How Leno got screwed: he got booted from his show when he was at the top in the ratings and moved to a loser time slot with a loser show. How is that not getting screwed? because he was moved back to 11:30? then Conan didnt get screwed either since he too was moved back to 11:30 on another network. Clearly they both got screwed. I dont know what the deal is with this meme that Leno was the bad guy who got a smooth sail while Conan was the only victim.
Try saying THAT title 108 times fast, eh? or don’t, since the bigger news is that Conan just signed a deal with TBS. But first the Slash pic:
Okay, so that’s kindov amusing. but what about this TBS bullshit? His new show will only be on Mondays through Thursdays – no Friday show?? dude… that’s when all his middle school to high school fans watch. It was the only time I watched growing up at least. ug… It will air at 11 p.m. Eastern, pushing George Lopez’s show “Lopez Tonight,” to midnight, which I find delightfully coincidental. How awesome would it have been if Lopez wrote a public letter to TBS in the style of Conans to NBC where they both refuse to move their shows from 11 to midnight to accommodate a new host? dude…
So why no Fox? Those of us who were paying attention knew that Fox was publicly saying they weren’t in negotiations or were actively interested but… didn’t 100% of us think that was bullshit? TBS? i just.. i… oy…
The AP reports: “In three months, I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I’m headed to basic cable,” O’Brien said in a tongue-in-cheek-toned statement. “My plan is working perfectly.”
Theres no way this TBS bullshit is for real.. you heard it here first: Conan probably has a 1-2 year deal there designed to show the Fox affiliates that he is not ratings poison. once he’s shown to be a tested and proven commodity on TBS and the Fox execs convince their affiliates to carry him, Coco will respectfully not renew his contract with TBS and move to Fox at 11pm. Theres just no other way this makes sense. and no one is calling it out. wtf dude… im tellin you. you heard it here first…
Jay Leno moves from his canceled variety show at 10pm back to his role as host of the Tonight Show at 11:35pm on March 1st, so naturally NBC found it necessary to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties to have a Beatles song score the Public Service Announcement of the change. A clever Youtuber however has flipped the sentiment of the ad to make it a bash on Leno.
The original ad features the Beatles’ “Get Back,” at a point in the lyrics that say “get back to where you once belonged” which I guess is their way of saying the whole ‘Conan O’Brien as host’ thing was a big mistake and that Jay should have never been pushed out in the first place.
UPDATE: I’m leaving the embed here even though it’s expired cuz… wtf? that’s weird that a network would let a commercial for themselves expire on their own video distribution website. Hulu videos and whatnot, I understand expiring – but a commercial for the Tonight Show? really? you don’t wanna just leave that up for posterity and another excuse to show people a preroll commercial? whatever dude…
While I think Leno is getting smeared to hell over this debacle, I can’t deny that this Leno-bashing remix of the above promo is diabolically clever. It’s the same ad, slowed down for an unsettling effect and the audio replaced with Radiohead’s “Creep”, ending in the lyrics “I don’t belong here”.
Ouch + Zing = Win.
Late Night Lesson: Separating emotion from reality.
I hate guns. I feel like they’re dangerous killers and the fanatics who love them so much are creepy and awkward to me. I also know that that’s all emotion. I emote at a desire to have a large government apparatus to tightly restrict the use and sale of all firearms everywhere, but I’m not an animal – I’m more than just a sack of chemical causing emotions. Intellectually I have to observe reality and make an analysis from that, not my primal girly feelings, and that tells me that the 2nd Amendment makes a safer nation. More guns equal less crime. Which is one of the many blocks that pushed me into realizing more and more that I’m a Libertarian: I don’t ever want a gun, but I want everyone else on my block to have one… It’s not right for me to impose my illogical, baseless anti-gun emotion on others and that’s why it enraged me when Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine came out and I found out that it was a start-to-finish lie-fest. I saw the commercials for it on tv and thought “dude, this is AWESOME” and indeed it was – it was a very well crafted, interesting, emotional and most of all – persuasive film promoting a thesis I agreed with. So when I found out that nearly nothing in it was true (see BowlingForTruth.com for the library of staged scenes, factual misstatements, inaccurate statistics, gotcha interviews and truly despicable slander against Charlton Heston – from editing his speeches to editing the interview he was kind and open enough to grant Mr Moore). The point was that lying to your side is not only still wrong, but worse. because you are setting us up to be fools. Lying in service to push an agenda you feel is good is punishment in that it’s only a matter of time before those lies are exposed – and then what? you’ve done a disservice to both the cause AND it’s followers. You’ve hurt and embarrassed everyone for no damn reason.
This scenario is playing out again. and I hate it.
Here are the FACTS:
-Jay Leno was removed from the Tonight Show replaced by Conan O’Brien and moved to a new show at 10pm.
-Both the 10pm Jay Leno show and the 11:30pm Tonight Show suffered large ratings losses for NBC.
-In response, NBC asked Leno to cut his show in half, from an hour down to 30 minutes, and return to his own time slot, thus pushing Conan’s Tonight Show back a half hour.
-Jay accepted the change. Conan didn’t. as a result, Conan decided to leave NBC.
-Now left with a Tonight Show that has no host, NBC offered Leno his old position back. Leno accepted.
-Conan’s future in television has yet to be announced.
I watched the full hour of the Oprah edition with Jay where she asked him to appear (Conan got a separate invitation too, but he declined) and even went to him (the interview took place on the set of the Jay Leno Show in Burbank, not Oprah’s in Chicago).
