The 2010 Emmys: The Good and the Evil

The title of this posting is clearly an exaggeration, in that what I will describe as the things that were not pleasing to me on last night’s Emmy Awards really does not qualify as evil. However, I feel this title is appropriate, since among the evil things is the lack of Lost recognition, and as you might know, I have written somewhat frequently regarding Good v. Evil on Lost. Isn’t it nice when I over-explain my writings? No? Oh, then you would hate when I over-explain jokes in real life (as opposed to bloggy life). Onto my Emmy induced thoughts!
The (Mostly) Good

Jimmy Fallon did a reasonably fantastic job as Emmy host. I was skeptical before the show, because there have been times where he has been lacking in the funny, presumably when he’s been overwhelmed with nervousness. However, he was quite funny for the most part, and he really did a great job. The opening Glee musical thing and the tribute to deceased shows (including Lost) were funny, entertaining, and very well executed. I also very much enjoyed the musical introductions to each section of awards. Jimmy’s non-musical words were also funny throughout the program, particularly the pro-Conan and anti-NBC remark. I would say that Jimmy did an excellent and flawless job, but there is one small portion of his hosting that renders such a statement impossible; the tweeted introductions for presenters were simply not amusing or well written. This is not surprising, since they were tweeted by regular, non-comedy-writer people. That is not to say there aren’t funny and talented regular people out there, but that is to say that believing that those funny and talented people could be found in time for a big awards show was probably not very wise. I had a feeling this wouldn’t go well, but I had hoped that the funny people out there on the Twitter would show themselves, but unfortunately, that was not the case. Jimmy Fallon, there is a reason that professional writers write things, and you demonstrated that nicely. It’s fun to find silver linings. Jimmy’s presenter intros that were written by professional comedy writers (presumably Jimmy himself) were well written, and some were definitely funny, particularly the intros involving Law & Order SVU saving the 10 P.M. time slot that Leno left for dead, and Jimmy hugging his long lost father, Tom Selleck.

The (Mostly) Evil

Lost didn’t win things. Lost should have won things. Specifically, Michael Emerson (or at least Terry O’Quinn) should have won for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama, Matthew Fox (or at least Hugh Laurie of House M.D.) should have won for Best Actor in a Drama and Matthew Fox should have won for Hottest Drama Man Ever (and Seth MacFarlane would win Hottest Comedy Man Ever in this award show in my brain). Lost should have won Best Drama TV Show (or whatever that category is called), and I think the Emmy audience agrees with me since they seemed to cheer the loudest when Lost was mentioned. I don’t remember who won for Best Writing and Best Directing, but probably Lost should have won those too (yes, I could google it, but I am too lazy).

Glee should have won more things than it did. However, I’m very happy that they won Best Directing and that Jane Lynch won for Best Supporting Actress. It would have been nice for Glee to win Best Comedy Show on the TV, but since they lost, I’m glad they lost to Modern Family, another great show (though Glee is better). Speaking of Modern Family, I enjoyed the cute thing they did with George Clooney and Stewie. I would put that part in the “Good” section, however, I don’t have anything else to say about it, and it fits more nicely here.

Conan didn’t win. Conan should have won, not only because he deserved to win, and not only because it was Conan’s only chance to win for his work on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, but also because it would have been a nice, clear Conan-is-better-than-Jay statement to Jay Leno and NBC. Despite this loss, however, I do believe that the statement was made nonetheless; after all, Conan was nominated, but Jay was not.

Since Conan didn’t win, The Colbert Report really should have. As much as I love The Daily Show, and as great as it’s been this year, The Colbert Report is generally a better show, and the week in Iraq this year was certainly of Emmy-winning caliber. Since The Colbert Report also didn’t win for Best Funny Variety Show, I am glad The Daily Show won. I’m also glad that the guy accepting the award mentioned Colbert and Conan, and I’m glad that he reminded us that the people at The Daily Show are worthy of their numerous Emmys.

SPOILER ALERT – Lost Season 6 “Across the Sea” Follow-up

After all that I’ve already written about last week’s episode of Lost, “Across the Sea,” I still have more to say.


