Monsters of Television

“I’m your host Jay Leno. At least for a while!”

Nick totally guilted me into writing about this. I compromised with myself, and did only the first 30 minutes of the show because staying up for Jamie Foxx just wasn’t an option.

So Jay’s second term as host of The Tonight Show (or is this episode 3,776 or volume 2 episode 1? I don’t even know) kicks off with a Wizard of Oz skit wherein Jay wakes up from the nightmare of having hosted another show at 10pm in a sepia-tinted world. He does the whole “You were there!” thing with Eubanks and the pudgy homosexual intern whose name I can’t remember and don’t really care enough to look up, but takes a jab at his announcer who didn’t go to The Jay Leno Show with him.

And then, probably in an effort to save the skit from being totally inane, Betty White shows up, commenting that NBC must’ve really cut his budget. I’m on the Betty White bandwagon as much as the next person who really hasn’t seen a Golden Girls episode in years, didn’t watch The Proposal but does love her work on Boston Legal, but subjecting her to embarrassment of being in that skit just isn’t kosher. She deserves better. (And so do we.) Read more »

“My name is Conan O’Brien, and I may soon be available for children’s parties.”

Nick and I were drafting a post about Conan’s options. It wasn’t coming together for me, so Nick took a crack at it, and it sat in the drafts folder of the blog for most of the day yesterday. I get back from class, futz around on Twitter, and then I shout at Alisa, “He’s quitting!” (he’s really not (yet)). And the next 30 minutes involve reading reactions and thoughts about what will happen next (making our original post kind of pointless). Conan’s statement is him forcing NBC’s hand, making the issue of his and The Tonight Show‘s future one of semantics (is it still The Tonight Show if it starts tomorrow?), and with rumors about guest hosts circulating, no one could really guess what would happen on last night’s episode.

Conan looked tired. (Well, tireder than usual for a tall albino with that amazing hair.) Which isn’t surprising, considering he was supposedly up until the early morning, drafting his statement. In contrast, Jay Leno looked positively energized on his show tonight. (Yes, I watched it, Sandra Bullock eating BBQ and all.)  And Conan seemed to be expecting, and frankly ready, to go.

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We here at Monsters of Television have no love for Jay Leno’s comedy. The only thing staler than the stand-up’s jokes are jokes about the size of his chin, his denim fetish, and the unintelligible squealing people do when they do “impressions” of him. So news that NBC might be cancelling (or scaling back) Leno’s 10pm comedy wasteland, The Jay Leno Show, driven by the network ordering a number of new pilots of scripted programming (none produced by John Wells, to be sure), brought us considerable pleasure.

And then TMZ had to go ruin it: Leno was returning, significantly less than victorious (but having performed up to NBC’s incredibly low expectations and killing news affiliates’ ratings) to his old time slot, leaving Conan out in the cold (we remain convinced that Conan never really wanted the gig anyway, but nervous schoolboy Jimmy Fallon was already promised Conan’s desk).

And then the New York Times had to go and (more or less) confirm it. Read more »