The King of America

[LessThanZero]

Letterman is the greatest.

[LessThanZero]

Letterman was an old re-run tonight, so here at work we were watching Leno.
Leno sucked.
It kept getting worse and worse, so finally at the end, when he said Sugar Ray was coming up next, I just turned the telly way down until CONAN came on. During Sugar's performance though, my ears pricked up....

I turned it up....

"Is she really going out with him" by Joe Jackson.

Not too shabby.

But I already voted.

[BlueChair]

Leno is simply not funny.

[noiseradio]

Letterman.

Leno was funny when he was a stand-up comic. He's a terrible host.

[costellopunk]

conan. can't watch the others.

[Otis Westinghouse]

I vote for Jonathan Ross.

[A rope leash]

Letterman by far. Leno is a right-wing conspiracy.

I like Jon Stewart, too.

Elvis was great when he hosted Letterman...

[noiseradio]

I like John Stewart better than Conan. He's my second favorite. And the Daily Show is the smartest thing on television.

[PlaythingOrPet]

The Leno set gives me headaches. Far too bright.

Paul Schaffer (sp?) gets right on my tit. I recently saw Dave getting his finger stitched after slicing through it while chopping an onion. An entertaining 15 minutes I must say.

But nobody comes close to Jonathan Ross.

[LessThanZero]

It looks like Letterman is the thinking person's choice.

[bobster]

I sorta disagree with the whole premise here. I do not for a second accept that, of the network talk show hosts, Conan is second best. In fact, like Costellopunk's, his is the only one I can stand to watch for more than five minutes. That makes him the best, with a Letterman runing a poor second and Leno a sad third. Any guy who comes up lets Robert Smigel run amok on his program is operating on an entirely different level than anyone else on network TV.

Having said that, I prefer Letterman immensely over the way-too-eager-to-please Leno. Still, Letterman's show is a pale, tired reflection of his glory days. The guy seems clearly bored and a little bitter and what I hear of his material sort of revels in repeating himself.

(Not that it should matter if they dissagree with my personal politics, but strictly speaking, Letterman is actually almost more of a literal right-wing conspiracy than Jay, at least in that he's been coming out openly for the Iraq war since he interviewed Dan Rather right after 9/11, when there was even less reason for a war with Iraq than there is now. On the other hand, I caught a few minutes of the show that Jay had where the audiences was entirely military. A little scary.)

Jay Leno's show is pretty much totally worthless. Sad, becaues he was actually funny once upon a time. I think he works too hard and has killed his imagination.

Also, I agree with Noise that "The Daily Show" is far better than all of these (though I haven't seen it in some time, having dropped my cable channels -- it's the only program I truly miss). But it's not really in the same category, being mostly a spot-on parody of the utter inanity of American television news. True, they have the celebrity guest interview with Stewart, but I think that's mostly a break for the writers. Iit's not a true celebrity chat show, but something far more important.

[noiseradio]

I must respectfully disagree with you there, Bob. About Conan, that is. Letting Robert Smigel loose makes for great comedy. But it doesn't make you a great host. Conan's monologue has never been more than adequate. Rarely does he seem truly comfortable in that regard. And in interviews, he's too self aware. He kisses up to his guests more than he should (though no one kisses up like Leno). I guess what strikes me is that even when Conan is really funny, there's always a sense of "hey, look at me I told a joke." Like he's also sitting next to you at home jabbing you in the ribs with his elbow, pointing at the screen, going, "huh? huh? Pretty funny, huh?"

Dave's definitely past his glory days, but for the kind of show we're talking about here, he's still the best.

I will say that Conan on a great night can be as good as Dave a few years back. But he rarely sustains it for a whole hour.

[Watching_Detectives]

I like Conan. I also like Jon Stewart. He makes me laugh I dislike Letterman, mostly because of Paul Shaffer. I could really do without him. And Leno...just isn't too funny.

[A rope leash]

Does anyone remember Dave's first show, the one that was on in the morning? I missed a lot of work just to watch it.

I like Conan alright, and I think his skit-writers are excellent. That insult-comic dog is humero el grande.

I also got rid of my digital television satellite. It costs way too much for what you get. The only thing I really miss is the Daily Show, and possibly some of the humour on HBO. But, I get to see that on the hotel TV when I travel, so...

...as far as Dave being a conspiracy, it's pretty obvious that the salivatingly patriotic American audience just wouldn't accept any sort of anti-war jabs this early in the game.

O man, how W and the war is presented in our media is really barf-inducing. Anyone care to discuss it? I go right from CNN.com to informationclearinghouse.info, and my head just explodes. There's just no telling what to think anymore!

[noiseradio]

Well, Rope, I just agree with you about the media coverage. I don't know how much of a discussion there is to have. What ought to be a PR nightmare for the Bushies has been soft-pedaled, even by CNN.

I used to watch the early Letterman show when I was a kid (during summers and vacation days). I've been a fan for a long time.

You guys remember Flunky the Clown? That was my cousin Jeff, who wrote for Letterman and the Simpsons (he worked with Conan on the Simpsons).

[bobster]

ARL -- Actually, I do remember that first Letterman show. I really loved it, it might well have gotten in the way of my schoolwork. If only his show now was half as funny as that one was.

Re: the war. Well, it's not just that Letterman doesn't oppose the war, he's actually in favor of it and says so unambiguously -- at least the last time I heard him discuss it (he was agreeing with Dick Cheney, I think it was). On the other hand, he does make pretty strong fun of W, and he couches his opinions as being from the point of a view of "a stupid guy," though at times it's tempting to agree!

Noise: In defense of the C-man...Well, humor is a very individual thing, but I will say that a lot of what bugs you, I like. He's very unpretentious about it and much of his humor is sort of meta-humor, in that a lot of its i's comedy about comedy. (As in his "recurring characters that didn't work" bit). Still, I gotta admit it was better when Andy Richter -- a truly gifted comic actor -- was there to anchor him. Still, Letterman is just mostly weak these days and only rarely makes me laugh, so there's no comparison, IMO

Re: the interviews. I've never noticed Conan particularly "kissing up." He's not Dan Rather or Terry Gross, that's for sure, but hardly anyone on TV these days is good at this kind of thing. (Even a supergenius like EC had a hard time with that!) and at least Conan is non-phony about them and gets people to be funny, which is really his only goal.

Speaking of interviewers "kissing up", am I the only one who finds Charlie Rose vaguely disgusting? Oh, well, that's another thread....