If you haven't seen our game before, we give you a picture from a recent episode of a TV series and you provide the caption! Last week's winner is yaddo, with this: Hey, aren't you that dude from Lost?
This week we have a picture from a recent episode of ABC's The Bachelorette. It shows all of the guys and our bachelorette Jillian Harris toasting to ... something. The winner will be announced next Friday.
You knew that Conan O'Brien would pay tribute to Ed McMahon (who died yesterday), the only question was how. Last night Conan showed clips of some great Tonight Show moments with Ed and Johnny (though not enough in my opinion), and he also showed a great clip of Ed and Andy Richter playing quarters on Late Night.
Last night's Tonight Show featured Conan going outside the studio and visiting people (the thing he does best). Specifically, he went out and talked to his new neighbors in L.A. Among the stores he visits are a restaurant, a furniture store, a gaming store, and a tattoo/body piercing parlor, where he got a tattoo on his arm. Was that real? If it was, that's called being dedicated to your comedy.
He also pretended to be Jay Leno to a stranger on the phone.
I think that the "older people have never seen Conan O'Brien" theory is a little overstated. Sure, a lot of Tonight Show fans didn't stay up to watch Conan too when he did Late Night, but I bet most people saw him at least a few times. But a lot of Tonight Show fans probably didn't see Triumph The Insult Comic Dog until Friday night, when the wise-ass cigar smoker took a trip to the Bonnaroo Music Festival.
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.
If you haven't seen our game before, we give you a picture from a recent episode of a TV series and you provide the caption! Last week we had a picture from Paris Hilton's My New BFF. The winner was Butters with this: Upon hearing that the Star Trek movie was popular Paris tries to jump on the bandwagon by putting up her hand and saying "Live strong and a porpoise, or whatever".
This week we have a picture from The Tonight Show. Conan and a giant statue. Photo is after the jump.
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.
Sometimes Norm MacDonald can be really funny, sometimes not so much. Last night's Tonight Show appearance was mostly the latter, as he told some jokes that you and I would probably tell at a party, not because we made them up but because we heard them from someone who heard them from someone who heard them from someone and they're 30 years old. That's why I'm glad that at the end of this clip Andy Richter says what we've all been thinking. (Full interview here)
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brienreversed 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.
The ratings for The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien have been slipping since he took over, which is to be expected. Possibly less expected is that while he's been dipping, Late Show With David Letterman has seen a slow increase. So much so that last night, David Letterman beat Conan O'Brien in the ratings. That should certainly help Letterman's negotiations for that contract extension to 2012. The real question is how will this ratings battle settle down?
Certainly there's no reason for the Tonight Show camp to panic yet. Letterman stomped Leno for awhile early in Leno's run, when Letterman first jumped to CBS. But Leno is a very different comedian and host than O'Brien. Perhaps too different? The concern isn't so much that O'Brien's numbers are dipping, because the curiosity factor was going to inflate his initial numbers anyway, it's that Letterman's are on the rise. That could be defectors from the Leno era making a move. But should O'Brien even want to bring them back, or should his battle be for new viewers that maybe weren't watching Letterman or Leno.
Tonight, Bill Burr will be the first stand-up comedian to do a performance spot on Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show. If you don't know him, you will soon be one of the few. Burr has been on a roll for the past few years, getting stronger and stronger and playing bigger and bigger venues, culminating in last year's special, Why do I Do This?, which premiered last August on Comedy Central and is now on CD and DVD.
I've seen Burr live for years, playing shows like Denis Leary's annual Comics Come Home in Boston and Opie and Anthony's Traveling Virus tour. I have never seen him fail (the closest I came was last year in Los Angeles in front of a mostly indifferent crowd, working really hard for every laugh - for some perspective, Dave Attell and a lot of other good comics bombed that night). He became infamous for a decidedly NSFW YouTube video showing him at an O&A show in Philadelphia, the only time I can think of that a single comedian took on a crowd of hecklers and won.
All the talk last week was about Conan O'Brien's first week at The Tonight Show (and rightfully so), but let's not forget that David Letterman had new episodes too. The CBS site offers a recap of the best moments from The Late Show and I've posted it below. It features comments about Jay Leno and Conan, Bill Cosby, John Krasinski, Paris Hilton, Paula Abdul, Jessica Biel, a cranky new neighbor, and a giant bird flying around the studio audience.
Mr. Conan O'Brien -- or ConeBone69, as some of us like to call him -- is still going through his first week at The Tonight Show, with both fans and critics watching his every move. No pressure. Naturally, we are witnessing the initial jitters and struggle to discover the right rhythm and tone in a new environment, but O'Brien's getting through it with minimal cringing (though the same cannot be said for Andy Richter's weirdly forced laughs).
One of the first things I noticed was that the set doesn't really feel like it's O'Brien's. Maybe it's just a super-jarring change from the cozier and much smaller Late Night home, or maybe it's because the new studio smell hasn't faded. It all seemed too shiny and new to feel real, is what I'm saying. But now this gem of a discovery immediately makes everything better: The new studio is in Super Mario's Mushroom Kingdom.
Remember last year when Julia Louis-Dreyfus stole Tina Fey's Emmy on Late Night with Conan O'Brien? She did it again last night, only this time she stole an Oscar. I'm still not sure why Kenneth the Page is now in Los Angeles. Did he get transferred when Conan left 30 Rock? What does that mean for 30 Rock?
I don't know about you folks, but I never look at the first episode of any new late-night talk show as a good indication of how a host is going to start out. Why? Everything's new and shiny and there's a big introduction and everyone's nervous, that's why. It's the second night, when things are settling down into more of a routine, that I pay more attention to.
And after watching the second night of Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show, I'm getting worried that, despite all his assurances to the contrary, Conan is too busy easing up on his edginess to make good comedy.
If you haven't seen our game before, we give you a picture from a recent episode of a TV series and you provide the caption! Last week's winner is yaddo, with this:
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.
If you haven't seen our game before, we give you a picture from a recent episode of a TV series and you provide the caption! Last week we had a picture from Paris Hilton's My New BFF. The winner was Butters with this:
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 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.
The ratings for The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien have been slipping since he took over, which is to be expected. Possibly less expected is that while he's been dipping, Late Show With David Letterman has seen a slow increase. So much so that last night, David Letterman beat Conan O'Brien in the ratings. That should certainly help Letterman's negotiations for that contract extension to 2012. The real question is how will this ratings battle settle down?
Tonight, Bill Burr will be the first stand-up comedian to do a performance spot on Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show. If you don't know him, you will soon be one of the few. Burr has been on a roll for the past few years, getting stronger and stronger and playing bigger and bigger venues, culminating in last year's special, Why do I Do This?, which premiered last August on Comedy Central and is now on CD and DVD. 
I don't know about you folks, but I never look at the first episode of any new late-night talk show as a good indication of how a host is going to start out. Why? Everything's new and shiny and there's a big introduction and everyone's nervous, that's why. It's the second night, when things are settling down into more of a routine, that I pay more attention to.
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