Deepak Chopra appeared on The Colbert Report last week, and I finally watched it. He unknowingly provided further insight into the black and white imagery of Lost, in that he spoke of the ambiguity of good and evil within each person as well as within divine entities. Of course, I related this to Lost; it’s hard not to relate Lost to greater and broader things in the world.

Chopra (who should marry Oprah so she could become Oprah Chopra (I think I stole that joke from Jay Leno (funnily enough) and from Chopra himself was he was on one of those late night shows, possibly Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show)) explained that the Christian belief is that our souls only contain the Light; however, Chopra believes there is a duality within each of us of light and shadow. Furthermore, the Devil, as a fallen angel, is divine as G-d is divine.

I think these are some of the points Lost is trying to make – that everyone, including the Divine, inherently has Light and Shadow within their souls, and nothing and no one is purely light or shadow, good or evil. That is the point I made in the first in what has become this series of blog postings about “Across the Sea.” Furthermore, perhaps this acceptance of the duality of our souls is the reason Jacob told Ricardo/Richard in “Ab Aeterno” that he could not absolve him of his murdering sin. That is, perhaps Jacob could not absolve him, not because of a lack of divine power, but because we cannot be freed from the evil things we do, and we must accept those dark things as well as the Light of our souls.

I think Chopra’s point was that we should harness our shadows for Good, and that with our shadows come gifts. I assume he means that we should find a way to utilize our dark sides to create some good. I would probably get a better understanding of all this if I read the book he was promoting on The Colbert Report, The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self. I just read the description of the book at Amazon, and I was close. Chopra’s point is actually that we should embrace both the light and shadowy aspects of our whole, true selves so that we can attain our full potential, happiness, and our gifts.

Best Comedy Album EVER!

UPDATE September 29, 2010
Myq Kaplan has become a cartoon!

UPDATE August 9, 2010 (08-09-10)
Myq Kaplan was a top 5 finalist on Last Comic Standing. I un-biased-ly (impartially?) believe he was the funniest one there. He should have won.

UPDATE August 10, 2010
Some evidence for my lack of bias regarding Myq Kaplan's superior hilarity can be found at Entertainment Weekly and The Examiner. For more Myq Kaplan fun, here is an interview someone had with him.
Update: Friday August 13, 2010 (Happy Friday the 13th!): Here is another rather fantastic interview.

This blog posting is extremely biased, because I think I’m cool because I know the subject of it, Myq Kaplan. So take my over-hyping with a grain of salt, and bear in mind that I would probably feel similarly even if I didn’t know him.


One of the greatest comedy albums ever was released this week: Myq Kaplan’s Vegan Mind Meld. I could listen to it a thousand times, and, like a good Simpsons episode, I would find it funny every time.

Myq Kaplan builds jokes as a master chef might build a delicious layer cake (please note: I have never built a cake, but I have seen Alton Brown build a cake on Food Network). Every line is a delicious layer; each layer could stand alone, and the layers come together and build upon each other to form delicious hilarity. Now I want some cake.

I went to college with Myq Kaplan, but I didn’t really know him too well; I’m an excessively shy freak, so I tend not to make friends with people (or, you know, talk to them), as much as I might want to. What I did know, however, was that he is hilarious, genuinely kind, and ridiculously intelligent. Myq was in all the funniest classes that I took in college – obviously his funnies had something to do with that, unless maybe Semantics is just naturally hilarious.

When I found him on Facebook about two years ago, I was very happy to see that one of the funniest people I’ve ever encountered had become an actual stand-up comedian – everything was right with the world. At the time, he was going to be on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham. His success continued to grow; a few months ago, he was on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, and now (well, last night) he was on Comedy Central again, this time on Comedy Central Presents Myq Kaplan, which was obviously hilarious.

Myq Kaplan’s growing success brings me tremendous joy for two reasons: 1)A genuinely kind, talented, funny, and deserving person is gaining success, and 2) I know a famous person who I’ve seen on the TV three times. Therefore, as I said in the beginning of this blog posting, I think I’m so cool! Oh, also there’s a third reason: 3) His success means I get to hear and see his humor more.

