What’s this about? Would it be too much of a hijack to ask what signature bit did Leno rip off?
Also, what’s will all the fan greeting when he comes out on the stage? Is it just me or does that strike anyone else as, well --I can’t think of a better word-- smarmy?
Because, apparently, we aren’t as thoroughly evolved as you are?
And, come now: visceral hatred? Really, maybe it’s time that you and the OP stopped utilizing such hyperbole, else you might come across as, I dunno, hypocritical?
For the record: I do NOT want Jay Leno to die in a house fire tasting his own blood, or anything. I just think the guy’s a giant phallus. Haven’t you ever, in your life, seen anyone on TV or in the movies, or on the news that you thought was just one big, fucking, intolerable ass tampon?
Stern claims Jaywalking is stolen from him. I think the idea of walking around in public with a camera asking questions probably started well before Stern.
It’s hard to argue that Jay’s writers don’t rip off Stern, especially when Jay does something like poach Stuttering John right off the Stern show. I was referencing Jaywalking, which (like Street Smarts) was a pretty clear ripoff of Stern. Another example of Jay’s writers cribbing from Stern is the “earn your plugs” concept.
Totally agreed. All those “nice when the cameras are rolling” guys are douches. Like Jay. And of course I didn’t think Jay a douche until he started openly acting like a douche. Not much of a revelation there.
As we know well, every idea on TV and in movies is totally original and has never been done before.
Leno is the first guy in 100 years to ever do something similar to what another show has done!
I imagine a lot of it has to do with which you prefer. When someone attacks something you like, a small preference becomes an opinion you’d defend to death, and the opposition becomes the enemy.
That said, Leno’s kind of a jerk. On Oprah, he claimed that all his staff would be fired if he didn’t take a 10PM show, which wasn’t true. Conan’s show had to make a number of new hires specifically because Leno was keeping his own team - a few people would have lost their jobs, but the majority would have joined the small number of people Conan brought with him from Late Night who would make the move to California. Leno was also fairly unapologetic on the same show, claiming he never thought about all the dramas and such that were getting canceled for his show, causing all of those people to get fired.
Also on Oprah, instead of simply saying “NBC said it was okay, I didn’t want to ruin anyone else’s shot, but this is how it worked out,” he called O’Brien “destructive” to the Tonight Show.
Whether or not the vitriol and venom directed at him is deserved, he’s certainly hasn’t proved he’s better than it.
Yeah, I don’t get Conan. What’s funny about a masturbating bear and a potty mouthed-dog? It’s like lunchroom at middle-school. Jay Walking is funny. It’s when Leno is the most “real”. Maybe he should just have regular people on the show and find out what is interesting about them.
I certainly don’t get Stern at all, but he’s got a large group of fanatical followers. He’s probably the #1 guy who I can’t figure out why he has a popular show.
Hi guys, I’m back! And I returned to say:
Cite?
C’mon, this is funny stuff. You know that you can’t find a cite in which I said “Conan sucks” in any form. I did say that Conan’s show wasn’t all that good and that he failed in the ratings. But I carefully distanced myself from any shots at Conan. There were too many easy pickings from people who would say “I never watched television but I caught Conan on the Internet so why did they fire him?” I mean, c’mon. How can you not find that hilarious?
This is even worse. It’s not hilarious. It’s sad. There’s way too much rewriting of history today. If I’m going to attack anything for real I’ll hit this.
Steve Allen. Steve Allen. Steve Allen, Steve Allen. Steve Allen. Those are the answers to the first five questions of “who originated this late night bit?” Letterman stole about a thousand bits directly from Steve Allen for his original NBC show and said so out loud every chance he could. Johnny Carson stole about a thousand Steve Allen bits (Carnac is Allen’s The Answer Man) and said so very seldom. Jay Leno stole a few Steve Allen bits too. Hey, guess what? Headlines isn’t original either. (The Columbia Journalism Review put out two books of headlines before Leno got on the air.) Nobody will ever steal the masturbating bear, though. Nobody will ever want to. Stern I don’t know about because I don’t pay attention to him. But he’s claiming originality to sending somebody into the street with a microphone? Seriously? And people believe him and defend him? That’s unbelievable. And truly sad. History deserves better.
