For those of you who want to learn about the Late Night wars of Leno vs. Letterman, there is no better resource than Bill Carter's book "The Late Shift."
But if you don't want to commit hours and hours of reading time, the "Why Are You Laughing?" podcast is perhaps the second best source of information.
The book was turned into a made-for-tv movie also (same name), for those of you who would prefer that. But that's a distant 3rd place, as the movie is less informative and a bit cheesy.
But, as above, if books aren't for you, the following podcast has you covered. There has been no made-for-tv movie about this topic, to my knowledge, but can you imagine?
If you'd like to read my book review of "The War for Late Night" see here.
As a self-proclaimed expert, I have my disagreements and differences with the podcast, just as I do with the TV movie. But they're mainly minor quibbles and who cares anyway? I enjoy their fresh perspective shedding light on my own.
Recently, youtube was suggesting old NBA playoff games to me and a thought occurred to me... I wondered could I go back and watch every Chicago Bulls playoff game of the "Jordan era" (loosely defining the Jordan era as 1991-1998). So I started, as all projects do, by creating an excel spreadsheet, listing all the games and all the rounds of the first year. Then I searched for, found and watched the first game on youtube. Then, I repeated the process for the second game, once that series was over, I went to the second round, once that year was over, I sent to the second year, and so forth. Once I got to 1992 I thought I might skip to a parallel track and watch all the Dream Team Olympic games. Once that was done, I figured I step backward and watch the rest of their games leading up to the Olympics.
I'm here to say that, having watched all of these games, every single one was available to watch on youtube. So if you have a particular NBA playoff game, series, team, era, whatever and you want to revisit it, I think you can. I've been wondering if this is true for other sports and also, for the NBA, how many eras. I don't know, all I know is I haven't failed on a single game yet.
Here are a few thoughts on the NBA in the 90's. It was a glorious era, first of all. But as glorious as basketball can be, Bill Walton as a color man makes it almost unwatchable. He's the worst. I thought about making an entire blog post about just this topic. It was a unique viewing experience when even Walton's fellow commentators started pointing out how stupid his statements were. You don't see that a lot. It was fascinating at first and then I just felt sorry for- for everyone. Bill Walton at the mic almost ruins basketball completely. Fortunately for me, he really only really affected one year (1997) but, depending on your favorite era, you may not be so lucky.
Another thing I was thinking was that the "NBA on NBC" theme is played before Every Single Commercial Break and sometimes going to commercial. It's one of the great themes of all-time but so many times per game for 149 games, I stopped really hearing it and it sort of lost all meaning.
I was thinking next I'm going to try watching the NCAA Basketball Tournament for particular years and teams. I also might try the 1996 Dream Team games.
Todd Levin is a former writer for Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. He wrote an article for GQ about what it was like during the Conan/NBC debacle called "I Was with Coco. It's pretty interesting but not a ton of new information... Read it in full here.
The book obviously centers on the events which took the Tonight Show away from Leno to give it to Conan, the disaster known as "The Jay Leno Show", and then the events which took the Tonight Show back from Conan to give it to Leno. But it also thoroughly explores how the situation was set up by events and personalities years before as well as the conclusion of the battle where Conan goes to TBS. Every personality and event is covered step-by-step. It goes through all the Machiavellian machinations from the NBC executives, the affiliates, the lawyers, the press, mistakes made with the contracts and, of course, the thoughts and actions of the stars themselves. It also goes into some of the recent history and the reactions by the other talk show hosts, particularly Letterman, but also Kimmel, Kilborn, Fallon, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
The book is an extremely well done and extremely insightful fly-on-the-wall insight into all the executive whispers, back room deals, show business politics and just general chaos that transpired within NBC and out to the other networks as well. Reading the book, it quickly becomes apparent that the author either had incredible connections and interviews or simply likes to makes stuff up (but of course, his reputation and risk of lawsuit precludes the latter). Which is exactly what I wanted out of it - when Conan and his producer go in an office and shut the door, the trail doesn't stop there, you get the spoken dialog of the discussion. The tone is also extremely even-handed - Leno is not made out to be a demon, and Conan isn't made out to be a victim - the book presents the viewpoints and insights of a wide array of "show biz insiders" and allows the viewer to judge.
