you told Paul Schaffer, “Can you believe two networks are fighting over this cr@p?”

Yet something has happened to you Dave. You are getting snarkier, and not in a fun way. You are becoming a grumpy old man. Ironically enough, you have made a career out of painting Republican presidential candidates this way. Yes, it was hilarious when you said, “Some people see the glass as half empty or half full. Bob Dole sees the glass as a great place to put his teeth.” Yet politically speaking, you are letting your ideology get in the way of your show. (more…)

Everyone knows the old axiom about comedy.  There’s always a grain of truth in that which an audience finds funny.  Done well, comedy can make you squirm with its raw honesty.  It has the power to inform our perspectives about politics and news just as any good journalist.  Comedy helps provide insight into human flaws just as any good psychologist.   Often self-deprecating and socially awkward, comedians themselves will deny their impact.  Most comedians and writers prefer to think of themselves as lovable class clowns – laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.  Just as former NBA star Charles Barkley once famously proclaimed he was no role model, many in the funny business will dismiss their impact in the hearts and minds of their audience.

Modesty, however, cannot dismiss a growing body of evidence that suggests comedians possess greater power than ever before when shaping the national debate.   Notably in the last decade, television comedy has amassed an influence in politics to such and extent; nary a high profile politician can ignore its impact and resist the pull to participate.   Numerous studies have been conducted through the years analyzing the staggering impact of comedy in the opinions and perceptions of its audience.  The power is particularly significant with the country’s attention-short youth.  (more…)

From Politico.com:

After comparing his bowling to the Special Olympics on “The Tonight Show” Thursday, President Obama called Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver to apologize…[and] White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton told reporters…that “[the remark] was in no way intended to disparage the Special Olympics.”

Well, Obama damn well SHOULD apologize. Just think of how many retards voted for him.

(The above remark was in no way intended to disparage people who are actually retarded.)

(Especially this guy, who was competent enough to not vote for him.)