"Girls need to shop for clothes. Period." Words of wisdom from our president. The crack editing staff at The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien has created an amazing clip of President Obama putting women in their place. They took an interview Obama recently gave to NBC news and edited it so it's just a full minute filled with random, nonsensical sexist remarks.
In addition to the quote I mentioned above, he alludes to a nefarious-sounding "strategy" that the men have in place, while a graphic of female politicians, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, hovers ominously. The clip is amazingly well-edited, to the point that if you didn't know what it was, you would swear it was real. In fact, I give it a day before the clip, or at least the quotes, start making the media rounds as fact. Ah, behold the power of late night.
[Watch full clips and episodes of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien and more on SlashControl.]
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Conan O'Brien uncovers President Obama's sexist agenda
Adult Swim picks up sitcoms from Conan O'Brien, Rob Corddry
Two very unique comedies will get a time slot on an equally unique cable network. Conan O'Brien's "Conaco" production company and actor Rob Corrdry both scored spots on Adult Swim for two new live-action sitcoms.
O'Brien's company won a spot for Eagleheart, a show about a fading TV star who wins a chance for glory once more on a production in Texas, but constantly clashes with the low-level TV exec in charge of the show.
Corrdry's medical drama spoof web series Childrens' Hospital will also go to Adult Swim. The channel will show re-edited versions of the episodes that aired on TheWB.com as well as produce new ones. Corrdry originally pitched the show to Comedy Central, but negotiations broke down with the network, probably because the show didn't have enough bimbo strippers and shirtless fat guys to fill their quota (cough, Secret Girlfriend, cough).
Comedy mission accomplished: Newark mayor booked on Conan
You've got to give Cory Booker credit: he could have completely fallen on his face trying to match Conan O'Brien laugh for laugh. I mean, politicians are never the most talented folks in the humor department to begin with; even armed with his speechwriters, the Newark mayor was bringing pop guns to the comedic battle with the dual cannons Conan and his veteran writing staff could bring. But he held his own. Now he can reap his reward: Booker's been booked on The Tonight Show for October 16.Newark hasn't been in this big of an entertainment spotlight since Howard Stern hosted his New Year's Eve beauty pageant there fifteen years ago. So if Booker had to throw out some semi-lame jokes and suffer some gentle ribbing from Conan in order to get his city some publicity, so be it.
Continue reading Comedy mission accomplished: Newark mayor booked on Conan
Don't celebrate Leno's low ratings just yet
The funniest thing about the season so far is that, after all the attention NBC's move to put Jay Leno at 10 PM generated through the spring and summer, The Jay Leno Show itself has been getting very little in the way of audience or viral buzz.The former was to be expected; no one thought Leno was going to beat out CSI. But the latter is a shock. Conan hits his head and the clip is all over the Internet; Dave talks about being blackmailed and CBS can't pull down the YouTube clips fast enough. But since Kanye West's teary apology to Taylor Swift on Leno's first show, nothing that's happened at ten has been funny enough or newsworthy enough to make a dent in the pop culture consciousness.
But those among you who are rooting for this experiment to fail, it's not time to break out the Champagne just yet. Although Leno's ratings are low and continue to sink, NBC isn't pulling the plug anytime soon. And the reason why is the most intriguing part of this whole experiment.
Continue reading Don't celebrate Leno's low ratings just yet
New CBS comedy to tell a relationship story across 20 years
It's hard to come up with a headline to sum up this new project by Andrew Secunda (Upright Citizens Brigade and Late Night with Conan O'Brien). I love the concept, though. CBS, which is developing the show with Secunda, calls it a multigenerational comedy. The show will be about a couple in love who move in together. From there, we start to get their story in a clever way.Through the extensive use of flashbacks to their childhoods, we'll see how they developed the quirks and habits that they're discovering about one another now as adults. We'll also see their parents both now and 20 years ago, to see how they shaped their children, and how their own relationships in the past may impact the way their children are today. Why didn't I just say that in the title?