This isn't a life-changing book or one that will greatly expand your understanding of the universe; the rating or recommendation is simply a matter of interest in the subject matter. If you don't find the Late Night battle an interesting topic, there's no reason for you to read this book, but if you're like me, this is mandatory reading. But (chuckles) you don't have to take my word for it...
High Pitched 8 Year Old: DO YOU LIKE BOOKS ABOUT PINHEAD NETWORK EXECUTIVES? IF SO, THEN "THE WAR FOR LATE NIGHT" IS FOR YOU! When the story begins, executives at NBC are stuck with a problem: how do you keep two of your stars happy if they both want the same show?!
[Illustration of a man peering into a cave with a flashlight]
They think they have a solution by moving one of them to primetime but it turns out to be a bad idea and it makes their affiliates mad!
[Illustration of a bear running away from a cloud of bees]
What can they DO? Could the answer be found in the small print of their contracts?!
[Illustration of a farmer hauling watermelon in a pickup truck]
I'M NOT GOING TO TELL WHAT HAPPENS NEXT BUT IF YOU LIKE STORIES ABOUT PR WARS AND THREATS OF LITIGATION, THEN GO TO YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY AND REQUEST A COPY OF "THE WAR FOR LATE NIGHT"! YOU'LL BE GLAD YOU DID!
Well, given how devastated we Philies fans are, I figured I'd make a post to help get us through the darkness. But before I do that, let's dwell on the negative first.
Our team lost to a team who has a fat guy playing third base.
OUR TEAM LOST TO A TEAM WHO FIELDS A FAT GUY AT THIRD BASE. Look at this guy:
We lost to that guy. No team should ever lose an athletic competition when the other team has a fat guy. Would you lose a 100 yard dash to Rerun from "What's Happening!!"? No, you wouldn't. You might lose a dancing competition, but not a sprint. So painful. And I didn't even mention that their best pitcher is a 14-year-old homeless girl. FACT. Ugh.
So onwards and upwards, I s'pose.
First, as bad as this loss is, and as pathetic I am for investing so much emotion into a sports team, we can all take much comfort in the fact that our patheticness (a word?) isn't even close to the level that this guy achieves:
Jimmy Kimmel was a guest on Letterman last night and it delivered exactly what I was hoping for: a discussion on the "Jay Leno Scandal".
The whole interview was funny and quite entertaining though. Last night felt like it should be called "The Twitter Show" as Dave fired up his "twitter machine" and sent tweets all throughout the night. Not during commercials though - he would be talking to a guest, go silent, turn around to the other side of his desk, hunch over the keyboard and type right in the middle of an interview. I almost feel like I subscribe to his tweets just by watching the show. The following were tweeted during the show:
2400 dollars for a wax figure? Hell, I got that on me. Ha Ha!
1:18 PM Mar 16th via web
"My nephew done ate six pieces of chicken already"
1:03 PM Mar 16th via web
"Everything's in slow motion"
12:52 PM Mar 16th via web
Testing. Testing!
12:49 PM Mar 16th via web
He has problems with slow typing though. Apparently they got him a left-handed keyboard.
It's officially been over a year since Jimmy Fallon began hosting "Late Night" and for most of that time his dream has been to finally reunite the cast of "Saved By The Bell". He has failed and admitted defeat. But now, his new dream is to reunite the cast of the NBC Saturday morning show "California Dreams".
The attempt was not without controversy and not without a shirtless dude. Also, with the "California Dreams" reunion, I expected a great time at the beach... sans Mr. Belding... Let's watch...
Can I make a suggestion? The next show reunion needs to be, absolutely HAS TO BE the NBC Saturday morning show "Hang Time". Make it happen.
Tonight (Friday) on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is the premiere episode of the new show "Late" a sci-fi drama about a group of people whose elevator crashes on a deserted floor.