Perhaps the title of this blog posting is a slight exaggeration, and perhaps it is partially motivated by some bias. However, all biases aside, Myq Kaplan and his CD are really quite funny.

I’m Still with Coco

UPDATE May 4, 2010: Conan O'Brien had a nice interview on 60 Minutes.

As everyone except me has known for more than a week now, Conan O’Brien will be on TBS this November at 11 P.M. I only found out the other day when the TV mentioned it; I guess that’s what happens when I don’t keep up with the Twitter or Facebook fan pages or the news in general.


As the title of this blog posting clearly states, I am still with Coco, and I think I always will be Team Conan. I heart Conan; he is talented, funny, and smart.

However, I’m not a big fan of this whole TBS thing. That is not to say that I wouldn’t watch Conan on TBS; I will definitely watch Conan wherever he goes. No one seems to know whether Conan chose not to go to Fox or if Fox chose not to reap the long-term benefits of having Conan, but I do think whoever it was who passed on a Conan-Fox relationship made a huge mistake. I’ve read that Fox might have chosen against having Conan in their late-night time slots because of contracts with lucrative syndicated reruns, and I understand why it would probably be better for Fox in the short term to say “no” to Coco. However, as a broadcasting layperson, I would imagine that Conan O’Brien could do for late-night Fox what David Letterman did for late-night CBS. As far as I knew, there was no reason to watch CBS after primetime (during the times when CBS has had good TV happening during primetime) before Letterman got there, but now, CBS is a prime destination during the late-night hours (for my DVR anyway). I firmly believe that Conan would have the same effect for Fox, though the situation is slightly different in that I do occasionally watch those reruns (such as The Simpsons) that I mentioned.

Speaking of those reruns, that is precisely what Conan will be following when he is on TBS. Obviously, that will be a better lead-in than Jay Leno was when Conan was hosting The Tonight Show, but Fox primetime programming (such as House MD) would be vastly better.

Speaking of lead-ins, it’s funny that Team Leno people, such as the author of this thing from Baltimore, recognize that Jay Leno was a horrible lead-in for the late local news, but at the same time, they don’t seem to get that Leno’s horrible lead-in abilities were the obvious and direct cause of Conan’s poor ratings while he was hosting The Tonight Show. That rather dim article praises Leno for leading in the late-night ratings now that he is back not being funny on The Tonight Show (rather than not being funny in primetime), not appearing to realize that The Tonight Show now has the ratings-causing lead-ins that Leno had always enjoyed but Conan’s Tonight Show never did. That article is filled with bizarre oblivion regarding Leno’s detrimental effects on The Tonight Show’s ratings when he was in primetime. Leno is not the ratings leader because of talent, likeability, humor, guests, or any other quality-related characteristics; it is purely because of the primetime programming that serves as the lead-in for the late local news, The Tonight Show, and Late Night. If Leno’s ratings truly did result from any kind of Leno-ness, then his ratings would have would not have sunken so low when he was in primetime, but obviously, The Jay Leno Show’s ratings were painfully low.

Getting back to funny and talented people, Conan O’Brien will do well no matter where he goes. Some have suggested that he can’t compete with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report (or Colbert Nation, what the article I just linked to incorrectly called it), but that really doesn’t make sense. The latter shows re-air several times the next day and can be viewed in their entirety online. Additionally, most people have DVRs or other ways to record the TV for later viewing, so people will watch all three shows, as well as Letterman. They will also watch Leno, but only because they will not have changed the channel after Law and Order.

