Ellen Degeneres- she’s funny, self-effacing, asks intelligent questions and banters well with her guests. I think she’s an extremely intelligent person and it shows.
Jon Stewart- Simply brilliant. His ad libs are far better than Leno’s best scripted schlock and the show is one of the funniest on TV, but he’s also an excellent interviewer even when it’s a “serious” guest.
The worst:
Jay Leno- I will NEVER understand how this guy got to where he is. I can’t imagine he slept his way to the top (he wasn’t cute even when he was young) and his comic timing should have given him an excellent career managing a Best Western in Syracuse, yet there he is. His repetition of every punch line (even when the joke sucked), his whiny voice, his often tasteless humor (e.g. jokes about Michael Jackson [ain’t nothing as funny as a pedophilia allegation], Scott Peterson [unless that joke’s about a murdered pregnant woman]- BTW, I admit I’ve joked about Jackson but I’m not on a national talk show) and just his bad car salesman smarminess makes me hurl.
David Letterman- Unlike Leno he actually was funny at one time, but he’s become a bitter parody of himself.
THE ONE SO BAD THAT HE DESERVES HIS OWN CATEGORY:
Carson Daly- he’s moderately cute, and I emphasize moderately, and that is the sole and only qualification I can see for this guy doing anything. He’s annoying, opinionated and above all else one of the stupidest and most vapid on-air personalities outside of THE REAL WORLD. When he’s interviewing an author or a politician I literally feel my pyloric valve closing out of sheer humiliation for him since he’s too daft to be humiliated himself- he’s hopelessly out of his depth if the person is famous for anything other than a teen sex comedy. (Did anybody watch when he interviewed Tom Brokaw [who was there to promote his autobiography] and the conversation literally STOPPED, resuming only when the subject of sitcoms was broached?) He’s so bad he’s almost good- I watch him because I can’t not watch him when he’s on. (Thank God he broke up with Jennifer Love Hewitt as their spawn would have opened a whole new vortex of stupidity that would exploded the brains of everybody with a triple digit IQ.)
Not surprisingly, Daly is friends with Jimmy Fallon, who is also cute, talentless (other than impersonations with dialog written by other people) and about as sharp as a bag’o’hair.
Jon Stewart
Conan O’Brien: great bizarre sense of humor, self-effacing, doesn’t seem stuck-up, willing to look silly for a laugh and seems genuinely nice and interested in what his guests have to say. He also really loves TV, music and movies, and it shows.
Worst:
Jay Leno
Carson Daly: I can’t stress enough how awful this guy is. You’re right, this guy deserves his own category of badness. It’s painful to watch.
Sadly, I have nothing to add here. I agree almost completely with what you’ve said, except for the fact that I haven’t seen Ellen Degeneres’s talk show.
Best: Johnny Carson, Ellen Degeneres, Conan O’Brien (especially with Andy Richter) and NBC David Letterman era.
I do think David Letterman is generally a funny guy, but I think he has been absolutely bored with his show for years. I simply think he has no other outlet for himself. I think he should consider doing some other type of program. But its probably too late to change.
The worst…
Maury Povich - He has three shows: “Which of the five total losers I screwed in a single weekend fathered my child?”, “Is it a man in drag or a butt ugly woman?”, and “Jack Hanna gets his nutsack bit by a Coatimundi”. I can count on him for compelling television when I am jobless or sick.
Jon Stewart is hysterical. He makes every one of his guests just shine, shine, shine. He once had either Don King or Al Sharpton on his show ( seperated at birth, those two are) and even made him seem like a guy you’d want to hang out with.
Letterman has some moments, his better days are behind him and when he is on, he can be brilliant, but, please, fire Paul. He isn’t funny. Never has been.
And may I be the first to say, I like Oprah. Though I’ve only seen her show possibly a handful of times in my life. Her magazine just rawks.
The rest of them should be flushed down the toilet.
Hey, in the words of Bob Barker, It’s Don & Mike and they’ll say what they wish. If you’re not from DC, you’d probably hate them. They’re a local show stretched thin (and like Letterman, they burned out years ago).
Best: Conan! Conan! Conan! Keep cool, my babies, keep cool!
Jon Stewart
Ellen DeGeneres
David Letterman (provisional – he fathered Conan and Jon’s style in many ways but nowadays he really is just biding his time, it seems, waiting for someone who will fight for his time slot the way he fought for Carson’s and I’m fairly sure that despite his production of his show, Dave ain’t so moved by Kilborne)
Worst: That Big Tool Carson Daly
Dr. Fool, er, um, Phil
Jimmy Kimmel – he’s trying far, far, far too hard.
Craig Kilborne - the smirking fratboy shtick was old when he was on The Daily Show. Now it’s simply repulsive.
No best in radio for me because radio is far more diverse in terms of talk shows, but worst in radio is easily determined. Without any doubt or question, Adam Corolla and Drew Pinsky. These men need to be away from all media outlets as soon as is physically possible. Their ability to continue to broadcast throughout the nation is a blemish on the world of broadcasting.
No one will ever top Johnny Carson, even though I never considered his a “talk show.” Like others, I miss the Amazing Carnac, Art Fern’s Tea Time Movie (“when you get to the Schlossen Cutoff, get out of your car and cut off your schlossen”), and Joan Embry from the San Diego Zoo.
Mike Douglas had a terrific, quirky show (John Lennon and Yoko Ono as guest hosts for a week? Why can’t we have that sort of thing again?).
I don’t watch enough of TV anymore to have an opinion as to the worst - but I suspect Chevy Chase would have to be right up there.
Best: Jon Stewart, by far. He makes politics enjoyable!
Worst: Well, I don’t watch enough talk shows to have a worst, but I’m really not a fan of Conan at all. His shtick seems to be “I’m a big goofy Irishman, hyuck hyuck hyuck!”
I have to go along with Leno as the worst.
Somebody needs to explain to him that a joke doesn’t get funnier by repeating the punch line 3 times.
All time best is Carson. Not because of Carnac, or the Tea-time movies, or his other schticks. Because he knew how to talk to people, and draw out thier best.
All time worst was Mike Douglas. Gawd, he was terrible. He could make the most talented people in the world look like putzes.
Consie and Jonsie are the best currently IMO.
Jon because as others have said, hes clever and witty. Plus it doesn’t hurt that his reporters are utterly hilarious.
Conan because he knows when hes bombing and knows when hes doing well. He researches his guests and sometime genuinely suprises them with some timbit of information about their lives that they thought no one but relatives could know. The bits he does at the start of his show are hard to best as well.
Worst.
Leno- I have yet to laugh at anything he says. His band leader is annoying and he constantly looks down the dresses of female guests.
Letterman- On the few times I’ve watched his show I has seen no redeming qualities. The last straw was when he had Jada Pinkit Smith on his show to advertise the Matrix movies, and Letterman hadn’t seen it. Not even the first one. He just bumbled around making stupid guesses on what it was. It showed he had no respect for his guest or her work.
Worst: You Americans are lucky because down there you haven’t seen the worst talk show host: Mike Bullard. Come to think of it, not too many Canadians have seen him either, if his ratings are any indication. He’s a third rate comedian who tries (and fails) to be like Letterman. His specialty seems to be coming up with a snappy comeback 10 minutes after it would have been relevant. I think his audience is mostly people who have been dragged in there against their will.