Continue reading New CBS comedy to tell a relationship story across 20 years
Someone wanted Leno to die of AIDS, according to Leno
With The Jay Leno Show starting on Monday, I figured this would be as good a time as any to print my brief chat with Leno at the party NBC held at the TCA press tour. He had just shown up, and he was surprisingly not yet surrounded by reporters; I figured it would be a good time to throw him a couple of questions I was curious about. Little did I know that I'd be doing it while he was eating one of the short ribs they were serving at the party .No matter; you get the hot star of the moment in front of you, you throw him questions even while he's chewing. Jay being Jay, he handled it like the pro he is. Nothing really that newsworthy came out of this little chat, which is why I've held on to it until now, but I figured it would be a fun thing to read on a Friday.
Oh, one fun note: he claims that when he started The Tonight Show, someone said "I hope Jay dies of AIDS in one of his cars." Wow. Wonder how easy that article would be to find on the Web?
Continue reading Someone wanted Leno to die of AIDS, according to Leno
Gone Too Soon: Andy Richter Controls the Universe
When Andy Richter left Late Night With Conan O'Brien to establish his own career in acting, nobody knew that he'd come full circle and rejoin O'Brien years later. At the same time, nobody knew that creator Victor Fresco would do much the same thing.
Andy Richter Controls the Universe was one of those quirky shows that most people, who enjoy a dash of nonsense in their comedy, really dug. It was a very playful show about a guy working in a massive company. It featured a small ensemble with great chemistry on-screen, and had a unique look at big corporations.
A few years later, Fresco tapped that well again, and we got Better Off Ted, another comedy with absurdist tendencies set in a massive corporation with a small cast. Like Andy, it eked out a second season based more on critical acclaim than ratings. As someone who enjoys both shows, I find myself worrying that Ted will share Andy's ultimate fate, cancellation after the second season.
Continue reading Gone Too Soon: Andy Richter Controls the Universe
DVD cover art and release date for Andy Barker, P.I.
I love Andy Richter, but he seems awfully stiff every time I watch him on The Tonight Show. I prefer to remember the guy from his early days on Late Night, his short-lived show Andy Richter Controls the Universe, and his other short-lived show, the hilarious Andy Barker, P.I. Like Danny reported back in May, Andy Barker, P.I. is finally coming to DVD. Shout! Factory will release the entire series on Nov. 17. The two-disc set will include all six episodes, some with commentary by Richter and producer Conan O'Brien, plus a retrospective feature and a doc about the show's amazing writers, including Jonathan Groff (How I Met Your Mother), Josh Bycel (Psych), and Jane Espenson (Buffy, BSG). Click through for a better look at the DVD cover art.
Continue reading DVD cover art and release date for Andy Barker, P.I.
Letterman beating O'Brien with old shows
NBC must be doing a lot of regretting these days for moving Jay Leno to 10 p.m., and not just because it screws up the perfect headline alliteration with his former competition. It seems that David Letterman's Late Show reruns are getting higher ratings than Conan O'Brien's brand-spanking new Tonight Show episodes.
The margins aren't very wide, but it must hurt when a rival is kicking your lily-white hide and he's not even throwing any punches. It's like getting your ass kicked by a one legged Stephen Hawking.
Continue reading Letterman beating O'Brien with old shows
Leno won't have a desk; NBC exec calls Conan promos "premature" - TCA Report
As you'd expect from a low-rated network with a lot of shows to promote, NBC held the critics captive at their TCA session by waiting until the end of the day before unleashing Jay Leno on the crowd of cranky critics. But first, in order to address some the questions Angela Bromstad and Paul Telegdy couldn't answer, late-night chief Rick Ludwin took questions for fifteen minutes.Ludwin, for his part, was ready to answer those questions, even admitting that putting out a press release calling Conan O'Brien "The King of Late Night" after the first week of his Tonight Show reign was "premature." That's an understatement, but an admission, which is sometimes hard to get out of people in the Zucker regime. (Dan Fienberg of HitFix theorized to me afterwords that Bromstad and Telegdy briefed Ludwin on what we want to know based on their disastrous exec session. Very logical thought.)
Jay snuck up behind Ludwin as the exec was wrapping up, then took to center stage to take our questions. Nothing that he said about the program hasn't been said already: There will be no desk; he wants to get the guests out of the interview chair; he's going to conduct a "Green Car Challenge," where guests race fast electric cars; he will be going into the local news with one of his tried-and-true comedy bits, like "Jaywalking" and "Headlines."
