If there's one thing that the return of the late night shows taught us it was this: late night hosts shouldn't grow beards.
Seriously, they just don't look good with hair on their faces. David Letterman looks like an old professor and Conan O'Brien looks like Gay Wolverine. I have a feeling that they'll both shed their beards by the end of the week (Letterman even hinted he might do it on the air). Let's hope so. As for the shows themselves, it was a mixed bag to say the least.
The Late Show with David Letterman: Did anyone else think that Letterman seemed ... drunk? Of course he wasn't. Maybe the beard just makes him seem old and tired. The show opened with dancers holding WGA strike signs and Letterman doing his monologue. Thankfully Robin Williams didn't open the show as was first reported (that duty went to Hillary Clinton, who blew her joke). Williams was the guest, and he was typical Williams. He couldn't just tell a story, he had to over-tell it, but he wasn't as bad as I've seen him in the past. The Top 10 List was a nice touch. They got writers from other shows (including The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien) to give a list of their strike demands. The worst part of the show was the "Know Your Staff" segment, which had a staff member of the show sit in the chair and get interviewed by Dave. The whole segment had the whiff of filler, even though Letterman's show is one of only two shows that came back with writers, so I'm not sure what this whole segment was about.
Jay Leno: Leno did a full monologue that he said he wrote with his wife Mavis. I'm still not sure how he can (or would want to) do this, since he's a WGA member and you'd think he wouldn't want to do an entire monologue of his own material. His attitude about the strike was odd, seemingly centered on himself, and too smirky, but it was rather funny and he got in a dig at Jeff Zucker. He actually mentioned Letterman and how he gets to come back with writers, but The Tonight Show is stuck as the underdog. They had filler too: a segment where he let audience members ask him anything. They also premiered the new Jib Jab video, which was a pretty clever look back at 2007 (though oddly didn't mention the strike). After that, it was back to business as usual, with an interview with Governor Mike Huckabee and other guests. The most annoying part of the show was the bug in the corner for the premiere of American Gladiators. Yeah NBC, we get it, it's coming back.
Update: I'm not the only one wondering how Leno can write his own monologue.
Jimmy Kimmel Live: Kimmel started the show from his desk with stories about his private life and what he did over the holidays. Out of all the late night hosts tonight, he was the most forceful in his support for the writers and his disagreement with the Screen Actor's Guild head, who recently said that stars shouldn't go on talk shows during the strike. He also spoke out against the writers at one point, saying they shouldn't be picketing people like Leno and O'Brien who paid their staffs during the strike and are caught in an odd position. He also said the studio wasn't as fun without the writers there, though it does smell better. After repeating a clip of Kermit The Frog talking with Uncle Frank (a segment run so writers can get residuals), the show settled back into the usual interviews, with guests Andy Dick, Helio Castroneves, and Kid Rock.
Late Night with Conan O'Brien: O'Brien is good at ad libbing, yet his opening was so-so at best, and he had the most nervous, most lame explanation of the writers strike. One of O'Brien's guests was standup comic Dwayne Perkins, and that got me thinking: the late night shows, the ones without writers anyway, would be smart to book some standups. They can bring their own material to the show and can act as a kind of substitute for the writing that would ordinarily be on the shows.
The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson: Ferguson took the most daring route of the night, deciding to go with zero guests and just do go it alone. The whole show was sort of like his monologue, only four times as long. He told stories about his past, talked about the strike a bit, read letters from viewers, had some quick visual gags as other characters, that sort of thing. I think that tomorrow he'll be back to the usual show (he has guests tomorrow night), and this was an interesting choice for the first night. Though I think you really have to like Ferguson and be a hardcore fan of the show to have appreciated it.
Giveaway Monday: That '70s Show The Complete Series Stash box set
Giveaway Monday: Back to You season one DVD
Six shows that I am watching pretty regularly this season
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
1-03-2008 @ 8:31AM
John Darc said...
So I thought that the hosts weren't allowed to write jokes or do anything that the writers would normally do. This is why Conan floundered so badly. He wasn't allowed to really write material. He ran every ok bit into the ground for just a few seconds too long, which killed any humor in it.
I lost track, but why are the talk show hosts back?
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1-03-2008 @ 8:43AM
Eirik said...
I think it boils down to what Leno said, they can't let 19 people put 160 out of work. NBC was playing hardball. If they didn't come back, then they were going to fire a lot of the staff and not promise to bring them back when the strike ended.
Once that happened, Letterman had to scramble or he'd still be in reruns.
1-03-2008 @ 8:42AM
Derek said...
I haven't been following this strike much (not being in America) but what's the deal? Why are they all suddenly back if the strike isn't over yet. Or is it? If it is, then why the weird writer-less returns?
I wish TVSquad articles were self-contained and didn't assume that everyone reading them was up to speed on every little thing and that they'd already read all previous TVSquad articles.
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1-03-2008 @ 9:05AM
Scott said...
Derek, the blog is called "TV Squad". The writer's strike has been the biggest topic in the world of TV for the past 8 weeks. Don't blame this one writer for your ignorance. If you know nothing about the writer's strike or the late-night show returns, it's your problem, not his. This blog entry is a review of specific shows, not a tutorial on what's been happening in the world of TV for the past 8 weeks.
1-03-2008 @ 9:37AM
Derek said...
I never said I no nothing about the strike, I said I haven't been following it much. When there's 3 articles a day about it that aren't progressing the story forward at all, it can become pointless reading them. If there was a story that said "THE STRIKE IS OVER" then I must have missed it. If there wasn't such an article, then the main thrust of my question remains valid. Why would they be returning suddenly without writers.
