On May 31, 6:35 pm, PGage <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 1:07 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> > When I was an NBC Page, I saw them tape the gameshow bits. It was one
> > of the few pretaped studio bits I ever saw done on "The Tonight Show,"
> > nearly everything else was live-to-tape. But the "Battle of the
> > Jaywalking All-Stars" bits were pretaped to edit out the unfunny
> > (correct) answers. From my vantage point, they were not acting,
> > staged, or trying to be silly for screen time... these were people who
> > didn't care that they looked like morons. I am sad to say it is a
> > California thing. Ask someone to name the vice-president and they give
> > a stupid answer. Ask someone to name the most recent American Idol
> > winner and you get the person's name and their entire life story.
> > In the mid 1990s, I met someone very high up in the Letterman camp (a
> > name and a face that most on this list would recognize). And in the
> > course of conversation, this person revealed to me that, at least at
> > the time, Letterman didn't encounter anybody who hadn't already been
> > screened, preinterviewed, coached, etc. In other words, the "found"
> > comedy from "normal" people were all preplanned. Even when people were
> > approached outside the theater with a camera, they would have been
> > planted in the exact right spot for the camera to see them. The point
> > was reinforced after Mujibur and Sirajul (sp?) signed with agents and
> > demended money to interact with Dave on camera, at which point they
> > were dropped and Rupert was brought on board.
>
> All of what you say may be true. I have lived almost all of my life in
> California, the first half of it in the Southland, and I do have a
> hard time believing that 75% of people on the street really could not
> answer where the Panama Canal is, or who was the first president of
> the United States. Part of what I do is give IQ tests for a living -
> two questions on the most commonly given test are: "Who was president
> of the US during the Civil War" and "What was the name of the first
> man to walk on the moon". I have given the test to developmentally
> delayed people, non-college educated people, and very educated people.
> Based on my experience, and my reading of the scientific data, I would
> be shocked if, in a random sample of "average" southern Californians
> (educated in the US), at least 75% of them did not know who the name
> of the first president of the US (easier than the Lincoln question),
> and at least 50% did not know the name of the first man on the moon
> (though I will say that the response "Louis Armstrong" is not at all
> uncommon). I think it is much more likely that people think to
> themselves "Oh, this is a Jaywalking bit - if I say something stupid I
> might get on TV".
>
> In any case though, this is besides my main point, as is the question
> of how "real" Dave's found comedy is/was. Even if the Jaywalking bit
> is completely "real' and un-coached, and Letterman's bits completely
> staged, I don't think Dave would do something like Jaywalking because
> it reeks of people trying too hard to get on TV and be celebrities,
> while Dave's comedy always seems to me to be aimed in exactly the
> opposite direction.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
What's being missed is that Jaywalking is Leno's ripoff of the Howard
Stern bit where one of Howard's producers would interview a
questionable character (homeless person, stripper, mentally
challanged, or future Tonight Show announcer), ask them general
knowledge questions, and speculate and/or wager on their answers.
Obviously, the more stupid the answer the better the comedy. However,
while Stern could be expected to 'exploit' the intellectually
challenged, Leno doesn't want to appear to be the 'bad guy' and stages
the whole thing. And who gets to appear in Leno's studio? Is it the
homeless guy, the toothless stripper, or the stutterer? No, it's the
20-something blonde who looks like she just walked off the set of some
TV show, who will offend no one if she's the butt of a joke.
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