A message from Jim:
Some of you may have figured out not to take every comment I make too seriously. Therefore when someone says "Hey, why don't we go see Leno?" I might respond, "Because he's not funny."
What I probably should say is "Tickets for his show are available the day of the show only at the NBC Ticket Box, which opens at 8:00 a.m. All available tickets are distributed to the public on a first come, first-served two (2) tickets per person basis." That makes it almost impossible for me to secure the required number of tickets and the line begins much earlier than 6:00 a.m.
Because I field these questions every single year, I have a bad habit of now answering some of them in less than informative ways. If the Tonight Show was as easy to get into as Kimmel or Mahr, we would probably be going to the Tonight Show, if only because of its rich history.
I don't think Leno's political humor is quite as fresh as some of the others -- its tamer and safer -- and he's never introduced a single comedy innovation in his decades on the Tonight Show -- compared to early Letterman, or Conan O'Brien, Colbert (look what he's done in terms of interaction with the internet), etc. A history of late night talk shows would describe Leno as solid, consistent but hardly inspiring. (That doesn't mean he's not funnier than Letterman -- that's a taste question -- but he's not as influential to the format of the talk show ) But with all that said (and it's not like this is only my opinion, in terms of TV criticism), we're not NOT going to Leno because of any of this -- the devil is once again in the details.
1 comment:
I read this in NYMag a few weeks ago, and I thought it was a really interesting piece on Leno and Letterman. It's somewhat neutral and insightful.
http://nymag.com/arts/tv/features/43266/
I don't know if this post was hypothetical or if someone actually mentioned Leno. It wasn't me. Maybe this post has nothing to do with me at all and it's kind of narcissistic of me to think it might. Actually, that probably is the case...
But just so you know, I know that when I say something about my personal views on Conan's late night superiority or Guiliani or my ridiculous Oscar voting scheme, I can expect some sort of wry response. And that's more than OK with me because I'm not one to remain quiet if the situation were reverse.
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