All I'm asking for from TVSquad articles is perhaps a line or two at the beginning summarizing the situation. Something like "Even though the strike continues with no sign of an end in sight, the talk shows have decided to come back anyway, albeit without writers.".
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1-03-2008 @ 9:51AM
Johari said...
There were a few posts about the return of late night talk shows due to individual deals made with the WGA.
Leno & Conan -
http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/12/17/leno-and-conan-to-return-january-2-breaking-news/
Daily Show & Colbert Report -
http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/12/20/stewart-and-colbert-coming-back-too-breaking-news/
Letterman & Ferguson
http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/12/28/letterman-makes-deal-with-wga-breaking-news/
Only Letterman was able to make a deal to get his writers to come back though.
1-03-2008 @ 9:43AM
Zach said...
I hoped someone would ask Leno during the Q&A session how he felt about Conan taking over the Tonight Show next year. Instead there were stupid quesetions about Missouri, Daytona Beach, and a non-question about Huckabee.
I think he probably would have delivered a bitter answer followed without a pause by the company line.
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1-03-2008 @ 9:49AM
Nova said...
I thought Conan pulled it out ok. The best segment was when he brought out his guitar/rockband. Honestly, that's one of his strength and should play towards it during the strike. Should do a Conan music night with him playing with various different artists/interview them.
Bob Saget really needs uncensored space to run wild as he is one dirty comic. His jokes were too quick for the audience there as well, though I was dying at home.
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1-03-2008 @ 11:41AM
sitruc said...
I wouldn't say Saget was too quick for the audience. He just wasn't funny. He bombed because his timing was off.
1-03-2008 @ 11:58AM
Hollywood Ron said...
Bob Saget is a genius.
1-03-2008 @ 10:12AM
horsenbuggy said...
Again, that little catch up that you suggested was the basis for several previous articles. TV Squad wrote an article just yesterday telling us that the late night shows were coming back last night. They told us what to look out for because only Letterman was coming back with his writers.
That was based on the article which broke the news that Letterman had reached an agreement with the WGA so that he could use writers, while the other shows could not.
That was based on the article which broke the news that all the late night talk shows, except Letterman, were coming back without their writers because they could no longer afford to pay the rest of their staff.
That was based on the article which broke the news that the stars of the late night shows were paying their staff out of their own pockets because the networks refused to pay people to not work during the strike.
That was based on the articles which broke the news on each individual comedy or drama show as they let go of their staff members because the studios refused to pay them while the shows were not in production.
Those were based on the articles which broke the news on each individual show closing down production...
You can't sum up the whole strike in one or two lines. This is an ongoing story. If you're not interested in following it, you don't have the right to complain that you don't understand it. Take 30 minutes to hit the highlights. Each TV Squad article is very well titled so that you know what you will find discussed in each one.
Should news articles about Iraq sum up the entire war, going back to 9/11? No. News is news and writers should operate under that assumption that readers are reasonably well-informed, particularly at a specialty news site like TV Squad.
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1-03-2008 @ 10:20AM
Derek said...
Well I'm well and truly told. No more taking 3 weeks off for the holidays and not switching a computer on for me ;-) The strike isn't covered on news outside of the USA and my RSS Reader (on the computer that had been switched off for 3 weeks) auto-discards articles older than two days. So I came back to some weird news that some shows were back, some weren't. Some had writers, some didn't. You're right though, I can't expect every article to have a round-up of the current state of play.
1-03-2008 @ 10:44AM
horsenbuggy said...
Technology. Sometimes we depend too much upon it. I use Google Reader for my RSS feeds, which doesn't automatically retire any news, no matter how old. (I get piles upon piles of articles about EPL and FA football under my sports category if I don't clear them out.)
I've customized my Google homepage (inexplicably named iGoogle) to include a widget for Google Reader. If I log in to Google from any computer (as I did at my cousin's house while on holiday last week), I can keep up with my feeds. (Though, I acknowledge that sometimes you just need to take a break.)
I didn't intend to sound (overly) cavalier in my previous post. Just as I'm sure that you didn't intend to sound (overly) petulant in yours. :-)
1-03-2008 @ 11:24AM
Scott said...
Derek, I apologize also if my initial reply to you was overly critical.
1-03-2008 @ 10:23AM
Bob Sassone said...
If anyone has missed any articles about the strike, we have a "WGA Strike" category on the left hand side (under "TV Squad Reporter").
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1-03-2008 @ 10:46AM
Joe said...
"Leno did a full monologue that he said he wrote with his wife Mavis."
He actually said he wrote it all himself, but after writing a joke, would ask his wife if the joke was funny. He then said that if the monologue was bad, the people should blame his wife. Then he pretended to talk to her on the telephone. Basically, Leno was good, Conan was hopeless and Dave acted as though he was some kind of messiah, uniting writers under his wing while still championing their cause.
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1-03-2008 @ 11:20AM
No1Dad said...
"Dave acted as though he was some kind of messiah"
Well that would explain the beard then.
1-03-2008 @ 11:17AM
grumpyoldman said...
I just watched the monologue from Leno, and for the first time in years...it was actually funny.
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1-03-2008 @ 11:21AM
viewdrix said...
If you didn't like Conan, you don't like humor. It was classic stuff all night. And that he pretty confidently spent minutes of his show just spinning a wedding ring was amazing.
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1-03-2008 @ 11:50AM
Aberdeen said...
I stayed up for Craig Ferguson and was not disappointed.
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