On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Steve Timko <[email protected]> wrote: > I recorded all five Leno shows wince Letterman was off and I've > watched three of them so far, the Monday, Thursday and Friday shows. > I'd saw the week has lessened my opinion of Leno. And remember, I'm > the guy who took a lot of crap for defending Leno in alt.fan.letterman > a decade ago. (SNIP)
That is interesting - but may reflect just how low my view of Mr. Leno was before this week. My opinion had almost nowhere to go but up. Before the WGA strike I was at the point where I had an aversive classically conditioned response every time I saw him. The couple of shows I saw when he came back "without" writers softened my view of him personally, and reminded me that when I have seen him interviewed outside of the Tonight Show on occasion over the years he does not make my flesh crawl - which then reminded me of how much I used to like him. I think the hope for his new show is that he is forced out of the safe structure they build up on the Tonight Show and maybe tries to be a little more of himself. His set-up of the "Jaywalking" highlight on Friday really epitomized what is so creepy about his version of the TS. He started by saying that people also ask him if those are real people, and how not only are they real, but he only has to interview about 18 people to get the usable clips and it takes an hour. Then he said that he has some kind of game show schtick where brings Jaywalkers who have given particularly stupid answers into the studio to give even more stupid answers, and that he was afraid at first that having seen themselves on TV they would study up to get smart, but no, surprise-surprise-surprise, if anything they are even stupider on the in-studio bit. I have no problem believing this description of how he puts the bits together. What bothers me about it is that Leno seems either not to understand (hard to believe) or thinks he can get away with bullshitting us (easier to believe) the real truth, which is that 40% of people on the street in Southern California are eager to look stupid if it means they can be on TV. I am quite sure that once people at Universal Studios, or Venice Beach (or wherever he tapes those bits) recognize that they are being interviewed for the JW bit, they purposely try to give stupid answers that they think will be funny. I am quite sure that at least half of the video Leno can't use is due to this being so obvious it would creep out even his most loyal fans (when he asks "who is buried in Grant's Tomb" how many people say something like "Grant - oh no, I mean, Lee, I mean, I don't know"; or "when was the War of 1812?" "1812 - no, 1811, oh wait, I think 1813 would be funnier - can I try it again?"). No doubt when he brings people in for the in studio bit they spend a lot of time polishing their stupid act, and contrary to Leno's lame argument to the contrary, it is not at all surprising that they are stupider when they come back the second time. Why does Leno pander in this way? I know we are not supposed to make a lot of "Dave is better than Leno" posts to this list anymore, but I really do think this illustrates a difference between him and Dave. It's not that Dave wouldn't make fun of people, but what Dave would instinctively be making fun of is the desire of people to be famous. When Dave used to do more of his "found" comedy or have "normal" people come on, he would skewer anyone who came across as trying too hard; his instincts were to go with people who were being themselves (or, at least, who were more artful in playing something other than themselves). --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
