A random collection of commentary on the 1990s, sports, pop culture, video games, journalism, writing and ego. You know, like every other blog in existence. Except written by me. Oh, and also, my cat wrote a few entries too.
I’m pretty tough to play trivia games against. By that, I mean that my friends tend to get frustrated, since I continually answer obscure and random questions. Back when one of my friends had a Trivial Pursuit 1990s edition, I had to answer all the questions on a single card in order to get a pie piece.
My supernatural skills raised their head again this past week, when I was dominating a game of Scene It Second Edition trivia. Sure, I had never played before, but why should that stop me from doing really, really well?
The rules of the game help a player of my talents. Because a good portion of the questions are free-for-alls, I was able to out-answer a couple of the other players. It also helped that I was the oldest person playing, at 27. (That still doesn’t explain why I was able to answer questions about “Fast Eddie” Felson, since that movie came out in 1961.)
In contrast, I really struggled when we played Pass The Popcorn. It’s essentially Trivial Pursuit with just movie questions, but you can really minimize a better player because of the categories. (Basically, you’re allowed to swap category cards each time it’s your turn. This meant that people would just keep swapping until they didn’t have a card that matched mine or my friend Lisa’s, the other strong player in the game.)
Also, this whole post reminds me that I still haven't found anyone to play Scene It SNL or Simpsons against me. I have both games, but challengers have been tough to come by. Curses.
I'm home early, so I thought I'd throw in a few links to things I like. For example, the above image is from my Southern friend Kristi, who got it from this funny site.
- I've always been a big fan of Dana Carvey, since I was a kid, in fact. One of his best impressions is of Johnny Carson, another one of my favorites. Although the audio is synced oddly, you can get him at his best at this YouTube link. It's one of the clips they don't really show all that often on the SNL Best Ofs, so I heartily recommend it.
- I belatedly recommended Vampire Weekend yesterday, so I'll try for another band today: The Wombats. Their most popular song would be the literally-named "Let's Dance To Joy Division".
- However, the above I realize is just the song, and not an actual music video. I love music videos as an art form. One of my favorites that you would never, ever see on MTV now is "Elektrobank" by The Chemical Brothers. As a warning, it is kind of long at 5 minutes, 47 seconds, and it is techno. It is nifty at telling a little story in this short time frame though, and one that syncs well to the music of the song. It is one of Spike Jonze's works, if that helps sway your opinion.
- A thing I really like that I always forget about: light gun games. Tonight, in honor of my birthday, I'm playing some Time Crisis 3. Like four years ago, I got that game AND the gun NEW for like $30! It was at one of those music stores in the Wakefield Mall that does not know how to properly price games at all, because right next to it, they had Bugz or some other crap for $40. Oh well, their loss! I also have Time Crisis 2 (not as good) and Vampire Night (cheesy but kind of fun). Some sort of House of the Dead game is on my GameFly list for the Wii, since I didn't realize until like two weeks ago that the Wii-mote would be PERFECT for light gun gaming.
- And to close things out, another image from that card site from my buddy Mike (not Smith):
All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism - it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. - Conan O'Brien, courtesy of this site.
Because I need some closure on this whole matter, this will be my last post on the late night fiasco for a while, and as a result, I'm going to try to cover all of my bases on it. Let's start on the micro level with Conan's last episode of The Tonight Show, and work our way to examining the scene as a whole.
In case you missed it, I believe the entire last episode is now available on Hulu, here. It was a bizarre but high note for the show to end on, with a surprise appearance by Steve Carrell, and other guests, including Will Ferrell, Tom Hanks, Neil Young and Beck. The best singular moment was an oddly-touching montage of the show's short seven months, set to, of all things, "Surrender" by Cheap Trick.
The episode got a 4.8, according to the article I cited above for the video clip, which was about quadruple his normal rating, and a really high number for a late night show. Frankly, I wasn't surprised it was so high, since plenty of people were leaving comments on my Facebook status as I was watching the show. And, the final episode has gotten near universal praise, both from the Internetz and from my friends I've talked to about it. Throughout the episode, at least in my opinion, there was a feeling that something "special" was happening. The only other times I have gotten that same feeling have been from live sporting events - Game Seven of the 2004 ALDS (Red Sox crush the Yankees and complete the biggest comeback in sports history), Game Four of the 2004 World Series, and Game Five of the Eastern Conference Finals, when LeBron James willed his team to victory.
Because of the feeling I got from Conan's final show, I think he's going to be OK regardless of whether he ends up. I outlined some of the options the other day, and I still think that FOX is the most likely destination. They're the only major network that 1) would have the proper time slot open and 2) could meet his salary demands. If he's willing to take a major pay cut, then I could see him sneak on to FX or Comedy Central or USA. I frankly don't think he will end up on HBO, Showtime or Cinemax, simply because the exposure would be so much smaller. Yeah, The Larry Sanders Show was great, and nobody ever effing saw it. The premium cable outlets would just have to blow him away with cash.
