TV Review: You effing suck Jay Leno, please just retire and stay gone, you miserable old hack.

In case the title of this entry doesn't make my feelings toward Jay Leno abundantly clear, this review by the great Troy Patterson of Slate.com does an excellent job. From his first paragraph:

The cold open depicted him [Leno] awaking in a black-and-white farmhouse, a Dorothy Gale coming to, as his bandleader, other subordinates, and also a slumming Betty White crowded round his bedside. The implication was that Leno's months away from Tonight and his prime-time sojourn did not represent a disastrous misadventure but rather a magical mystery tour. The bit was no less shameless than we might expect. And no less unfunny. Pay no attention to the man in front of the curtain.

Patterson is my favorite television reviewer; I consider him the Ebert of the medium. And I agree completely with his take. The return of Leno to The Tonight Show was every bit as mediocre, depressing and lifeless as you would expect, despite some utterly shameless behavior on the part of everyone involved.

Let's start, naturally enough, with the aforementioned cold open. The Wizard of Oz was the easiest movie spoof they could have used for the situation, so of course, they absolutely used it - Jay Leno is effing involved, after all. Except for a brief pop-in by Betty White, the cold open was uninspired and stupid, which segued nicely into a stupid monologue where Leno pretended to be actually upset with NBC.

My whole problem with Leno is that he is seemingly devoid of real emotion. Know what would have been awesome? If Leno started his show and said, "Hey, I'm glad I'm back, and fuck Conan. I got shoved out of this show years ago and pretended to be okay with it, but really, I wasn't okay with that, and I apologize." Instead, Leno was passive aggressive, playing on both the side of NBC management (not acknowledging that his show's MASSIVE FAILURE in prime-time led partially to Conan's low ratings) and against management (calling them idiots now and during the fiasco). Hey Jay, why don't you pick a god damn side instead of trying to sit on the fence for every issue?

After the monologue, we were treated to a taped bit involving Leno searching for a new desk. This was predictably lame, except for a brief segment with my man Adam Carolla. Of course, he was only on for about a minute because he was using some racy humor. sigh. Leno got on a mom for "cooking" her family a nutritious meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken; at least she didn't subject them to his show later in the night.

The worst was yet to come though, as Jamie Foxx just acted like a retard for 20 minutes. (Sorry Sarah Palin.) His entire appearance made me throw up in my mouth, and he was followed by Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn, who was dressed up like a street hooker. (Even worse? She looked really uncomfortable in that outfit. It is one thing if she likes to dress that way, but the whole thing reeked more like an idea to capitalize on her image ASAP, methods be damned. She needs a new publicist.)

Anyway, since Jay doesn't have the nerve to relay this message to Conan, let one of his fans instead relay the message to you - Fuck you. You are everything wrong with late night television.

Grade: F

Around The Dial: Leno back with some kinda, sorta good guests; Archer gets second season!

Checking in with some television news around the dial...

- The guest list for Leno's return to The Tonight Show has been released, according to TV Guide. Click here to catch a glimpse.

To be honest, I think TV Guide is stretching a bit when they say it includes "a lot" of A-Listers. The first night back, yes, Leno has Jamie Foxx and Lindsey Vonn, followed by Sarah Palin and Shaun White that Tuesday. Those are four pretty solid guests, and I imagine Vonn and White will do well on the show, coming off the Olympics and because of their solid conversational skills anyway.

However, after that, it goes downhill fast. Wednesday has Chelsea Handler, which is probably the first night Leno might get shit on by a guest, and the "big names" for that night are the cast of Jersey Shore. Thursday is Matthew McConaughey - ugh. And Friday has Morgan Freeman, a definite A-lister, but not someone known for his dynamic interviews.

I think most of the better A-list interviews - Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise - are going to wait out Leno's "new" Tonight Show to see how the ratings are. If there is a big public backlash against Leno, then I think they'll avoid the show like the plague. At that point, it would be REALLY interesting to see what NBC does. Maybe they could lure Conan back, as nuts as that sounds, with a ridiculous contract offer. Otherwise, they'd have to quickly promote Jimmy Fallon (unlikely) or hire some outside gun with little late night experience.

