Category: News

Why it’s hard not to be on Team Leno

On the heels of the announcement that NBC and O’Brien have reached a $45 million severance deal perhaps some of the anti-Leno buzz will die.

As an entertainer, like most 15 to 30 year olds, I prefer the stylings of Conan O’Brien to that of the more formulaic Jay Leno, though I find both men funny and likable. However, while I’m naturally inclined to protest in the name of Team Coco, I can’t bring myself to it when it’s framed in the context of hating Jay Leno. During this whole controversy with the Late Night shuffling at NBC, I have never understood the hate directed at such a nice guy/possible evil genius like Leno. The dude is either a supervillian level manipulator who covers his tracks so well that he should be ruling a race of mutants somewhere or he’s the nice guy he appears to be and this isn’t his fault…

Watch this and tell me which you think is more likely…

In what scenario could Jay be the bad guy in all this? Clearly he has to be lying about something if he is so ruthless in his mad drive to boot all who dare oppose him so I’m really asking all you Leno haters: what do you think happened? and based on what? What makes you think that any events took place that were at all different than how Leno describes?

NBC booted Jay when he was at the top so they wouldn’t lose Conan, Conan failed to do nearly as well as Jay, Jays show goes on the air and also does poorly in the ratings, the affiliates complain and something has to be done. So what could have been done? Cut Leno loose from his NBC contract so he can go over to Fox opposite Conan and beat him in the ratings? that would be a blunder. Cut Conan from his NBC contract so he can go to Fox? that would be needlessly problematic too. So the suits came up with a plan to make the affiliates happy by killing the Jay Leno show, still keep Jay Leno at NBC by putting him back at his old time slot and still keep Conan both at NBC and at the Tonight Show and move it a half hour later. Sucky situation that NBC put itself into, but that was really their best option and there’s no way that can be pinned negatively on Leno, as just like he said: going from an hour show to a half hour is a demotion that he accepted because when you don’t perform well at a job, you need to be humbled a little.

The problem was that Conan gave a big “fuck that” to moving the Tonight show from 11:30pm to midnight, as it would then be “the Tomorrow Show”, and Conan is morally against that because of his Tonight Show idealism – or so he claims (more likely, it’s just that he would rather spill his white Irish blood with a rusty Italian fork before going back to the after-midnight wasteland he worked so hard to get OUT of for 17 years.

So now NBC is going to let Conan go and put Jay, the proven ratings winner, back at his old spot in the Tonight Show.

Seriously… what else should they have done? I’m really asking…

Seth Meyers explains it this way:

The 2nd question is that: if Leno isn’t the power hungry manipulator that he’s being falsely painted as, why would people who know better still dislike him so much? The answer is that he’s the Sean Hannity of late night: he’s a squeaky clean family man who is really nice both personally and professionally, he’s incredibly successful at what he does, and there are at least 3 others in his field who are viewed to have more talent and thus be more deserving of that success level. Nathan Rabin sums that sentiment up perfectly with the following:

He’s been married to the same woman for decades. He has amassed a vast fortune working nonstop yet never spends his money on anything other than his overflowing collection of sports cars. He seems devoid of angst.

He suffers from a terrible dearth of personal demons. Leno is so normal and functional that he’s practically a freak. That creeps out comedy writers who would rather have their heroes stagger into the gutter, penniless and filled with contempt for a world that has shunned them, than play yet another Indian casino to pay for that 32nd Maserati.

Bitterness is an almost universal trait among funny people. They hate it when their friends become successful. They grow positively apoplectic when success comes to someone they consider unworthy. The bigger the success, the bigger the resentment and Leno has attained a level of fame most comics can only dream about. Even more unforgivably, that success came at the expense of more worthy souls: first Letterman and now O’Brien.

As for Conans future, it’s pretty obvious Fox is his only option, and I think will be a good fit for him:

“In the end, Conan was appreciative of the steps NBC made to take care of his staff and crew, and decided to supplement the severance they were getting out of his own pocket,” his manager, Gavin Polone, told The Wall Street Journal. “Now he just wants to get back on the air as quickly as possible.”

O’Brien will be free to begin another TV job as soon as September, NBC said. There has been speculation on where he might go next. ABC (which airs “Nightline” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”) has said it wasn’t interested, while Fox, which lacks a network late-night show, expressed appreciation for his show — but nothing more.