Some people seem to be suggesting that Conan is pulling a Leno (my words, not theirs). The NY Post claims that George Lopez, whose show (Lopez Tonight) Conan will be bumping from 11 P.M. where it currently lives to 12 A.M., was forced to be on Team Conan. This claim has been denied by representatives of George Lopez and TBS. As far as I know, Conan has not responded, however, if this claim is true, I would imagine that it was not Conan who would force George Lopez to support him. If someone really did that, it would presumably be TBS executives. Regarding the Leno-Conan brouhaha, I have argued several times that NBC executives are more to blame than Leno, though a portion of the responsibility does lie on Leno. In this case, regarding the allegedly fake Conan support, there is a good chance that Conan is free from blame. However, regarding the actual moving of George Lopez’s show to a later time, obviously Conan had to be aware of that when he made his deal, and in that sense, one could (and has) argued that he is being Leno-esque. However, there is a vast difference between George Lopez’s show being moved and Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show being forced to either move or be taken away. The Tonight Show is a television institution, George Lopez’s show is not; the former has been on before midnight for several decades, the latter has not. No offense to George Lopez, but I, and presumably many others, were only vaguely aware that he had a late night show, but everyone knows that The Tonight Show is on, and everyone knew that Conan was the host. Conan is only causing the time-shifting of what I imagine might be a rather unpopular show to a later time; Conan is not causing a firmly established, well-known program to be jolted out of its home, nor is he forcing its host to leave. The situations are very different; Conan is not pushing a popular program into a time slot where it will become less viewed, rather, he is increasing the chances that an unpopular show will likely gain popularity by being on after Conan, that is, by providing a healthy lead-in.

Disliked Worlds Collide

Two links have been sitting in a Word document for almost a month, waiting patiently to be turned into a blog posting. Sadly, those two links were forgotten until now, and now they have lost much if not all of their relevance. However, since I’ve been known to post out-dated things, perhaps it is not too late for these links to shine in one of my joyous blog postings. If you read to the end (before and including the update), you might get a relevant and timely surprise!

If this article is not lying, and I don’t believe it is, then The Tonight Show with Jay Leno falsely portrayed the audience response to Sarah Palin when she was a guest on the show. They replaced the audience's silence and sounds of dismay with canned laughter.

It is rather unfortunate that I’m not terribly surprised that Jay Leno and his people would commit such a vile act of falsely representing an audience’s reaction to create the illusion of comedy, love, and admiration in a vacuum of such things to aid a politician. I expect two types of people above most others to be ethical: comedians and scientists. Did you think I was going to say “politicians”? Really? Why would you think such a bizarre thing? I’ve learned not to expect politicians to have ethics or souls; that way, I avoid a lot of disappointment. Anyhoo, Leno’s (or whoever’s decision it was to edit the audience – since Leno’s name is on The Tonight Show, I will hold him responsible) ethical indiscretion is, in my admittedly strange view, on par with those scientists who screwed with the climate change data a few months ago. Scientists and comedians are people we should be able to trust; when either lies, it truly is a sad day.

Fortunately, in a world of lying Lenos, there are also truth-keepers in the form of satirists. Here, Jon Stewart talks about Palin’s Leno appearance, particularly about her crazy claims that Fox News is "fair and balanced."

As if the evil editing to make Sarah Palin appear more loved or less disliked weren’t enough, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno continues to commit evil acts of duplicitous editing today. The "I’m with Coco/Conan O’Brien" Myface (Facebook) fan page posted this article a few days ago, that tells of a brave and heroic Slash wearing an "I’m with Coco" pin that made a forcibly brief appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It’s not surprising at all that Leno and his people cannot handle dissent. Somehow, if something like that were to happen on pretty much any other talk show, the host would go ahead and make jokes about it, because that’s what funny hosts do. Unfortunately, Jay Leno continues to not be the funny talk show host that I know he could be. Of course, the other talk show hosts I allude to would probably not find themselves in such situations, for most if not all of them would not have done what Leno did.

UPDATE April 11, 2010

These disliked worlds collided s’more on SNL; The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will be featured on The Sarah Palin Network.

NBC Just Keeps Making Things Worse

Well, so much for the reduced Jay Leno hatred. I’m sure everyone has seen NBC’s obnoxious ad for the return of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, with the contextually obnoxious anti-Conan lyric “Get back to where you once belonged.” Fortunately, someone corrected that ad with the more appropriate lyric “I’m a creep…I don’t belong here.”

