Posted on 06/08/2009 10:29:06 AM PDT by iowamark
Which is worse? Network execs too scared to change a successful formula. Or network execs too willing to turn everything on its head. It's clear that Conan's version of NBC's cash cow The Tonight Show is just more of the same old/same old. And that's how O'Brien's longtime exec producer Jeff Ross and boss Jeff Zucker want it. But while they were golfing together this weekend in a foursome at Riviera Country Club (Ross, who just moved out here, is the better player, while Zucker has a 14 handicap and can barely keep up), they both worried how to prevent primetime's The Jay Leno Show from cannibalizing Conan's late night show this fall. And my info is that it's already getting ugly.
Leno's show premieres September 14th. NBC doesn't want Conan "freaking out" as he's establishing himself. And the bosses know that booking wars on the same network are a recipe for disaster. So, already, NBC executives have barraged Jay with edicts. The first were the network's recommendations on which longtime staffers to keep or let go. The network also has demanded that Leno back off booking A-list celebrities because it would encroach on O’Brien’s turf.
You'd think Jeff Zucker and Ben Silverman would have already come up with a solution for this predicament of having two de facto Tonight Shows. But there's a reason NBC is the 4th-place network, so nooooooooooo. They only know what they don't want. So these bosses are putting Leno under pressure to think outside the box and help come up with a format significantly different from the one he’s slavishly followed for 17 years. But no one should rely on Jay for that. The last time he had an original idea, it was 1992 and it involved making his manager Helen Kushnick also The Tonight Show's executive producer. And we all know how well that turned out.
Most people wrongly attribute the start of Leno's late night ratings wins to 1995 when he asked Hugh Grant, fresh from his arrest for getting a blow job with a prostitute, "What the hell were you thinking?". But actually, in late 1993, Don Ohlmeyer was brought in to lead NBC's troops to ratings victory. And the first thing this General Patton impersonator did was to retool Jay's The Tonight Show by overseeing the design of a new set, adding more remote segments, using different camera angles, and recreating the artificial excitement of a comedy club by having people in those first rows pretend to mob Jay. After a see-saw battle with Letterman, Leno became No. 1 in late night.
Problem is, there are no leaders anymore atop NBC. Just pretenders. And, of course, Jay had no idea he'd take a backseat to Conan so soon. (Then again, Zucker sold him a bill of goods to make sure Leno didn't defect to ABC.) But Leno is the one who'll get the blame if the new show doesn't work. Zucker and Silverman have shown they're Teflon.
So Jay, Jeff, Ben: here's what you need to do:
Zucker and Silverman keep spinning how NBC is now the Comedy Network. Fine, then make The Jay Leno Show into the Comedy Hour, not the Talking Heads Hour. Yes, Leno is so insecure that he abandoned The Tonight Show's long and noble tradition under Johnny Carson of spotlighting the kind of raw stand-up talent who went on to become household names: Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne Barr, Garry Shandling, Drew Carey, Louie Anderson, Steven Wright, Rita Rudner, Gallagher. (Well, everyone but him...) Bring back that segment. Lengthen it. Reassure Jay that this isn't an audition for his hosting spot in 2012.
Next, I have one word: raid. Make offers to feature players on Saturday Night Live, sidekicks on NBC and other network/cable sitcoms, and second bananas co-starring in Judd Apatow-type movies, to come on Jay's show for a week at a time and star in stuff -- sketches, skits, spoofs, and other updated but low-brow Carol Burnett Show-type shtick -- to help fill time and get Leno through what's going to be the dragging 10:30 PM to 11 PM half-hour. These young and old and quirky types will be like swigs of Red Bull for the mainstream audience. (With or without the cocaine.)
Finally, rescue Amy Poehler from that loser Parks And Recreation (which I hear may start changing its dreadful mockumentary style) and make her Leno's permanent sidekick equal. Women love her. And since most guys are too busy playing video games or watching internet porn to even sample Leno in primetime, you'll need females to tune in. (Just don't glam up Amy. You morons will make her look like a $10 hooker. Or, worse, Chelsea Handler.) When Jay starts whining like the pussy he is, tell him to man up and shut up.
This is a start. I'm sure DHD commenters will come up with more suggestions.