With the move of the show to LA, Late Night Producer Jordan Schlansky is/was in the market to buy a house. In the first of these segments he discusses with Conan what he's looking for. In the second, he meets a Realtor and goes looking. There should be more of these but this was it. Perhaps he bought a house, perhaps they just decided to stop. Who knows what will happen now that the show is in complete limbo.
Both are hilarious and feature an increasingly rare phenomenon: Conan hangs out with Jordan and doesn't get drunk.
Jordan Discusses His Needs:
[Video Deleted by NBC]
Jordan and Conan Go House Shopping:
[Video Deleted by NBC]
I've been thinking of this post for a while as it's one of the great highlights of the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. But now that I started, it seems NBC has deleted all Tonight Show content from Hulu. Is this a smart television practice? When Johnny Carson "left" the Tonight Show did NBC hire an intern to go around and erase every Johnny Carson tape in the archive so that no one would ever see them again?
I do at least have the clips on my computer. However that does nothing for my blog. It's also nice that clips from Hulu account for almost the entirety of my blog. I have to rethink the whole thing.
NBC makes free money off of online viewings of its already "bought and paid for" content so they're essentially - as a business, mind you - choosing to not make money. Why didn't NBC leave the videos, collect the money and quickly set fire to it? Because that wouldn't screw over their viewers.
Michael Strahan is a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. For him, The Roots play "The Space Between" by Dave Mathews Band. The lyrics were slightly tweaked however so that "the space between" refers to the gap in Strahan's teeth. Clever. The smooth song was punctuated with a shouted ending of "E-A-G-L-E-S! EAGLES!!!"
[Michael Strahan walks on and notices the Eagles logo bass drum]
Strahan: You know what, I see the Eagles drum Jimmy and I know that you're a big Jets fan. I respect the eagles, man, they were good for about five sacks a season.
Crowd: Oooooooooooooh!
Questlove: Kinda like your sitcom, huh?
Crowd: OOOOOH!
Strahan: We were good for about thirteen episodes! About as many albums as you sold last time.
Crowd: Ooooooh!
On a side note, how much crack do you have to inject directly into your brain to think that a sitcom starring Michael Strahan is a good idea? I mean, it's friggin Michael friggin' Strahan on the friggin' frig! My word. Bad language aside, they're still doing better than NBC.
Or in other words, Jimmy Kimmel talks about the recent Oprah interview with Jay Leno where they discuss Jimmy Kimmel's appearance on Leno's show.
In some ways I feel bad for Leno because it really is NBC that's to blame for the entire mess but even if Jimmy Kimmel is going too far, it is entertaining to watch him go too far.
Not seen in this video: Oprah criticizes personal jokes Leno made about Letterman as being "beneath [him]". You go girl! I kind of disagree, I've watched Leno make unfunny offensive jokes for years. Leno's viewing audience doesn't complain (or perhaps register) that the jokes are offensive probably for the same reason that they don't complain that the jokes are unfunny.
Earlier on his show, Leno had said, "Letterman has been hammering me every night. You know the best way to get Letterman to ignore you? Marry him. He will not bother you. He won't look you in the eye." And then later said that Letterman's attacks surprised him because, "usually he's just taking shots at the interns."
The most surprising thing about the "counter-attack" is that Letterman didn't really attack him in the first place. He's been talking about the drama pretty consistently but has been very impartial and even defended Leno saying that Leno hadn't done anything wrong. He does, however, refer to him as "Jay 'Big Jaw' Leno" and imitate him in a high, whiny voice. But even so, that level of immature mockery doesn't call for personal, vitriolic attacks in my opinion.
With the end of his show imminent, Conan decides to write sketches that aren't so much "funny" as they are crazy expensive in order to waste as much NBC money as possible.
With this idea, Conan presents the most expensive comedy character ever - the Bugatti Veyron Mouse with special "theme song" - the original master recording of "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones:
The theme song means that the video can not be uploaded online because of the copyright licensing issues.