Oh, Jay, you don’t belong there, you just don’t.

After all that Letterman did to try to help Jay, NBC had to go and ruin it. I’m not blaming Jay as much as I’m blaming NBC, because Jay is a robot, and apparently, robots aren’t yet capable of saying no to their network.

The Leno Saga Continues on the Super Bowl

David Letterman and Jay Leno, along with Oprah Winfrey, have come together for a rather funny Super Bowl ad for The Late Show with David Letterman. According to Late Show executive producer Rob Burnettt, all parties, led by Letterman, did it simply to entertain people. They have succeeded, assuming I am people.

The Super Bowl ad is sort of a sequel to Letterman’s 2007 Super Bowl ad with Oprah, following their pseudo-feud.

Of course, this year’s ad follows weeks of comedic clashes between Letterman, Leno, and Conan O’Brien regarding The Tonight Show and Leno’s insistence on hosting it without regard to its rightful host.

This Super Bowl commercial accomplishes two things that Leno was unable to do recently: reinstate his nice-guy image and be funny – or at least recognize what is funny.

Three Things that Irritated Me about Leno’s Oprah Appearance

Everyone seems to be upset with Jay Leno (I mean more than they were before) because when he was on Oprah on January 28, he admitted to lying. He explained that he told a white lie in 2004 when he said he would be retiring in 2009.

This lie isn’t what bothered me. I don’t think I really expected Jay to retire – I only expected him to move on from The Tonight Show. When celebrities say they’re retiring, I generally don’t believe them; I actually share Jay’s view on this, where he told Oprah that while he believes that Oprah believes she will be “retiring,” he doesn’t believe she actually will. Of course she explained to Jay that she has not said she’ll be retiring, rather she is just leaving her show, but the point Jay was making about celebrities in general is the view I share with him.

What did bother me – what drove me insane actually – was the following three things:

1) Leno, as usual and as expected played the victim; he did not take any responsibility for what he did. He refused to accept that he had anything to do with killing Conan’s dream. He blamed the network (as he should), and he blamed the low ratings of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. However, he couldn’t admit that he had anything to do with Conan leaving The Tonight Show. He didn’t seem to have any awareness that Conan’s ratings were low most likely as a direct result of the low ratings of The Jay Leno Show, as well as the very existence of Jay’s 10 p.m. show. As many have stated, when Leno hosted The Tonight Show, he had dramas such as Law and Order as his lead-in before the local news – shows that, as David Letterman said, keeps people staring at their TVs for days. Conan didn’t have that; Conan had as his lead-in the low-rated Jay Leno Show whose low ratings almost caused the NBC affiliates to revolt. If NBC didn’t have to remove Jay from 10 p.m., and if Jay had chosen to leave NBC, as one would have expected him to, NBC would never have put Leno back at 11:35 p.m. either to push back The Tonight Show to 12:05 a.m. or to remove Conan from The Tonight Show. Without The Jay Leno Show, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien would have had better ratings and therefore would have remained on the air. In fact, even if for some other reason (such as the fact that it was a transition or the increased ratings Letterman got from his scandal) Conan’s ratings hadn’t been good enough, his Tonight Show still would have remained on the air. After all, Leno’s ratings weren’t good for his first three years on The Tonight Show, but NBC kept him on the air. Which brings me to…

2) Leno told Oprah that Conan has been removed because of Conan’s poor ratings. He also claimed that this was the first year in The Tonight Show’s 60-year history where it would lose money. However, if losing money translates to poor ratings, then Jay seems to have forgotten about his first three years on The Tonight Show, where he had poor ratings. No one watched Jay’s Tonight Show until Hugh Grant kindly granted him an interview (that was previously scheduled) after being arrested for prostitution usage. Three years of bad ratings, and NBC didn’t cancel Leno’s Tonight Show. Yet Leno seems to really believe that NBC is canceling Conan’s Tonight Show after seven months of bad ratings. It just doesn’t make sense. (Yes, I do realize NBC cancelled Leno’s 10 p.m. show after five months because of bad ratings, but that is only because of the damage he was doing to their affiliates. When Jay had bad ratings on The Tonight Show, I don’t believe it was affecting the affiliates in such a way.)