Jay already singed the contract, his fault.
Between Leno and Letterman, Leno's the lesser of two evils, but Jay's not half the business man that Letterman is.
Jay should have taken the ABC offer. He, like Letterman, could then have owned his own show and started working just four days a week. I would love to read Leno's new contract. I bet hit keeps him going to ABC for a while if/when his primetime gig fails
O’Brien’s act has always been lame, he is only funny to idiots.
Do you find Leno funny?
The house that Johnny built is just about ready for the demo ball.
A lot more so than O’Brien. I’m not a TV junky anyway, but I could get through a Leno show. O’Brien is like a grade schooler telling potty jokes, his act is just plain simple minded. His disrespect for religion is disgusting. I never saw that with Leno.
“O’Brien’s act has always been lame, he is only funny to idiots.”
I totally agree with you, for I can not look at Conan and laugh. He is ugly like a young Larry King, and he thinks people will laugh when he just jumps up and down or turns his head from side to side. He literally makes me sick.
Confidential to NBC execs: “What the hell were you thinking?”
Whatever the CBS execs were thinking when they signed Katie Couric.
I’ll tell you the real problem that goes far beyond Jay and Conan... it’s the guests. The celebrities themselves have become less and less interesting (and less talented and well-overrated) over the years, most of them have nothing to offer and are often mindless morons and it’s just painful to watch (and that’s BEFORE you even get to what passes for “musical talent” today, which is beyond execrable).
If you ever see an old “Best of Carson”, even their worst shows featured guests you didn’t mind seeing, the “Old Hollywood” types. Most of those folks are almost all dead now, or long since retired. About the only one left worth watching is Don Rickles. His interactions with Carson were classic (remember when Don broke Johnny’s cigarette case and Johnny crashed Rickles’s set ?). There’s just almost nothing on these talk shows today that rises to that level of talent and entertainment.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3niwv_johnny-carson-confronts-don-rickles_fun
Here’s the segment. They don’t get much better than this.
I don’t like this move by NBC to put Leno on primetime.
It was done so he wouldn’t go to ABC and take his audience with him. If they wanted to keep him then why did they agree years ago to turn the TS over to Conan? (it was to keep Conan from defecting).
Now you have five less hours of primetime shows on NBC, they canceled “Medium” a show with pretty good ratings and CBS will now air it. I think it will all backfire on 4th place NBC and cement their poor position. I bet reruns of CBS shows will still beat Leno at 10/9 central especially if he’s barred from having a-list guests (which is retarded).
Never watched the show much but this isn’t surprising.
Conan reminds me of Gumby and that is scary. Reason enough not to watch. I’ll take Leno over him and Letterman any day.
Cigarette box? Cotton mill!? Interrupting another show that I’ve never of heard of’s taping?
Who was that guy on the show with Carson at the time who told him what happened?
I was never that hot about Leno as it was. I always thought he was too much a suck-up. I liked the edgier Letterman, but I cooled enormously to him several years after he switched to CBS. His politics are so vicious now, he’s only a notch below Maher in offensiveness. I just don’t find him entertaining anymore. He’s just a bitter, unfunny old man.
I liked Tom Snyder after he followed Letterman (I was too young to watch when he preceded Letterman prior to 1981), but he’s gone now. I think something was lost after the Talk Show Wars of the early ‘90s.
I had hoped that when he moved to the earlier time slot, he would stop doing immature crap, like that asinine thing where he pulls on his pants legs with 'invisible' strings, or just makes strange noises for no apparent reason.
I guess I'm going to switch to Letterman.
The networks tried to shoehorn Rickles into situation comedies, all of which failed (Johnny’s bitter retort while they were shooting proved true, though his “un-PC” comment to Rickles’ black co-star, Harrison Page, didn’t end up so, since he remains an active character actor today after 4 decades in the business). The show Johnny interrupted was “C.P.O. Sharkey”, which was around 1976-78 (lasted a season and a half). I saw the reruns back on the old “Ha !” channel that preceded Comedy Central. The show would be completely forgotten today were it not for the cigarette box incident.
The man sitting next to Carson on the sidekick spot was Doc Severinsen, the Tonight Show’s band leader. Severinsen would fill in as sidekick when Ed McMahon was indisposed.
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