That's the executive summary. More detailed tidbits are after the jump.
Continue reading Leno won't have a desk; NBC exec calls Conan promos "premature" - TCA Report
NBC execs don't seem to know much about NBC - TCA Report
We just got done with the NBC executive session, where primetime entertainment head Angela Bromstad and alternative programming (read: reality) chief Paul Telegdy took the reporters questions. Of course, many of the questions had to do with The Jay Leno Show and Ben Silverman's departure. What the gathered reporters got out of the two executives was evasiveness, referrals to other executives, and a general sense that the two of them either don't know or don't want to provide answers about their own network.
When the question of Leno and CBS's Nina Tassler's assertion that NBC would declare victory no matter what numbers they got, Bromstad tried to pass us to the session for Leno's show later in the day. Telegdy did the same. But we wouldn't let them off the hook. An example exchange, for instance, went like this:
Continue reading NBC execs don't seem to know much about NBC - TCA Report
Conan O'Brien wants to pimp-slap your ride
Does your ride lack a certain something that all good cars should possess, like brakes? When you drive to work, do the ambulances and fire trucks pull over to the shoulder to let you pass?
Is your vehicle so old that Jesus co-signed the lease?
Maybe it's time you traded that clunker in, not for a bounced government check or another clunker some guy in a $1,000 suit conned you into buying. Maybe it's time you traded it in for two pounds of C4 and 30 spools of Primacord.
Conan O'Brien premiered on last night's Tonight Show the funniest car related sweepstakes since AMC tried to give away a Pacer: one lucky American will get to blow up their car on national television.
Continue reading Conan O'Brien wants to pimp-slap your ride
A Triumph-ant return for Conan O'Brien
The best part of Late Night is coming to The Tonight Show. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog will be making his first appearance on Conan O'Brien's show tonight according to a Twitter entry (or "tweet," as the kids call it) from staffer/blogger Aaron Bleyaert. Hopefully, it's the first of many appearances.I make no reservations about my love of Robert Smigel's alter ego. I have seen him in concert and own all the CD and DVDs that the character has released (except for TV Funhouse, which didn't have enough Triumph on screen to warrant my purchase). At this stage, I can even recognize Blackwolf the Dragonmaster on sight.
With that in mind, I may just have to catch Triumph's return to Conan's show. I'm not sure if the sort of humor can work at the earlier hour, but if David Letterman was able to move an hour earlier while still keeping his own style 15 years ago, I don't seen why Conan or Triumph can't do the same.
Point/Counterpoint: Letterman's joke about the Palins was just that
A lot of dissecting and exploratory surgery has been done on the jokes that David Letterman made about the Palin family. Even after Dave apologized and Palin accepted, people still want to perform a comedy autopsy to figure out what Dave's intent was and why Palin was so vocal in her reaction to it.The problem is it's an unnecessary surgery and it fails to attack the root of the problem while the real cancer spreads like a California wildfire. E.B. White once said about such procedures that, "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." The only reason this frog hasn't died is because someone wants to keep it alive and no one has dared to touch the heart.
This is the side I will debate in the never-ending Letterman vs. Palin "Joke-gate" controversy while our very own John Scott Lewinski will offer a rebuttal later in the day that a public figure's children should always be off-limits.
Continue reading Point/Counterpoint: Letterman's joke about the Palins was just that
The Tonight Show reverses ratings decline
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien reversed its ratings decline and managed to squeak by with a win over The Late Show with David Letterman this past Wednesday night. Apparently, he even blew Letterman away in the coveted 18-49 demo.I've never understood the appeal of The Tonight Show, but NBC has pretty much built the ultimate juggernaut of late night talk shows with it that nobody can seem to topple. On the other hand, when Letterman first moved to CBS he dominated the late night ratings for the first few years. With that in mind, I still think Letterman can turn this into a win before his current contract expires in 2012. And even if he doesn't, he deserves to.
Of course, the big elephant in the room is Jay Leno's upcoming 10 PM talk show. With such a lead-in, Dave's show could take an additional hammering in the ratings. Only time will tell.
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