3) Jay whined to Oprah about Jimmy Kimmel’s alleged “sucker punch,” where Kimmel made a joke about the Conan-Jay brouhaha. Of course, as Jimmy explained, he thought that since Jay used to be a comedian, he could handle a joke made about him, and go with it, rather than continuing to robotically read cue cards and later rat Kimmel out to Oprah. So Jay whined about Kimmel making a timely and relevant joke about him, yet Jay felt there was nothing wrong with his own “joke” about Letterman, which, really, was a sucker punch…to Dave’s wife. Jay’s joke was in response to Dave’s relentless and hilarious Leno jokes and discussions since this began, and Jay felt that one joke in response to Letterman was sufficient. But Jay’s joke was personal, it was more hurtful to Dave’s wife than to Dave (I would think), it was not timely since the tale of Dave’s infidelity is no longer a current topic at all, and, most importantly, no one found it funny. I didn’t fid it funny, the audience responded with “Oooo”s, and Oprah made it clear that she did not find it funny, and that she felt the joke was beneath Jay. But Jay thought it was funny.

Maybe that’s the problem: Maybe Jay isn’t funny anymore because he just doesn’t know what is funny anymore.

How to Resolve NBC’s Late-Night Woes

(See updates at the end of this posting.)

Apparently the rumors were true – Jay Leno’s 10 p.m. show will be cancelled, and Jay will move back to 11:35 PM in the form of a half hour show, pushing back Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show and Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night to 12:05 a.m. and 1:05 a.m. respectively, and canceling Last Call with Carson Daly. It’s a shame that Jay should be quasi-cancelled, but I can’t say that I’m surprised. They seem to be blaming the time slot for Jay’s rating loss and Jay’s bringing down of the network (forgive my exaggeration), but maybe it’s not the time slot, maybe it’s Leno.

While I have almost always preferred David Letterman to Leno (I only say “almost” because there was a time when I had no preference), I have always found Leno to be funny and talented. However, since he moved to 10 p.m. – or maybe it started while he was still at the Tonight Show – he’s become less funny, in my opinion. His monologues, based on the few I’ve seen in recent times, contain a large proportion of predictable and unfunny jokes. He’s lost something, perhaps a slight edginess, perhaps in an attempt to cater to larger and earlier audience. Alternatively, perhaps it is my comedic tastes that have changed. After all, I have become obsessed with the refined and highly intelligent hilarity of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. But then again, I still find David Letterman and Conan hilarious, as well as Chelsea Handler and Jimmy Kimmel (whom I unfortunately don’t watch as often as I would like to). So perhaps it isn’t me, after all.

While on the subject of late night comedians who don’t seem funny to me, I don’t understand the appeal of Jimmy Fallon. Sure, he’s cute, he was funny in his SNL days, and he’s likeable. However, I just don’t find him funny on Late Night. In his defense, I’ve only seen about two episodes, but I found both painfully unfunny, with only brief moments of mild laughter, as opposed to my excessive outbursts of laughter while watching the funny shows I mentioned. Jimmy Fallon’s monologues should really be better – a monologue in that format is essentially just SNL’s Weekend Update standing up, and as I mentioned, Jimmy Fallon was funny when he hosted Weekend Update. His monologues are…just…boring.

Getting back to Leno, while I don’t like that NBC and Leno are trying to screw over Conan and Jimmy Fallon by pushing them “deeper into the night” as David Carr said in The NY Times, it would really be a shame to see Leno leave the TV. As I said, he was funny, and I think he still has it in him to be funny again. In fact, I know he still has it in him because traces of his comedic talents are evident in Headlines, and in the interview segments of his show.

It seems that Leno is continuing his tradition of screwing over former Late Night hosts who seek to host The Tonight Show. First, he sneakily stole The Tonight Show from Letterman, its rightful heir, and now he and NBC are seeking to push The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien to 12:05 a.m., which, (according to this NY Post article) as Seth Meyers said on Weekend Update, is “no longer ‘tonight.’”

