Last night, Spencer Pratt announced on The Tonight Show that he might run for President. His reasoning? It has to do with becoming hated by everyone and hacking computers. Or something. I don't think he's thought it through yet. Seth Green gets a little dig in, and the audience is obviously tired of him and Heidi.
What you don't hear in the clip (it cuts off early) is the audience actually booing Heidi and Spencer. My favorite part of the show was the end, as the music played and credits rolled Conan talked to guest Brian Setzer and Green talked to Andy, leaving Speidi all alone in the middle on the couch, not sure where to look or who to talk to.
Conan O'Brien is a better interviewee than interviewer, as this "Between Two Ferns" interview with Zach Galifianakis shows. He and Andy Richter sat down to chat with Galifianakis at FunnyorDie.com and they touch on everything from The Tonight Show to whether or not Conan touches himself while watching himself. It seems to be all scripted but it's funny (not die). There's a surprise guest star too.
If you were one of the dozens of people who were watching The Jay Leno show on Monday, you might have been wondering why the "Headlines" segment came right after Jay's monologue instead of right before the local news. Were you stumbling upon a rerun of the old Tonight Show that was airing by mistake? Nope. It seems that, because of the low-and-sinking ratings Leno has been getting at ten, the producers have decided to "shake up" the format ... to make it look like the old Tonight Show.
Of course, changing a pretty moribund format back to a format that's even older isn't exactly a radical shift. But the producers are likely betting that returning to the successful Tonight formula is the way to go.
Here's the problem: people don't have the same ingrained expectations of a 10 PM talk show that they have of an 11:30 show. Instead of tuning into Leno as a reliable way to get them to sleep late at night, they're now tuning to him because nothing's on and their DVRs are empty. There are no expectations on their part.
Last night was the 100th episode of The Tonight Show since Conan O'Brien took over (time flies, etc). His dad sent him a very special video message from his home in Massachusetts, and it's actually weird and funny.
[Watch clips and episodes of The Tonight Show and other shows at SlashControl.]
William Shatner has appeared on The Tonight Show to give his typically awesome take on the Twitter messages that Sarah Palin posted to her account when she was Governor of Alaska. Last night he appeared again to recite the Twitter "poetry" of her arch-rival Levi Johnston.
The whole "Leno at 10PM" thing has been analyzed to death, so let's analyze it a little bit more!
Leno has an interview with Broadcasting & Cable and he says, among many other things, that if NBC asked him to go back to 11:35 for whatever reason, he'd do it, but it's not his decision to make.
It seems that Leno is definitely trying to make things work at 10, and he's always been a good network soldier and will happily do what they want him to do because he has nothing to prove. But at the same time it seems like he truly would have preferred staying on The Tonight Show, and you get the sense that he's not 100% happy about how everything went down.
Not only is The Lola Falana Show on DVD now, I didn't even know there was a Lola Falana Show. I knew that there was a Lola Falana (that's a fun name to say: Lola Falana Lola Falana Lola Falana). She was a dancer and actress who was pretty well known back in the 70s, but her TV show escaped my radar. This set includes guest stars Dick Van Dyke, Bill Cosby, Sonny and Cher, and Muhammad Ali.
There's also a Heeere's Johnny: The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson "Holiday Set." It looks like the same set that I've owned for a couple of years (several DVDs split up into different categories: Timeless Moments, Standup Comedians, Carson Country, and the original Ultimate Collection disc), but with a special Christmas disc thrown in, with three classic episodes.
Recently, Conan O'Brien made a joke about the city of Newark, NJ. I've never been to New Jersey so I've never quite understood the constant jokes about the state that you hear from... well, every comic. But this time Conan went too far. So far that Newark mayor Cory Booker had to respond. So Conan had to respond to that response, of course.
Anyone who's interested in the Leno/Letterman relationship, the feeding frenzy in the late 70s and early 80s when networks were sweeping up stand-up comedians and changing their lives overnight, and the importance and mechanics of getting a spot on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show needs to read William Knoedelseder's new book, I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-Up Comedy's Golden Era.
The centerpiece of the book is the labor discontent between comedians and the Comedy Store that kicked up in 1979, when comedians saw the money coming into the venue and started to wonder why some of the working comics there had to borrow money for breakfast. It's a compelling and unexpected story, and it collects names big and small from television history along the way.
This week's photo is from a recent episode of The Tonight Show. No Name Steaks in Minnesota sent Conan a bust of his head made out of white chocolate and bacon.
The Minnesota State Fair sent Conan O'Brien a strange gift, and he unveiled it on The Tonight Show last night. I hope they have a lot of security there because I don't know how that thing is going to last if they don't. And then there's the bacon smell over time...
Shales tries to get to the heart of why Conan O'Brien, after a big start (of course), is losing more and more ground. He is even losing to David Letterman when Letterman is in repeats (overall ratings - Conan still wins the younger demographic).
He makes a lot of good points about how the set might be doing him in (too big), how the interviews are too rehearsed, and that there's too much prepared comedy. Those are all things that Conan and his crew will look at in the coming months, I'm sure. (I also think part of the problem is Conan's personality - I think he's more of an acquired taste than either Leno or Letterman.)
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.
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.
Leno has heard all of the complaints (many of them from YOU, the one reading this right now) about how he is taking away the 10PM slot that could go to one-hour dramas, and he doesn't want to hear about it anymore.
The comic and Jay Leno Show host says that he is not only employing 22 Writers Guild members on his show, he says that if he didn't do this show then there's no guarantee that NBC would put dramas in that slot because most of them fail and they could just put in reality shows like The Biggest Loser or news shows like Dateline in the slot.
If you were one of the dozens of people who were watching The Jay Leno show on Monday, you might have been wondering why the "Headlines" segment came right after Jay's monologue instead of right before the local news. Were you stumbling upon a rerun of the old Tonight Show that was airing by mistake? Nope. It seems that, because of the low-and-sinking ratings Leno has been getting at ten, the producers have decided to "shake up" the format ... to make it look like the old Tonight Show.
The whole "Leno at 10PM" thing has been analyzed to death, so let's analyze it a little bit more!
Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.
Anyone who's interested in the Leno/Letterman relationship, the feeding frenzy in the late 70s and early 80s when networks were sweeping up stand-up comedians and changing their lives overnight, and the importance and mechanics of getting a spot on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show needs to read William Knoedelseder's new book, I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-Up Comedy's Golden Era.
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!
I'm not quite sure I get what Tom Shales says near the end of this piece about his recent visit to the set of The Tonight Show.
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. 
Leno has heard all of the complaints (many of them from YOU, the one reading this right now) about how he is taking away the 10PM slot that could go to one-hour dramas, and he doesn't want to hear about it anymore.
The TV Squad Podcast: The Prisoner, '80s TV, soap news and more
Let's talk about spoilers ...
The Prisoner -- An early look