He said everything right. Every. Single. Thing. Right.
Oprah, whom I’ve never seen so skilled and probing in an interview, tried to trip him up at every turn and nothing worked. Nothing. Jay won’t say anything bad about anyone. He said he was right to be fired from his 10pm show because he didn’t deliver for the network – a kind of responsibility acceptance you don’t often see in showbiz – but said he was heartbroken at being fired 5 years in advance from the Tonight show when he was #1 and remained #1 until his last show – and it’s a legitimate point.
None of the smears against Jay I’ve heard showed themselves as even being possible. The diabolical “he’s just painting himself as the victim so he can be the good guy” stuff makes no sense in context and the “he should have retired and stepped aside to let Conan in” is equally redonulous. The guy spends his vacation time doing stand-up comedy in Vegas. Why should he quit his one passion in life just because someone else wants his job? Answer: Because we like that other person better. Okay, fine – so support that other person. You don’t need to tear down the other guy with lies and tales of villainy to do it. Oprah’s only super lame moment was when she said Leno’s one joke about David Lettermans sex scandal with his employees was “beneath thim”. so… Sanford jokes and Clinton jokes and John Edwards jokes – but David Letterman is off limits? huh?
Stop lying about Jay Leno. There is no evidence that any of this debacle was his fault and just because you – like me – prefer the alternative, Conan Obrien, that doesn’t give you license to lie.
As Oprah noted in explaining why she thinks people are so anit-Leno: People don’t understand the way television works.
So stop it. You’re pissing me off. I’m sick of you lying to me.
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.
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?
Let the fun begin! Pee-wee Herman is inviting you – and all your friends – back to Puppetland. Come join Pee-wee, Miss Yvonne, Cowboy Curtis, Jambi, Chairry and all your favorites, live on stage.
Re-imagined, re-invented, and nuttier than ever, “The Pee-wee Herman Show” will be LA’s theatrical event of 2009, with its live-action cast and puppets galore!
“The Pee-wee Herman Show” will be at the Music Box @ Fonda, on Hollywood Boulevard, from November 8 for a VERY LIMITED engagement. (And tickets are sure to sell out — so book now!)
And some more background for you youngish types:
“The Pee-wee Herman Show” debuted at The Groundlings Theatre in 1981, and later an HBO special (I had on tape and watched a thousand times or so). In 1985, Pee-wee’s first movie “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” was also Tim Burton’s feature film debut and Danny Elfman’s first original film score.
The CBS television series “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” premiered in 1986.
“The Pee-wee Herman Show”, and “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” were an homage to an earlier generation’s television classics – “Howdy Doody,” “The Mickey Mouse Club,” “Captain Kangaroo,” “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie,” and “The Shari Lewis Show” — show formats that don’t really exist anymore, where the host would just be playin around doin their thing and the children at home just happened to come visit via camera.And because nothing is real to people under 20 unless it was on Family Guy:
UPDATE: The Leno appearance is below, and he can still pull off doing Pee-Wee without it being creepy (which is important, because Pee-Wee is child like in an innocent way, not a man-child wtf way), but he breaks character a bunch. The character we see here is a Paul Reubens Pee-Wee hybrid. Part Reubens talking about Pee-Wee, part Pee-Wee leaking through to talk about himself. I had heard the indian-pageant story before and its interesting history and all, but its distinctly Reubens history, as Pee-Wee was never a performer to be bitten by any acting bug – he just lives his life and it happens to be entertaining.
Play by Play from the WasPot, cuz I’m too lazy to type something in a video contained in the same post, especially when someone else has already done it for me:
“I had to come back to show the respect, man, because I started ‘Saturday Night Live’ the same year you started this show,” MacDonald started.
“That’s right,” Conan answered.
“Yeah. . . . we’d all watch and go, ‘I don’t think it’s gonna work,’ ” MacDonald continued, warming up to his subject.
“It’s not gonna work,” Conan echoed.
“But then, it worked and it was great and we’re all really proud,” MacDonald continued. “And so, that’s great. And also, it’s stunning how Jay Leno outfoxed you again.”
“Yeah, he’s good,” Conan said, laughing uncomfortably, as the story started to veer off-script.
“He’s very good. . . . He’s the shrewdest guy,” MacDonald continued, in re Leno. “He outfoxed — you’re in good company — he outfoxed Johnny Carson, David Letterman. Every 10 years, some redheaded rube shows up,” MacDonald plowed on.
“I’m like some clown off the bus with a cardboard suit: ‘Gee, golly! This is going to be great!’ ” Conan joked-but-not-really.
Here’s where MacDonald broke into his Leno imitation: ” ‘Yeah, you can come after me!’ And you go, ‘Hey, thanks, Jay!’ ”
“Uh-huh,” said Conan, still not looking completely happy.
MacDonald is now in high gear: “Your agent is like, ‘There’s good news and bad news. You are doing “The Tonight Show,” it’s true. But remember that discussion we had when you said, “I will never have to [:O] follow Leno again?” ‘ ”
More Conan laughing uncomfortably while the audience cheers and applauds.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s so nice to have you back, Norm. It’s so very nice to have you back — and you bring joy to so many people,” Conan said, and then he tried clumsily to change the subject: “And, you know what, I’ll tell you something, Norm. These are tough times, people need to laugh now. Because — it’s the economy.”
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”.