Beck bags on Brown

This is so weird that I don’t even have a guess on how to explain it. Is Beck a closet liberal? Is he lying with this commentary because he knows that if he comes out against him then it will actually help Brown? Has he been lying about his ideology all this time and couldn’t hold back any more in this instance? None of these make any sense.

wtf? this is just creepy. It reeks of projection in a big bad way. I thought I was being cute by saying yesterday that he “pimped out his daughters” but Beck is being serious, which makes it retarded. Um, the dude wasn’t like “check out how fucking hot my daughters are! lol u guyz. who wants to tap this?? seriously. you can do it. i’ll let you. lol. can I watch tho?? lol, nah, jk. maybe! lol!!1”. Mark Levin, a conservative radio host who has criticize Beck before, kinda nails it here:

You know, the really ignorant thing about criticizing Brown is that in kidding around with his girls, it actually shows he is a good family man. Ask any guy who is a father of girls: doing something deliberately to provoke the “oh daddy!” squirm of embarrassment from the teenage daughters is something only a father with a good, comfortable relationship does (and he never misses a chance to do so).

If smearing Brown was a joke, I don’t think it was very funny. It’s very weird.

UPDATE: it gets even weirder… Beck responded to this with 4 minutes of saying “it was just a joke, you need to learn to take a joke, joke joke JOKE JOKE JUST A JOKE…. joke”. wtf? This is… not honest. Beck was making jokes… in service to the smearing of this Brown guy. No one was crying about making fun of a politician, as Glenn is responding to (he’s on some show where the host is named Jay, not that you’d know that from the uploaders logo being the only thing visible on this clip). The reason Becks rants about Brown being creepy and a person of poor judgment who can’t be trusted were weird and smears were not because Beck used colorful language like “this could end with a dead intern”, it was because Beck was serious about the criticisms behind the jokes and that is weird.

Even more on the “just a joke” brigade from Glenns own show (which reveals that this happened before the above clip and the show he was on was a local Boston radio show):

Mass Backwards: M-cheusettes elects Republican

Tonights special election can be summed up in the following picture:

But if you want to hear the winners version, then here that is too:

“I go to Washington as the representative of no faction or interest, answering only to my conscience and to the people. I’ve got a lot to learn in the Senate, but I know who I am and I know who I serve.

“I’m Scott Brown,

“I’m from Wrentham,

“I drive a truck, and I am nobody’s senator but yours.”

The victory speech took place during MSNBC’s Countdown, where host Keith Olberman had just smeared Scott Brown as a bigot (based on nothing, of course) and all around baddie. Tears.

The clip is worth watching and skipping to the end (around the 8 minute mark) where the Senator elect pimps out his daughters on national tv. Yes, I’m serious, and yes it’s awesome. not only cuz it’s the ultimate “daaaad, ur embarrassing meeee” moment, but because they’re both doable. Announcing their availability was a pretty humorous move.

How the hell could a Republican win the seat held by Ted Kennedy, one of the most liberal Democrats ever over the span of 30 years? Well… See its not that the democrats are playing checkers and the republicans are playing chess. Its that the Republicans are playing chess and the democrats are in the nurses office because, once again, they’ve glued their balls to their thighs’

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Does Jimmy Kimmel really dislike Jay Leno?

Does Jimmy Kimmel hate Jay Leno? and is Jay completely oblivious to it? It seems that way. and I have more evidence than just the recent appearance of Kimmel on the now canceled Jay Leno Show.

Lets step back to November 2008 when Jay Leno was kind enough to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Normally, the rival late night show that came in 3rd place in the ratings having the 1st place ratings winner appear as a guest would be a really gracious thing. But… watch the clip and tell me if you don’t get the impression that Kimmel doesn’t like Jay very much. At first I thought it was Jimmy being Jimmy mixed with a little “I want the competition I’m losing to to quit for obvious reasons” humor, but under closer inspection… I’m thinking notsomuch.

Jay graces Kimmel with 2 off-the-cuff personal stories that are both well delivered and interesting to listen to. Kimmel repays these by first tweaking him on his childrens book being advertised by a 99 cent store and then asking why its not just a better idea to stay on the road all the time instead of being a television host.

Jump forward to 2010 during the turmoil going on at NBC’s late night hosts and Jimmy Kimmel takes advantage by doing his entire show as Jay Leno. Awesome idea, funny execution – but look closely… is it all fun and games? or is this less of a silly jab and more of a satirical attack because Kimmel really thinks Jay is an asshole?

If that left you with any doubt, there is exhibit C… Seemingly to show grace in response to Kimmels gag on Leno and express that there were no hard feelings between the two, Kimmel was invited on The Jay Leno Show for the 10 and 10 segment (the weakest bit in the shows box of tricks). It’s friggin brutal…

Some of the riffs are just that but then others reek of an insulting tone. Even Kimmels body language tips the viewer off that he thinks he’s talking to an asshole, but is being somewhat civil because they’re on tv. It’s very awkward in between the hilarity.

Are they low blows though? “The best prank I ever pulled was I told a guy that—five years from now—I’m gonna give you my show. And then when the five years came, I gave it to him, and then I took it back almost instantly.” is a funny line, but it’s not accurate. No one has reported that Leno demanded his show back or had such a clause in his contract or threw any fits or anything like that.

