The Mild and the Mundane

Everyone has been watching the sad news and events coming from Haiti, and we’ve just witnessed this year’s State of the Union Address. There has been an overload of important news to deal with in bringing in a new year.

But wait. Jay Leno has just appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show. Does that mean it’s not over?

Jay apparently felt the need to clarify a few things in his State of the Late Night Talk Shows Address. Yes, now it’s time to step back and take a moment to discuss things that are utterly unimportant.

This late night battle was based on whether Conan O’Brien received enough time to cultivate his own Tonight show audience. I don’t know, but he did receive sufficient time to lose about half of Jay Leno’s Tonight Show viewers to David Letterman. Observer Jerry Seinfeld said, “No one forced people to change the channel.”

By the same token, that doesn’t mean that Conan wasn’t funny. He just wasn’t ready for 11:35 PM.

Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson summed it up best when he said, “It’s a bunch of middle-aged white guys fighting over who gets how many millions of dollars. Who gives a bleep?”

By the way, Craig isn’t ready for 11:35 PM either.

During his Late Night days, O’Brien would hype how great tonight’s upcoming show was during his opening monologue by saying, “And I’m not a fan of the show. I don’t like the host.”

Well, one night he continued, “He overdoes everything.”

Bingo.

O’Brien is funnier when he restrains himself. The guy goes through his monologue and literally acts out most of his jokes. The host can do that once or twice a night for comedic effect, but a strong monologue sells itself.

I found this especially sad when I watched some of Conan’s pre-taped remote segments. He had to hold back on these, so they were often hilarious.

Meanwhile, Jay Leno is lurking in the weeds, and his monologues are still pretty good, no matter what time he delivers them. He does need to lose the band crescendoes after many jokes. But anyone who is a Jay Leno fan now needed to see him in the mid to late 1980s when he first really established himself and was the funniest man on the planet. He used to visit late night television every six to eight weeks and make my sides hurt on a program called “Late Night with David Letterman.”

Dave, for his part, says that he is trashing Jay Leno now on his Late Night show because “It’s fun.” But he’s coming across as bitter and vindictive in these segments. Perhaps with good reason.

Casual viewers of late night talk may never know the real truth as to whether or not Leno hid in a closet during original Tonight Show takeover meetings. Of course, Letterman poses the argument that Jay always seems to be there when trouble occurs.

Coincidence? I don’t know. But there would be no better judge than the finest talk show host there was Johnny Carson, and he preferred Letterman to be his successor in 1992.

The dust has settled on the late night talk show wars of 2010 now. All things are as they were in early 2009, except Jimmy Fallon has taken over Late Night now.

I believe Jimmy is considered contemporary and hip, and more likely to attract the younger demographic than Letterman. Or Leno, for that matter. But someone really needs to pay his monologue writers substantial sums of money to go away.

And Craig Ferguson may not be ready for 11:35 PM, but there is definitely something going on during his Late Late Show. He recently opened a telecast with two puppets singing a country song, being backed up by three human female singers and a man in bondage gear posing on Ferguson’s desk.

This show strikes me as a cult following. But I may be joining.

Ferguson also says, “Something is definitely wrong when Letterman and I are the stable ones in late night.”

How true.

Affiliates said NBC needed drama programming in their 10 PM lineup. Important news in the world goes on, and recently some utterly unimportant drama queens have been coming on at 11:35 PM. I hope they eventually remember to be funny.