According to the NY Post article mentioned above, Conan has not yet made a decision regarding what he will do, though he is considering these comical concepts. Letterman also had a fun idea that I saw after thinking of this rather brilliant idea: Perhaps Leno could co-host Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Perhaps two formerly funny people turned unfunny could together become funny once again. And what better place for Leno to re-gain his hilarity than on the set of Late Night, where David Letterman gave him a platform to showcase his funnies so many years ago. Clearly, the irony and the poetic justice would also be fun, in that Leno would be effectively demoted to Letterman’s old stomping grounds after Leno (from what I recall from The Late Shift by Bill Carter) sneakily and back-stabbingly pilfered The Tonight Show that was rightfully Dave’s.

In all seriousness, the best solution would probably be to leave Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, and Carson Daly alone, and to leave Jay Leno in his 10 p.m. time slot. The poor ratings could probably be fixed if Jay stopped kissing up to people, stopped catering to what he thinks the earlier audience wants, and just return to his formerly funny self. Instead of fixing the problem with Leno’s 10 p.m. show, NBC is creating more problems and drama that really is unnecessary. As NBC executive Jeff Gaspin stated (according to the same NY Post article mentioned above), a change such as a 10 p.m. comedy talk show will likely take time to obtain the degree of success the network and its affiliates hope for. I learned that from Howard Stern’s rants in years past, when he would point out the idiocy of radio and probably TV executives who have no patience and don’t seem to understand that changes take time to reach success – that success doesn’t happen over night.

UPDATE January 13, 2010: Conan has admirably decided not to accept NBC's demotion to 12:05 a.m., explaining that it would destroy both The Tonight Show and Late Night.

UPDATE January 19-20, 2010: It looks like this is Conan's final week on The Tonight Show, since all that's left are the minor details of Conan's exit from the evil claws of NBC, who will reportedly be paying Conan and his staff a nice severance of $40 million and allowing him to find work elsewhere. Jay Leno will likely get to steal back The Tonight Show (which is nice since Jay likes to steal things). Leno discussed his thoughts on the subject, of course acting as if he is a blameless saint, as he always does, going so far as to encourage people not to blame Conan, which, as David Letterman correctly and hilariously pointed out, no one has been doing. Leno acted similarly in 2004 as well, when he clearly stated that he would gracefully pass on The Tonight Show to Conan in 2009. But at the time, he neglected to mention that he would ungracefully take it back in 2010.

I feel bad contributing to the Leno hatred, even if he is deserving of it due to his continued back-stabbing and sneaky behavior. The fact is, the real problem is NBC and the idiot executives who work there (it seems Jeff Zucker would be the biggest idiot of them all, based on what everyone is saying). If they had just listened to me and 1) asked Leno to be funny again and 2) kept things the way they were, in time, the ratings might have improved, or at least they could then say they tried. If they had given The Jay Leno Show at 10 p.m. and The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien an appropriate amount of time to settle in, then at least they could say they honored Conan O'Brien's and Jay Leno's contracts...in an honorable way.

UPDATE January 22, 2010: Conan’s severance deal with NBC has been finalized. He will receive $33 million and his staff will receive $12 million. Conan’s final Tonight Show will be tonight, and Leno will return to The Tonight Show on March 1, 2010. Conan will not be permitted to have a competing show until September 2010, and he is forbidden from speaking ill of NBC after he leaves, but Letterman kindly assured us last night that he can and will continue to make fun of NBC.

UPDATE April 15, 2010:  I watched Jimmy Fallon on Late Night a couple of times more recently than when he premiered as well as on The Marriage Ref, and I'm happy to say, he has become funny again.  Also, I like The Marriage Ref, despite people's criticisms of it; I enjoy watching funny celebrities talking and arguing with each other.  Finally, Jay Leno is still not funny.

Comedians' Reactions to Letterman Scandal

After October 1, when David Letterman told the story of the alleged attempted extortion involving his affairs with women who worked for him, I wondered how his fellow comedians would react.