The resentment should be at NBC, who has both Leno and Conan under strict and specific contracts. It wasn’t Jay Leno that said “I’m bored with the Tonight Show – hey Conan, do you want it? – oh, actually, never mind, I want that shit back”; it was NBC who said “hey Leno, we don’t want to lose Conan so we’re kicking you out but not releasing you from your NBC contract. we’re gonna stick you in at 10pm and put Conan in your job – oh, actually, never mind, that failed. we’re putting you back at 11:30”.

So what’s the deal? Why is Kimmel hating on Jay? and why does Jay seem so oblivious to it? It seems so cruel. am I missing something?

Leno vs Letterman nostalgia

With the current NBC behind the scenes wars, I thought this was interesting to look back on..

Here is Leno’s last appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in 1992 right before he took over the Tonight Show. Letterman had done that show for 10 years and was always the assumed Tonight Show heir, as well as the one Johnny Carson preferred to carry on his legacy. Soon afterward Letterman of course accepted an offer from CBS and went on to host The Late Show with David Letterman and Conan O’Brien took over as host of Late Night on NBC.

Since that departure, Letterman has grown to hate Leno in what I suspect is the natural tendency to be gracious in the wake of shock and only come to your senses of rage later on. We saw it when that guy squirted Tom Cruise with the fake microphone/watergun – at first for a second Cruise smiles, but then does a “wtf” and calls the guy a jerk in an earnest voice. That’s what happened with Letterman… watch this video below from a time when the two hosts were still friendly and perhaps you’ll find it as interesting as i did…

Compare that to Lettermans current feelings about “Jay ‘big jaw’ Leno” as he keeps calling him in this clip…..

Leno goofs on NBC over cancellation rumors

hmmmmmm

NBC is mulling a scheduling shakeup that would put Jay Leno back in late-night and put an end to the experiment that brought the talk show host to prime-time.

A person familiar with discussions held Thursday said the network is considering a scenario that would include a half-air Leno show at 11:35 p.m., pushing “The Tonight Show” with Conan O’Brien to 12:05 and Jimmy Fallon’s “Late Night” to 1:05 a.m.

The person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the discussions and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Leno’s nightly 10 p.m. talk and comedy show has drawn lackluster ratings and complaints from NBC affiliate stations that the show has been a weak lead-in for local late newscasts and hurt their viewership.

The proposed new lineup could go into effect after NBC concludes its Olympics coverage at the end of February.

Princess and the Frog

Princess and the Frog isn’t nearly the heaping pile of shit it looks like it would be. Someone gave me a bootleg and I enjoyed the crap out of it. Disney returns to hand drawn animation, Broadway style musical numbers, actually developing fkking characters within a coherent storyline and flavors it with a spicy blend of humor, drama and – yeay! someone dies! – thumbs up.

Plus they can finally inject some personality into Disneylands New Orleans Square now that they have a movie that takes place there.

FrogPrince does look a lot like Prince Eric but I don’t think there’s much of a template to the Disney dudes outside this comparrison so I let it slide.

The villains had a little more depth to them as well: Lawrence didnt start out with bad intentions but was tempted into villainy which he later had doubts and regrets over and Dr Penis/Phallus/ShaddowMichaelJackson seemed to me to stay within a reasonable character profile.

I liked how there were nice people and cruel people, heart warmers and skeptics, charitable people and greedy people – of both races and it never appeared forced. you never, as you do with Pocahontas, see a jerk with X skin and know its just a matter of minutes till they balance it out with a jerk with Y skin. They even cleared the “work hard and don’t wait for handouts” + “womanizers outta settle down” + “think outside of your current view” + the all the other little anecdotes sprinkled about without sounding preachy and forced. the more i think about this movie, the more im so proud it wasn’t an embarrassing Fail.

If you have an ear for voices though, watching a dude with Goliath from Gargoyles voice doin a soft shoe (Dr F) and hearing Tigger (Ray the fly) with a Cajun accent could get distracting here and there.

Disney World Fantasyland expansion & makeover concept art

Cindarella and Sleeping Beauty’s cottage. Some kind of Ariel castle thing that isn’t really described. Gastons hunting lodge style pub and a “Be Our Guest” restaurant set in the Beasts dining hall. Lots of injections of more activities and character interaction (which i think is a little overdone. you go to the parks to ride rides, meet the characters and move to the next ride, not so much to spend lots of time with the actors in character.

A much needed doubled up Dumbo with a series of circus games for kids to go through instead of waiting in line. John Lassater said at a separate convention Q&A type thing I saw that the “the smallest customers wait in the longest lines for the shortest rides”.