Seinfeld Doesn't Like Talk Shows

Jerry Seinfeld explains why he doesn't like doing talk shows and probably won't be on them in the future.



I don't think there's anything particularly interesting, funny or revelatory here, exactly. I think it's no secret that talk shows do pre-interviews. It's just a matter of degree. And there are pros and cons each way.

Letterman, on one end of the spectrum, didn't rely on the pre-interview hardly at all and the result was a genuine conversation that might be boring, might be awkward or might be amazing.

On the other end of the spectrum is Conan, who'll always get the funny interview but it's utterly artificial. Anytime you hear questions like "You were on vacation recently, I wonder if you enjoy foreign breakfasts." or "You're pretty popular, I bet you have some interesting conversations with toll booth operators", it should be obvious to anyone on the planet who's given it even a second of thought that this is not a real conversation - he knows there's a funny story there and he wants the monkey to dance.

Late Night's 100th Episode And I'm Outta Here

On Monday, Late Night with Seth Meyers celebrated its 100th episode. I've watched every minute of every episode and I've tried to post the highlights of the show here. Given that the number of highlights has been maybe one or two clips over the span of 100 hours of television, you can imagine what I think of the show.

The internet is replete with antipathy (or so I've heard). There are "h8ers" and "trolls" and "this person OWNS this other person" and most things seem to "suck" in one way or another. I don't think this iteration of Late Night sucks, I don't even think it's bad. It's just not very funny either.

So I've watched all 100 episodes but I'm stopping here.

The big cautionary tale in this area is when Conan O'Brien took over Late Night. The show was not very funny, Conan got the reputation of not being funny and the show was consistently in danger of being cancelled. And look at him now.

But Conan's failure was a different kind of failure. Conan was trying new and extremely experimental types of comedy and the danger of experiments is that they often blow up in your face. In the early years Conan was striking out but he would go down swinging. If I saw that with Seth Meyers I'd be completely on board. But I don't see that. I don't see anything new, groundbreaking or even very interesting. It's just "safe" and on an even keel all the time. It's middle-of-the-road. It's a type of talk show that takes all the tremendous highs and lows of trying new things - things that may "hit" but may "bomb" - and flattens them all out into comedy that's always slightly amusing.

Seth Meyers' show reminds me a lot of Jack Paar, which means I should love it. But Paar told stories with more emotion which evoked heightened reactions. Paar added weight to the show by inviting politicians on and asking them probing, even challenging, questions (contrast that with the dumbed-down lovefest that Meyers recently had with Nancy Pelosi... or better yet, don't). Most importantly, Jack Paar had Jonathan Winters. And if Seth Meyers ever gets anyone like Jonathan Winters I'll be right there watching again.

Late Night - Keith Morrison

This is arguably the first funny comedy bit on Late Night with Seth Meyers. The premise is: NBC wants Seth to be friends with other people in the NBC family so they set him up on play dates. In this episode, he hangs out with Dateline's Keith Morrison.

Oh nooooooo.

Late Night - Second Chance Theatre

Last night Late Night aired the first truly innovative segment in the Seth Meyers era. It's called "Second Chance Theatre".

It works like this: Seth Meyers was, for a long time, the headwriter at Saturday Night Live and in his tenure there he had the job of deciding which skits work and which don't in order to determine what gets into the actual show. There were quite a few times where a writer was SURE that a skit was funny but Seth disagreed and vetoed it. Now that he has his own show, he's inviting various cast members back to actually perform their rejected sketches and give them a chance to convince the audience that what they wrote actually had merit.

The first episode of Second Chance Theater is Will Forte's sketch "Jennjamin Franklin". I'm not embedding it, if you want to see it it's here, but I'm not going to post it directly because it's actually more disturbing than funny. But what I did enjoy much more is the "after show" where the creators discuss the sketch and how they thought it went.

Turns out I'm not going to embed that video either because hulu is broken. You can watch it here.

Reaction to Letterman

I was stalling this post in order to include Conan's reaction. But, oddly, in his first show back, Conan didn't say anything.

So here's Jimmy Fallon's reaction to the announcement:



And here's Seth Meyers:



Strange that Seth Meyers said it best but even stranger that Conan said nothing at all.

Late Night - Episode #2

Can you imagine if I posted a review for every episode of Late Night? Don't worry.

Just a few notes. It's only the second episode and still it was a huge improvement over the first. The monologue was much more conversational and the yelling has been almost completely eliminated. It seemed he still had a tendency to attempt it and had to consciously make an effort to ratchet it back.