Let's turn our focus now to the real villains of our story - NBC. They just completely mismanaged the entire situation, from start to finish. The original sin was essentially forcing Jay Leno in 2004 to agree to vacate The Tonight Show in 2009. Although there is no way for me to validate this, at the time I thought, "There is no way in Hell that Leno will give up his show."
At the crux of this thought was my knowledge of how he had originally gotten the job - by busting his ass. I don't think anyone questions that Leno is one of the hardest working men in show business, and he got The Tonight Show from under Letterman by 1) having an aggressive, hard-nosed business manager and 2) working much, much harder than Letterman behind the scenes to get the job.
Unfortunately though, this doesn't change the fact that Leno isn't a great late night host, and he won't ever be, not even if he works at it for another 22 years. Leno is a C- student who, because of his work ethic, grades out at about B+. Regardless of how hard he tries, and I do think he tries very hard, he will never be known as a legendary performer. If Carson is the gold standard, and I do consider him as such, Letterman and O'Brien and Stewart and Colbert at least echo him from time to time. Leno is a straight derivative, a TV dinner version of a great meal, similar but completely unsatisfying when compared to the original.
I don't believe that Leno is completely innocent in all of this. He knew how much Conan wanted The Tonight Show, and Leno agreeing to go back to 11:35 after he failed at 10 is why this whole ball got rolling. If Leno instead said, "No, I can't do that to Conan," then I wouldn't be typing this blog post. I would instead be typing about how Leno was going to some cable network to finish his washed-up career, similar to how Willie Mays finished with the Mets and Muhammad Ali got his brains knocked out by Larry Holmes. It's great to talk about how Leno had some great value to other networks, but his show at 10 was doing ridiculously bad ratings in the 1s and 2s. If NBC just straight fired him, he was so devalued from his brief foray into 10 p.m. that I'm not sure who picks him up. His type of humor is wrong for everything but TBS.
Therefore, it's puzzling to me why NBC bent over backwards to accommodate Leno. Yes, he will be back on in the fall, and the ratings will probably be passable, because he won't have himself as a lead-in, like Conan did. By the way, need proof that lead-ins matter? In Rhode Island, WJAR led the nightly news ratings for 16 years. It finally lost the title this year, as local rival WPRI saw a surge of 20 percent, and WJAR saw a fall of 35 percent. The change was from actual programming at 10 to Leno, which has a carryover effect for the news, and no doubt has an effect on Letterman and Conan's ratings. Was it the sole thing responsible for the change? Probably not, but NBC Corporate is completely unwilling to even acknowledge that this would affect the ratings of The Tonight Show, because doing so would be acknowledging that they fucked up every single aspect of their late night programming.
Part two, where I look at other late night hosts, coming later...
Back in the day, when Johnny Carson went on vacation, he would have Joan Rivers fill in as the guest host. Well, in an effort to lighten my writing load from seven entries a week to six, former Tag Team participant Amanda Meyer will be doing an entry every Saturday about the various crazy stories she has. I'm also not opposed to farming Sunday out, so if you're interested, shoot me an e-mail at sgre6768@gmail.com.
Here is my crazy roommate story as promised, which has somehow turned into a rant about Free Credit Report ads...
Anyone with cable has probably heard at least one of the many FreeCreditReport.com ads. You know, that geeky guy sings really awful jingles about how he didn't know that his "credit was whack." I find these songs very annoying, although catchy, and really hate when they get stuck in my head all day as they often did for a whole year while I was living in East Boston.
You see, my roommate did not find these annoying, she somehow found them awesome. I am sad to say, I now know each by heart...
She loved them so much they were on her iTunes, and she would sometimes start playing them during parties. This was always an awkward situation to explain to friends, and generally, they all ended up thinking she was crazy. I don't know what it is, but I seem to have odd luck when it comes to roommates.
However, in this situation I actually went from finding these ads annoying to downright wanting to throw objects through my television when they came on. Not only is the character singing clearly being dubbed over, he looks like he almost never showers and tends to make beyond-goofy facial expressions, which are a huge turn off from an advertising standpoint.
Furthermore, these are misleading ads and that is one of the first things pointed out when you visit the actual website. Why do I have to be subjected to a man singing about renaissance fairs, delinquent fiancees and credit roller coasters when all three major credit bureaus are required by law to give me my report once a year (and it's actually free)?
In another note entirely. SONIC.
Thanks for the entry Amanda! The last line is in reference to the great, wonderful news that a Sonic has finally opened in New England, which apparently is so popular it is affecting the traffic pattern, and the current plan is for me to visit it with her on Labor Day. I'll let everyone know how that turns out.
I also find myself humming the Free Credit Report songs, even if they are crass commercialism at its worst.
I’m pretty tough to play trivia games against. By that, I mean that my friends tend to get frustrated, since I continually answer obscure and random questions. Back when one of my friends had a Trivial Pursuit 1990s edition, I had to answer all the questions on a single card in order to get a pie piece.
