On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 10:15 AM, Joe Hass <[email protected]> wrote:
> (SNIP) As an aside: when this thing started on Thursday, one of the things > Jeff Gaspin said was that he understood that he was going to get shots > from Leno and O'Brien on the goings on and that he seemed to accept > that as the proverbial cost of doing business. > > But as we're now at three-straight nights of Conan spending the entire > show tearing apart the network with the help of his guests, how long > does NBC keep letting Conan turn the *entire* program into "Bite The > Hand That's Strangling You Theater"? (Not that I am minding it.) It's > one thing if O'Brien's going to rip him in the monologue. It's quite > another if his guests are going to do the same thing. Right - this has become a little more than the "blowing off steam" that Gaspin seemed to be anticipating last week. The problem is it is way too easy for anyone who is on the "talent" side of any operation (not just in the entertainment industry, but in many industries there is a divide between the people who actually go out and have to perform, often in some kind of public or semi-public setting, and the people who manage, administer and count beans) to identify with Conan (and, to maybe a lesser extent, with Leno) and enjoy the sticking it to the suits. And now these suits are becoming less anonymous - at least one of them has a name (Zucker). The CBS and ABC guys can probably get away with calling out Zuck by name - it will be interesting to see if Leno and Conan start doing that. Of course, at least Conan is getting increased ratings from all of this (I have not yet looked into its effect on Leno) so NBC may be happy to just swallow it until the Olympics and bank the extra numbers. I thought Conan was really funny with all of this the first couple of days - last night was the first time it seemed a little frayed - perhaps in part because, as has been pointed out, Gervais was drooling so much to get into it. Dave, on the other hand, after kind of sitting it out late last week, has been hilarious the first three nights of this week - even though he is probably getting clobbered in the ratings.
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