The comedy piece was one where "audience members" stand up and start complaining about the show to Seth. Sure, it's not a groundbreaking concept but it was pleasantly reminiscent of Conan's Late Night.

The first guest was Kanye West - a notoriously tricky interview but it was handled well.

Overall, much, much, better. I still have to question whether I really want to commit to three talk shows every weekday but it's at least more tempting than it was yesterday. There's definite potential here.

The Late Night Premiere

The first episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers premiered tonight and the future is uncertain.

Late night talk shows almost always start slow, they almost always take time to find their groove and get the proper footing. So I don't think anyone can predict anything from just the first show. However it did have noticeable weaknesses.

What should have been the obvious strength of the show was a huge weakness. Seth Meyers comes from the "Weekend Update" desk at Saturday Night Live so making jokes about the news is second nature at this point. But that's also the problem. The monologue is supposed to be direct communication to the audience - it's supposed to be conversational - Seth belted out the jokes in exactly the same "fake newscaster" style that he's been doing on "Weekend Update". Everything he said sounded like yelling and the jokes suffered. That's an easy fix though so hopefully it happens.

Over to desk chat: more yell-talking. The band is also a bit strange, one of the members is Fred Armisen (which would be a bonus) but there's some strange arrangement where he's going to be in the band some of the time but often leave to do other things, I don't know how it works. The comedy was standard cheap late night stuff but at least he stopped yelling for them. The interviews (Amy Poehler and Joe Biden) were fine if a little low on energy.

And that's the show. In summary, it felt like Steps 1-5 on how to do a talk show. It's as if they're simply going through the motions of filling up network time with no passion for originality or personality. I want to emphasize again that the long-term success of a talk show is just about impossible to predict. But right now the point is more about whether I'm suitably interested in following it nightly. I don't see anything to grab onto thus far.

As of now the episode isn't available online. When it is, you'll find it here.

Edit: To be totally fair to the new Late Night, my viewing of it may have been affected by the news that I may have just lost a large sum of money. That isn't good for entertainment, surely. That's a whole other story. You can watch the show and decide for yourself anyway.

The Last Episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Friday was the last episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Watch it here.

Total Number of Episodes: 969.
Last Guest: Andy Samberg.
Last Musical Guest: Arguably Buckwheat Zydeco.
Last Guest Performance: The Muppets.

The last episode has a strange feel to it - the timing is off and Jimmy doesn't have any "punch" in the jokes because he's constantly verging on becoming "emotional". But the weight of the moment justifies it.

Speaking of "the weight"... the last segments of the "last shows" are part of TV history and lore. Jack Paar's "Come on, Lika... we're going home", Johnny Carson on the stool, etc.

In terms of "Late Night", when Letterman left Late Night, the last segment, he sat behind the desk and spoke to the audience. Conan's last segment on Late Night was the similar. Jimmy's bucked the trend (perhaps partly because he wouldn't be able to get through it without becoming a weeping mess). Instead of a speech, he performs The Band's "The Weight" with the Muppets and does it in a loving recreation of the version that appears in the movie "The Last Waltz".



"The Last Waltz" is a concert movie that covers The Band's last concert. The parallels with the situation of Jimmy's last show are obvious. Jimmy plays drums and plays on an identical set to Levon Helm's drum set in that movie. Jimmy grew up in upstate New York, not far from Levon's adopted home. I love that they got all the little touches right. The lighting is the same, the colors are the same, the recreation is so complete they even mimic Scorceses style of rotating around the musicians in tracking shots. Compare. I obviously love it. It's a great way to say goodbye.

The first episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon airs February 17th 2014.
Late Night with Seth Meyers starts February 24th 2014.

Late Night - The Passing of the Pickle

It's a Late Night tradition that when a new host takes over, the Late Night Pickle gets passed to the new regime. In about a month, Jimmy Fallon becomes the new host of the Tonight Show and Seth Meyers will be the new host of Late Night***. And so it's time to pass the pickle.


On a personal note, I think Seth Meyers is a funny guy but I'm not sure whether I'll be watching his show. We'll see what happens...

*** All of this is dependent upon NBC not acting as stupidly as NBC usually acts and also upon Jay Leno actually going away this time. Are we really confident this will happen? I'm not.

Seth Meyers to Host Late Night

It was announced that Seth Meyers will take over hosting "Late Night" in the spring of 2014. Personally, I'm not excited but I wasn't excited about Jimmy Fallon either and that turned out OK