The next night Conan revealed the most expensive comedy skit ever:
This skit only held the record for one day, however, as it was surpassed the next night by this "comedy" sketch:
The Most Expensive Comedy Sketch In The World Ever
I especially got a kick out of Conan's disclaimer to the people on the internet that it was all fake because I had earlier read one of those articles. [Here I planned on linking the exact article but I was unable to re-find it. Any search will turn up similar examples.] Ah, the media. They're supposed to be our eyes and ears but it helps if they have a brain also.
A while ago you might recall seeing the Chinese news animation of the Tiger Woods scandal. If you haven't, see it here, now.
But the hard-hitting reporters of the Chinese media have a new late-breaking story to cover: the recent late-night talk show wars. Like the Tiger Woods video, this is an actual news broadcast - this is absolutely real.
I would love to have more insight into the Chinese culture to be able to explain why they supply Sims-style reenactment videos for their stories but I'm as dumbfounded as the next guy. Even if we all lived in a Sims game, do we really need people represented as comic book heroes in a battle royale?
Last night was the last "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" ever. You can still see it for a limited time here.
From June 1, 2009 to January 22, 2010, the show lasted 7 months, 21 days and aired 146 episodes totaling 150 Hours, 52 Minutes of programming (counting commercials). I watched every single show.
I found the last episode oddly emotional. I mean, Conan isn't retiring, he doesn't have a terminal illness, he's still making tons of money, it only lasted 7 months - there isn't that much loss to really "mourn" over but nevertheless, I did feel very sad and nostalgic throughout the entire hour. The montage of great moments was a particular mix of laughter and melancholy. Seeing Wax Tom Cruise and Wax Fonzie being shot out of a cannon, Conan pool cleaning, Conan and Andy boating, the motorized podium, smashing the pumpkin, and so on, was liking looking through a photo album (yes, even though it's only a show that lasted 7 months).
Tom Hanks was good, Neil Young was good, Steve Carrell was funny. Conan's goodbye speech was especially good even though he did just do one 7 months ago. I can't decide if Will Ferrell playing with Beck, Billy Gibbons, Ben Harper and Conan, himself, was epic or kind of a waste of time. Probably it was a little of both. I love the song, the musicians and the return of "more cowbell" but I couldn't help but wish that there was an amazing singer to match the amazing music. The "comedic" aspect of it just didn't seem worth it.
Given that the show runs past midnight, the last show ended January 23, 2010 - the 5 year anniversary of Johnny Carson's death to the day.
There's no telling where Conan will end up - though it looks to me like FOX - or when he'll start airing shows - though all reports speculate that it will be MONTHS - but I'll be watching.
A final note about NBC: I made a joke before about them running their network like "Kruger Industrial Smoothing" and I have to say that doesn't even feel like an exaggeration. When Johnny Carson was on the air NBC basically had 100% of the audience. The other networks didn't even pretend to think that they could compete. When he retired, NBC took the good fortune of having the agreed upon rightful heir to the throne, David Letterman. Faced with a slam dunk, NBC decided to screw everyone and send Letterman to another network. So now they have %50 (let's say) instead of 100%. That's a bad business model and a huge public blunder but they learned an important lesson and moved on. Oh, no, wait, because 20 years later with a new, young, innovative host, they decide to piss him off too and send him to another network and now they can have, at best, 33% of the audience and a major P.R. nightmare where people generally think they (and their "new" host) are evil. A ratings share cut into three, an old and soon to be retired host, an ageing demographic, increased competition, bad press, it all sounds like good, solid planning.
In a nutshell, NBC's decision was "these ratings aren't good enough, let's cut them in half." Until such point that 2+2=5, there's no way that can make business sense. And yet somehow it happened. The most legendary franchise, the home of Steve Allen, Jack Paar and Johnny Carson is officially dead.
Epilogue: A lot happened in over the past week or so and there won't be any more Conan for a while so I'll probably post past clips from the show periodically.
In this Episode: Dave explains the modern history of NBC's late night schedule up to the present day and proposes his own homespun solution to the current problem. Still no idea what to do about Carson Daly.