This blog from The Huffington Post and this article from the AP tell of what other comedians have been saying about Dave as of the weekend after his confession. It seems most are being easy on him or not talking about it at all. Jay Leno (The Jay Leno Show), Jimmy Fallon (Late Night), Seth Meyers (Saturday Night Live), and Craig Ferguson (The Late Late Show) have made jokes and comments about Dave’s scandal, but none of them were mean about it (towards Dave, that is; some were rightfully mean toward Robert "Joe" Halderman, the alleged blackmailer), which makes me happy.

In the week since Dave’s confession, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert didn’t say a word about Letterman on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, so they're with Conan O’Brien (The Tonight Show) and Jimmy Kimmel (Jimmy Kimmel Live!) in not talking about it, which also makes me happy.

I was very interested to know what Howard Stern thinks about Dave’s scandal.

If you read this article from The Examiner, you would think Howard Stern was hateful, and it almost sounds like Howard was screaming about how horrible Dave is. The article doesn’t misquote Howard, but it takes his statements out of context. If I hadn’t heard Howard myself and if I had only read that article, I would seriously hate Howard, and I’m a fan of Howard.

Since I did hear Howard talking about Dave, I can continue to love Howard (and Dave). As I expected and hoped for from Howard, he was completely honest about his thoughts about the situation. He made it clear that he likes Dave, and credits Letterman for always being supportive of him. He also said that Dave came out with this stuff in a brilliant way, and noted that he's a great communicator. But Howard felt that Dave screwing interns creates a really bad work environment where women feel they have to screw the boss to get ahead and men feel like they can't get ahead because they lack the necessary equipment. He also said if his daughters were taken advantage of as interns like that, he would cut off Dave's winkie. All these things are completely understandable, assuming that his affairs were, in fact with interns (I know Holly Hester came forward as having an affair with Dave while she was an intern), and if other interns and staff members were aware of those affairs at the time, and also assuming that Dave was abusing his position of power in the affairs, which we can't be sure of. I don't feel that Howard was mean-spirited towards Dave at all, as the Examiner article above might imply.

And finally, Dave’s reaction to himself was probably the funniest reaction of all the comedians. On the Monday after the confession, Dave spent almost the whole monologue cracking jokes about himself. He followed this hilarious monologue with another heartfelt statement apologizing to his staff and his wife for hurting them, as well as affirming that he did the right thing in confessing. Of course he ended the string of apologies with another apology to Sarah Palin, because it couldn’t hurt.

Dave has really been handling his scandal well. As both Howard Stern and Steve Martin have said, this scandal really does show us that Dave is human, and as Steve Martin noted, we really weren’t sure of that before.

I think the keep-quiet attitude and the lack of mean-spirited jokes from his fellow comedians show the reigning king of late night the respect that he still deserves, particularly since David Letterman is a victim of a felony.

Introduction to My Blog

Hello, and welcome to my blog!

I never thought I would be a blogger, beyond the little Myspace blog that I almost never use, but alas, here I am!

I decided to start blogging because I occasionally have thoughts about things, and I then feel compelled to write those thoughts. I’ve previously shared those thoughts with a handful of friends, via fun and interesting emails (well, I find them fun and interesting anyway). So I’ve decided to share them with the world! Yay! :-)

To begin, I thought it might be fun to post a bunch of out-dated things – things that were not out-dated when I wrote them. Don’t worry, after that, things won’t be quite as out-dated as I post them (assuming I continue with the blogging). These first out-dated postings will come from my Myspace blog and from emails that I’ve written. I will try to post them chronologically, but try not to be sad if that doesn’t happen.

I realize I’m a bit late joining this blogging bandwagon, but I guess that’s my style :-) Next, maybe I’ll join Twitter!

I hope you enjoy my blog! Do you think I said “blog” enough? Blog!!!

UPDATE January 27, 2010
I finally joined Twitter! I probably won't tweet anything, but Conan O'Brien is now on Twitter, so obviously I had to join just so I could follow him!