On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 10:05 PM, Kevin M.<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I agree Mr. Pollak can be self-referential at times, but that is par
> for the course in the world he's attempting to inhabit. As Jay Leno
> has been repeatedly saying in recent months, talk shows are more about
> the hosts than the guests. You can count on one hand the number of
> "big name" guests who actually make a dramatic increase in the ratings
> of a talk show. In the end, the personality of a host, and what the
> host brings to the table (in this case the round table) matters.
> Pollak's industry stories may be limited, and he has repeated a few of
> them, but they are a part of his character, the same way Craig talks
> about his becoming an American often enough and Dave tells stories
> about encounters with network brass that could be cut and pasted from
> any number of previous episodes. Pollak doesn't have a writing staff
> to even sit down with him to remind him what other stories he could
> tell... he's got his girlfriend/producer, two people handling
> webcasting, one handling audio and video, and that would seem to be
> about it. That he's managed something like 50 hours of interviews in
> 20-some weeks given what little he has to work with is impressive.
>
> Plus, he keeps using my questions! And, no, there's nothing new about
> the use of Twitter or his chatroom, but I like that he genuinely seems
> interested in including his audience as part of the show (as evidenced
> by his irritation in several early episodes when the Twitter and
> chatroom feeds weren't working properly). A lot of talk show hosts
> think only they can ask the right questions, when, as evidenced by me,
> any dolt can do it.
Well, Pollak repeats himself a hell of a lot more often than someone
like Dave does (Pollak has told several stories more often in 6 months
than Dave has in 26 years). But you are right, it is impressive what
he has managed to do with such a small staff. I am really glad he does
not pre-interview the guests, but he kind of needs to pre-interview
himself. He does not need a canned monologue, but he does need someone
to help him explore some other avenues in his own history or thinking
or interests - maybe about current events, or trends in the
entertainment industry, or something. I would actually like to hear
him take one voice every week (or maybe every month) and spend 10
minutes talking about how he started doing it, or tell some stories
about doing the voice, or whatever. Some of his best stories so far
have been about him meeting someone famous for the first time and
breaking into Columbo (was it Belushi or someone like that?).
I think I know what you mean by the personality of the host being most
important (I almost always watched Dave with a guest I had no interest
in rather than Leno interview a guest I really liked). But something
else is also true - Mark Evanier was talking about this on his blog
last week. The audience will give the host credit for anything funny
(or, I would add, interesting) that the guest says. Evanier was
talking about this in the context of Conan, who has an irritating way
of interrupting his guests and bringing the focus back to himself
after more than 15 seconds goes by. That is not exactly Pollak's
problem - he does often let his guest go on at great length, with only
minimal interrupting or prodding, and this is often where some really
interesting things come up. Pollak is particularly good at getting a
guest to stop just after making a passing reference to something
rather obscure and asking them to follow up on that ("Wait - really?
What was that like, or do you have an example of that, or do you
remember what that was like?"). Its just that, whenever he does
interrupt, it is so often along the same small handful of lines, that
often lead back to himself. I had a buddy like this in college -
whenever a new person came upon our little group we knew the
conversation would eventually turn on the question "do you like to go
skiing?", and then our friend would do 10 minutes on Mammoth and his
cabin there and an epic run he once had and how wasted he got one
other night and how hot the babes always are. Interesting or not the
first 10 times you heard these stories, by the 15th time we would all
just dread the topic of skiing coming up when a new person came by.
Pollak kind of reminds me of that.
I will start listening for your name when he reads the questions - or
maybe you could post some of your questions here.
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