Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Carson Oversight

My longtime pal Jim Korkis writes to say, "I assume that many animation scholars other than myself will write to remind you of Johnny Carson's animated appearance on The Simpsons where he could superhumanly lift a car among other things." No, Jim, you're the first.

• Posted at 6:11 PM · LINK

Briefly Noted...

Have I mentioned lately what a smart guy Ben Varkentine is?

• Posted at 6:09 PM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

From Mike Groman comes this response to something I posted six hours ago...

I can't speak about Democrats, because I don't know too many of them, but I think you're wrong that "most Republicans would admit they wish they had a guy who could speak better English and hadn't led us into a dual quagmire of Iraq and The Deficit." The Republicans I know — not all from here in Texas, btw — look upon Bush and his administration as defenders of the faith, bastions against the Democrats and the rest of the anti-American liberals. They revel in the tax cuts, completely dismissing the record deficit, strained economy, and increased joblessness as being unrelated, and ignoring the facts that the greatest beneficiaries of the cuts are those who need them least. They glory in the defense of the right to bear arms, asserting that any abridgement of these rights — such as the poorly conceived ban on assault weapons that recently expired — is unconstitutional. They look upon the invasion of Iraq as being a just war and discount the worsening situation during the post-war occupation as being unrelated to Bush's policies and methods. They applaud the application of religious morality to the governance of the country, from "conservatization" of federal courts to restriction of scientific research. They still think Rush Limbaugh is the new Moses.

Am I a Democrat? No. I'm an independent. Until the last two presidential elections, beginning in 1972, I've voted Democrat only once, and I regretted it. My liberal friends say I'm a conservative and my conservative friends say I'm a liberal. I'm neither. I'm a male, straight, pro-choice, concealed handgun toting, pro-science, widowed and divorced, comic book reading, retired military pilot who served in Southeast Asia. I vote on the issues. I don't particularly like Kerry; he seems only marginally more competent, based on his public appearances and speeches, than Bush. However, he's our only hope, Obiwan. For the good of the United States, we need to replace Bush before he and the Republicans do any more damage. Let's just hope Kerry and the Democrats aren't any worse.

Well, you may be right about "most Republicans"...or I may be right and the denial is deeper than I suggested. I don't know how anyone could think that what's happening in Iraq is unrelated to Bush's policies and methods, but I can certainly understand how some couldn't bear to admit it, even to themselves. I'm a little more confident in Kerry's ability than you are, but not a lot. With the kind of voter you describe, it may not matter. They have a vision of Liberals and America that isn't going to change. The best I think Kerry can hope for with them is that they may begin to feel that George W. is not the man they think he is. That won't make them vote for Kerry-Edwards but it might make some of them a little less eager to run out and vote Bush-Cheney on Election Day. Still, I can't help but believe there's no one in their ranks who wouldn't be a lot happier if their guy was the war hero and he seemed to have a better handle on Iraq and the economy.

• Posted at 5:58 PM · LINK

More Late Night Flotsam

As we predicted here, Conan O'Brien is planning to do his last Late Night broadcast six months before he takes over The Tonight Show so he can have a vacation and lots of prep time. He'll tentatively close out the 12:35 show on Dec. 31, 2008 and then the handover of power will probably be timed to coincide somehow with the "sweeps" rating period.

Johnny Carson's last Tonight Show was May 22, 1992 and then Jay took over the following Monday, May 25. I note that in 2009, May 22 again falls on a Friday...so it wouldn't surprise me if Jay exited on that date and Conan took over on 5/25/09.

Oh — and before I forget, I wanted to mention this: For some time now, David Letterman has put in a four-day week. On Thursdays, they would tape two shows, one to air on Friday. They've just changed, and now the Friday show is being taped the previous Monday — which means that throughout the election season, Dave's Friday shows will have to be largely devoid of current events. He's already taped the show that will run this Friday, following the Thursday night presidential debate.

The move may seem necessary for Dave's health or staff fatigue or some other reason, but I think it's also a step in the wrong direction. Audiences in this Internet/cable news age are becoming more demanding of immediacy. Once upon a time, J. Carson could air one rerun a week (plus another on the weekend), and eight whole weeks of reruns per year...and those reruns were generally a year old. In today's late night market, that would be suicide. Dave and Jay air reruns sparingly and rarely reach back more than six or so weeks for them. Eventually, I'll predict, even that won't be enough. One of these days, someone's going to do a talk show which will not only be done live but will do away with prepared conversational points. It will also attempt stunts and bits that just might not work, and it'll be up to the host to keep things afloat. If they get the right host, that will become the new Gold Standard for late night TV.

(By the way: If all this seems trivial...well, it is. It's just my way of not getting a headache by trying to figure out the presidential election. Hmm...maybe Dave has the right idea...)

• Posted at 12:33 PM · LINK

Today's Political Rant

The last few presidential elections, I spent a lot of time watching (and not necessarily believing) the polls. My philosophy was to more or less double the margin of error and take it more literally. In other words, if a given survey had a three point margin of error, I considered it meaningless if the candidates were less than six points apart. I'm not sure this was statistically sound but it saved a lot of wear and tear on my emotions, fretting when my guy was two points down, getting my hopes up when he was three ahead, having them dashed when he then fell four, etc.

This time out, I'm lost. The polls are all over the place and even within one survey, the national numbers sometimes paint a very different picture than if you go state-by-state. We also have some pockets of unprecedented new voter registration, and that may render some of the old polling models inoperative. I once heard some member of the Gallup family say that the main reason that some polls miscalled elections was that they were based on obsolete profiles of what constituted a Likely Voter.

I don't get that there's a lot of enthusiasm out there for either candidate. There's a lot of enthusiasm for winning...and since we're stuck with the guys we're stuck with, we'll pretend our guy is a great leader and that we have unwavering confidence in him. But I think if you could give a massive dosage of Sodium Pentathol to the electorate, most Republicans would admit they wish they had a guy who could speak better English and hadn't led us into a dual quagmire of Iraq and The Deficit. And most Democrats would admit that they wish they had a guy who could utter a clear, declarative sentence and offer solutions that didn't come with so many disclaimers attached.

I have no idea who's going to win, and I suspect that, more so than usual, the people who are paid loads of money to know who's going to win don't know who's going to win. I'm also real sick of this election.

The last few days, I've written a lot about the Late Night battles, and had at least twenty calls from friends and reporters who wanted to discuss it. When I reached a lull in the topic, I went to catch up on all the political websites I routinely browse...and I couldn't face them. The Leno-O'Brien situation is trivial and silly and it was such a nice vacation from the Bush-Kerry one that I didn't want to go home.

• Posted at 11:52 AM · LINK

Improv in L.A.

As I've written here, it's tough to find good, real improv comedy work these days. Too often, you get a "fill-in-the-blanks" performance that resembles one of those old Mad-Libs games, rather than improv. But I think there's going to be real improv at a two-night-only event in Pacific Palisades on October 8 and 9. A group of seasoned performers will be doing "An Evening with the Spolin Players" and their ranks include Eddie Allen, Dan Castellaneta, Donna Dubain, Deb Lacusta, Danny Mann, John Mariano, Anna Mathias, Gail Matthius, David McCharen, Edie McClurg, Pat Musick and Gary Schwartz. Darned good lineup, there. For more info, go here. Then, to see some brilliantly talented folks making it up on the spot, go to Pacific Palisades that weekend.

• Posted at 8:49 AM · LINK