- In great television news, Archer has been picked up for a second season by FX! Woohoo! Just the other night, I was worried it wouldn't get picked up, but it seems like the ratings have stayed strong for the show. It's great news for Adam Reed, who came from the Adult Swim / Cartoon Network way of doing things, which was to constantly stall and wait on renewing shows.

The Archer picture comes from the news item I linked to in the story. The Leno cartoon is from this site.

The Tonight Show Craigslist ad

So, Conan talked on The Tonight Show a couple minutes ago about putting the show up for sale on Craigslist. Thanks to the great work of my buddy Adam D. Adkins (a.k.a. Adam Dadkins), you can view the ad in all of its glory here:

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/1551463643.html

Please reward Adam by visiting his wonderful sports blog here. And the picture of Conan is from here.

As The Conan Turns

Just a short entry today, as I've been busy most of the day, and I'm going out tonight. Following the continuing Conan saga, above, see the awesome monologue that Jimmy Leno did on his show. Leno is so predictable that I think just about anyone can do his monologue, and Kimmel did nail the beats.

In other news, Entertainment Weekly interviews the artist behind the "I'm With Coco" art movement. Also, Conan apparently doesn't have specific time slot language in his Tonight Show contract, meaning he would 1) have to agree that the previous years of the show set a precedent for it being on at 11:30 or 2) just leave all the money on the table.

Conan tells NBC to eff off

Ah, Conan. I heart you even more after learning that you told NBC to go screw with its wacky plan to restore Jay Leno to 11:30. Although Conan doesn't have wording in his contract that says The Tonight Show has to start at 11:30, I think NBC will have to pay him the balance of his contract regardless.

So really, good on Conan. I'm glad he has drawn a line in the sand and threatened to quit if he's forced to air The Tonight Show / his show from a midnight time slot. I'm hopeful that he ends up on FOX, or even eventually as Letterman's successor on CBS. Either network would probably let him go back to the more juvenile, randy and fun behavior he exhibited at 12:30. You know, like my included picture of the masturbating bear.

I got the sweet picture, and some of the Conan news, from this good entertainment blog.

Conan deserves better, as NBC goes back to Leno

The latest late night television rumor has been that The Jay Leno Show is finally, mercifully, dead.

If you ask me, it's about four months too late. From its inception, Leno's show was just a stale rehash of what he did on The Tonight Show, which mostly benefited from the fact that Leno was against Letterman. I've always liked Letterman more, but I realize his kind-of-wacky behavior rubbed audiences the wrong way, as well as guests, who normally preferred the canned bits and skits they could do on Leno's show. Letterman will always be cooler than Leno, who gets credit for being workmanlike but unremarkable, at least to me. The contrast between the two allowed for better ratings for both of them.

With Leno's 10 p.m. show getting sacked, the loser in all of this seems to be Conan. Contractually, I believe he has to be the host of The Tonight Show for a certain period of time, which means NBC will be doing some bizarre shell game where they push Conan's show back 30 minutes and run Leno at 11:30 for 30 minutes. I don't think this has the slightest chance at all of working, as NBC doesn't seem to realize that Leno isn't really a talent worth keeping. Conan's ratings have sucked because Leno has sucked. As proof, I'd offer the evidence that Rhode Island's flagship news station, WJAR-10, slipped out of first in the local ratings for the first time in forever this past year, probably because of how weak a lead-in Leno is.

It wouldn't surprise me if Conan's lawyers began looking for ways to break his contract the second NBC came to him with this wacky plan, and it also wouldn't surprise me if he bolted the second his contract expired if he can't break it beforehand. While CBS is seemingly set, ABC might want to make a big splash and go after Conan. Personally, I'd love to see Jimmy Kimmel get a shot at 11:30, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards with the recent reemergence of Nightline.

As far as what happens to the other NBC performers, does anyone care? I don't mind Jimmy Fallon - his show is surprisingly watchable, between The Roots band and odd, quirky bits like "Guess That Carpet Sample." However, he's not unquestionably great, and I haven't seen a ton of growth from him. If Leno does move back to 11:30, it definitely seems like the end of Carson Daly's miserable show, which is one of the few positive side effects of such a movie.

The picture of Conan with his monkey is from this site.