Quote:
Originally Posted by Barnes
Patton Oswalt had a great take on Scott Aukerman's Comedy Death Ray. In short, most comedians don't have much respect for Leno and they do the show only because they should.
Letterman was a huge Carson fan and took what he saw, said how can I make this better and did. Conan did the same with Letterman. Jay Leno just wanted the Tonight Show and didn't really change much. Most of his segments are just old Paar or Carson segments.
Letterman did his time, Conan did his, Leno was handed everything for some reason. A real talented stand up at one time, now he just reads questions given to him by movie studios. He gets stars there to pimp their new crap not guys like Norm McDonald that show just cause they are funny. I would much rather watch Letterman take his guests out of their element by making them uncomfortable or Conan getting his guests to make fun of themselves.
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yet Leno's monologue i by far the most popular of all the current late night hosts and he you really never hear a bad word said about him, he seems like a genuinely nice guy. And he isn't really a celebrity guy, he doesn't hang out with other comedians he hangs out in his garage.
He isn't popular among most comedians because his stuff is sort of geared to the average person, not the comedy fan.
I don't think Leno looks bad through this at all, if anyone went behind someones back it was Conan when he signed his contract in 2004 that basically said Jay Leno would lose the Tonight show in 2009. Jay didn't want to lose it, and he was the top rated guy by a large margin (which in tv is all that matters). And you can say that it was handed to him and he didn't earn the tonight show, yet he got it to the number one show ahead of dave, so I dont think NBC really regrets passing on Letterman.
Now that Conan's tonight show has proven to be a failure (in the ratings and for a lot of people in content) its not surprising NBC is giving the time slot back to the person who never should have lost it.
I like both of them, I just hope this leads to Conan's show going back to what it was before it moved to LA.