On Sat, Aug 18, 2018 at 3:30 PM Steve Timko <[email protected]> wrote:
> Something about Leno's praise of Michelle wolf didn't seem sincere. There > wasn't much there that hasn't already been said. Maron seemed to struggle > with being friendly to Leno, given his ties to Conan and love of Letterman. > Leno comes across as a thoroughly decent guy. > Leno has two obsessions in his life: his standup and cars. That's not to be held against him: he has been incredibly successful in his life and doesn't seem to be possessed by resentment or grudges. But those two things are all he's willing to talk about in his life. The thing about Maron's podcast is that a guest can come on and open up about self-doubt, sensitivity, self destructive behavior, addictions, or failed relationships and Maron will sympathize and make it so that sharing those feelings with an audience isn't a personal failure. Leno isn't willing to share those things. He opened up about the pre-Tonight Show years in Boston and the Comedy Store years in LA but again with no self doubt about that time. A lot of celebrities aren't willing to open up easily. They find out they are going to get certain questions in all their interviews and they have go-to answers. If Leno were to be asked about comedy today he'd cite Michelle Wolf as an example of someone who does good work and he enjoys. He did that with Maron unbidden several times and that's why it didn't sound sincere. He also gave stock answers about the Tonight Show transition. As a comic tweeted about the episode, nothing that happened at the Tonight Show, whether it was pushing Johnny out or the Conan situation was Leno's fault - according to Leno. It would have been nice to have some introspection or acknowledgement of the pain he caused but that's something Leno won't do. Considering Leno's limitations it was a good episode. It was good when Leno opened up about the Comedy Store, Mitzi, and why he stopped performing there and it was good at the end when Maron tried to persuade him that the management and club had changed enough that he should start doing sets there again once in a while. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