Leno didn’t deserve the enormous flood of hatred pointed his way. Conan isn’t a martyred saint. The people commenting are blowing this way out of proportion and making hilarious howlers along the way. Yes, I’m pointing that out. I must be doing a good job to make my lone voice heard over the millions in opposition.
But, c’mon, vitriol? Unh-uh. Never happened.
P.S. Saw Craig Ferguson in Toronto over the weekend. He’s my favorite on network late night. Better in person. But I hope he doesn’t try to take over 11:30 because it won’t work for him.
Sir, thank you for that constructive criticism. It’s a privilege to take comedy notes from a man of your stature.
If you have to ask, you’ll never know.
And on Carson: I know Carson fans (my girlfriend, for one) who were about five years old when Johnny turned in his time. There’s a real consensus that neither Leno nor Letterman nor Coco has really been able to carry his mantle.
It’s reasonable to conclude that Jay stole the bit from Howard because he has a history of stealing things from Howard.
It’s also reasonable to conclude he stole it from Howard and not Steve Allen because Jaywalking is a comparatively new addition to the show. He didn’t do it in the first year. But his writers kept hearing Stern doing the homeless game, and running “man in the street” type interviews in black neighborhoods during and after the OJ trial, and so Jay decided to co-opt the concept without giving credit.
Yes, everyone steals everything. And then they give credit, like Letterman crediting Howard with the concept of calling your mom on the air. Jay refuses to admit that his writers (who now include Stuttering John) listen to and take ideas from Howard.
Hey, let’s all stop pretending we don’t know what ‘stealing a bit’ means. It doesn’t mean the bit never existed in all of recorded history until Stern did it.
It means, Jays writers saw Stern doing it and said, “Hey, we should do that.”
Doesn’t matter if Steve Allen did it a million years ago. Jay stole it from Stern*.
*I don’t know who stole what from whom. I’m just trying to get past us all acting like we don’t know what stealing a bit means.
Am I the only one who finds the whole ‘late night talk show’ format really tired and past it’s prime? Since Ferguson and Stewart have taken things in a fresh new direction I almost can’t stand to watch any of the lot. Leno, Letterman, Conan, Fallon. Same half-assed monolouge, tired skits, guests just dropping by to promote whatever, and a musical guest doing a lousy live performance. Repeat ad nauseua decade after decade.
It’d be nice to see them all disappear.
I think the whole fiasco can be compared to the current economy conditions.
Suppose you’ve got a middle-class, middle-income, average Joe. He’s been working his job for 10 years, plugging along with the promise that one day, when the boss retires, he’ll be promoted to that position.
TEN.
YEARS.
WAITING FOR THAT GUY TO RETIRE!
He finally does, Joe gets his promotion, then a couple months later, loses the job. His old job is already filled or eliminated, so he’s out on the street, unemployed. Totally unfair, but it happens all the time, especially right now with so many companies floundering around. I think a lot of people really feel bad for Conan. They’ve seen it happen to coworkers, family members, maybe themselves.
Leno is “The Man” here, Conan is “The Rest of Us”. IMO, that’s where all the bad feelings for Leno are sprouting from. The whole, “I’ll turn the tv OFF before I watch that lousy jerk Leno in his precious stolen timeslot” line of thinking.
The shows will stay even with low ratings because they are cheap. That’s why they tried Leno at 10 - to save money. There could be a time in the future when the ratings are so low that even cheap shows can’t make money but that is a long while off. SNL has stayed around for 35 years due to low costs and very little competition.
When NBC was very low in the ratings it was said that Carson brought in most of NBC’s profit for a given year.
While we’re talking about who all the great bits were stolen from, let’s not forget Ernie Kovacs. Most every bit I’ve seen Letterman do (which admittedly is not all of them) I’d previously seen on Kovacs.
I don’t understand why you find that statement so funny. Online video is pretty profitable for the networks. Giving Conan time to find his footing (which they gave to Leno and should have realized would have happened with whomever they picked) while also having a built-in Internet audience should have been part of NBC’s plan.
Oh, and another dateapoint in the ongoing “Is Leno losing big guests?” debate…
Letterman will have Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow from Iron Man 2 this week.
Leno gets Mickey Rourke.
Conan supporters bash Leno.
Leno supporters bash Conan supporters.
As far as I know online views are not in Nielsen ratings which is what really matters to networks.