By Jon Gallagher
Suddenly
I feel like the TV critic around here. I’m sure there’s an off
switch on it somewhere, but till I find it… And that would involve
finding the remote.
I
was a big fan of Johnny Carson. I loved his dry sense of humor and
when a joke bombed, Johnny knew it and had no problem making fun of
himself. He had a way of making his guests the star of the show
rather than himself, but then again – that was his
job. At the same time, he could be very, very funny. He groomed David
Letterman to take over his spot, but Jay Leno instead took it over
some 24 years ago.
Jay
Leno left amidst a controversy as Conan O’Brien took over his show
for a while. At the time, I made a prediction for the publication for
which I wrote, that in nine months, we’d see a sharp rise in the
number of newborn babies. I just didn’t find Conan funny, and
actually took a co-worker’s challenge of getting through a week
without laughing just one time.
Not
only did I make it a week without laughing, I made it a week without
even smiling. Jimmy Fallon took over Conan’s time slot and aimed
his humor at a younger audience.
Meanwhile,
babies only had about nine months to be conceived because that’s
how long NBC realized Conan wasn’t funny either, and replaced him
with, well, Jay. Jay unretired, Conan got mad and quit, and Jimmy
Fallon kept Conan’s old timeslot.
This
time around, the networks promise they’ve got it right. Jay has
retired, Conan is over on a cable channel being not funny, Fallon moved into Jay’s spot, and Seth Meyers from Saturday
Night Live’s weekend anchor has moved into the spot
originally held by Conan, then Jimmy.
Confused
yet?
After
a couple of weeks of watching the new shows, the jury’s still out.
Fallon is an unbelievably talented young man who does impressions, is
gifted musically, and who is very funny. His interviewing skills have
improved immensely since he started, but he hasn’t quite learned
his place yet. The interviewer on shows like this are meant to be
there to make the “star” or interviewee shine; Fallon still wants
to show off his talent.
He’s
also very competitive and often plays games on his shows with his
guests. Jimmy wants to win and makes a big deal out of it when he
does. Guests may be harder to come by if he keeps that up.
Meyers,
on the other hand, tackling his first talk show host gig, looks
nervous. On Saturday Night Live, he’s a gem, taking a
look at something from the week’s news and doing a one-liner on it.
He does that now, but it’s on something that happened that day and
he does it as part of a stand-up monologue. I understand they tried
to get him to sit behind a desk to do it but he, along with network
execs, didn’t want to tie him too closely to his SNL work.
Both
hosts say they will continue to do bits that they originated and not
reprise things from other hosts. I hope they change their mind. I
always loved Carnac the Magnificent (Carson’s turban wearing
psychic who would predict the answer to a question held in a sealed
envelope). After all, if everyone tried not to copy, then there
wouldn’t be any more monologues at all.
Man
on the street interviews might not hurt either.
Seth’s
first couple weeks has seen him with a shaky voice, and equally shaky
knees. The first few nights, it looked like someone needed to be
standing in back of him, just in case he keeled over. He’s got a
bandleader who seems to be challenging Conan for the title of Least
Funniest Person on the talk show circuit.
Letterman,
on the other hand (wait, is that three hands???) still stands guard,
and he doesn’t look nervous at all. And he’s still doing his top
ten lists (which are a hit and miss on the humor scale).
Jimmy
Kimmel also has a show on ABC and Arsenio Hall is back on Fox, both
of which I've managed to miss. Maybe I’ll catch them online in the
next few weeks.
The
amazing thing that I found after watching all three programs nightly
for two weeks is that most of them do the same jokes on the same
topics. I know what they say about great minds thinking alike, but if
I were in Meyers’ shoes, I’d have my writers doing a little
reconnaissance work over so I didn’t get labeled as a copycat.
As
long as TVs and networks survive in their present format, none of the
current batch of hosts will ever come close to the longevity records
and standards of excellence that were put in place by years ago by
King Johnny.
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