Friday, December 2, 2005

If You're So InKleined...

One of my favorite comedians, Robert Klein, has a new HBO Special that debuts tomorrow night. It's his eighth and I've yet to see one that wasn't well worth watching. So my TiVo's set.

Mr. Klein discussed it this afternoon on The Paul Harris Show, a fine program heard on KMOX radio in St. Louis. You can listen to the conversation here.

Which reminds me: Every time I host something, someone with even less expertise than I have asks me for tips on being a good interviewer. The only way I've ever learned whatever I've learned is by studying people who do it well. One of those who's shown me how it should be done is Paul Harris.

• Posted at 8:11 PM · LINK

From the E-Mailbag...

Gary Emenitove writes...

I don't think that repetition on Letterman (or Leno, for that matter) is a bad thing. I cite the Master — Johnny Carson — where I, and presumably millions of others, looked forward to Carnak, Art Fern, and other bits. They were predictable (recall the moment where he paused just before "...THE FORK IN THE ROAD!") and they were cornerstones of a segment of The Tonight Show of that era. Just how is "Will It Float?" any different? The point is not whether something floats (just as the point with the Tea Time Movies were not the brief movie snippets themselves). The thing I look forward to is the production of it — the theme song for the segment, the hula-hoop and grinder girls, the sound effects, the interplay between Dave and Paul. Sure, it's predictable. And that's precisely why I do like it.

Well, the big difference between Dave's "Will It Float?" and Johnny's Tea Time Movies is that Johnny only did Tea Time Movies three or four times a year. Dave seems to do "Will It Float?" three or four times a week.

A certain amount of repetition is not a bad thing, and it's great to develop recurring segments that viewers look forward to. Carson, however, had a terrific instinct for when something (or in the case of guests, someone) was appearing too often. That even included his own appearances. Johnny took his many nights off, in part on the premise that America would tire of him if he did five shows a week.

I get the feeling that a lot of TV shows these days that are done in front of a live audience don't know the difference between entertaining the warm bodies in the seats and entertaining the folks sitting at home. Live audiences are a different breed. They go in, wanting to see all the recurring bits. They want to hear all the catch-phrases. Basically, they want to see in person all the routines and show elements they know well from watching at home...and of course, they're usually bigger fans of the program than the average viewer. A lot of sitcoms — including at least one I worked on — have suffered from playing to that dynamic for cheap applause. Even those same people wouldn't want to see all that stuff if they were sitting at home.

Letterman plays to a studio audience of Dave worshippers. At times, that audience is even pre-screened with a trivia test to make sure they're steady watchers and know all the running gags. It's nice that he wants to reward his loyal viewers but I think he'd have a better show if he had some people out there who didn't love every single thing he does, especially if they've already seen it eight hundred times. I sure like him better when he's doing things he's never done before.

• Posted at 7:01 PM · LINK

Big Bucksters

Forbes Magazine picks the 15 richest fictional characters. They say Richie Rich can buy and sell Uncle Scrooge. As someone who's written both, I'm here to tell you they're wrong.

[UPDATE: The above link is wrong. It goes to their 2002 list. Here's the link to the 2005 list.]

• Posted at 6:48 PM · LINK

Radio 4 You

One of the great things about the Internet is that you can use it to listen to BBC radio. Let's all do that on Wednesday, December 7 when BBC Radio 4 broadcasts an interview/performance of my hero, Stan Freberg. Here's the info but I'll remind you of it when we get closer to the date.

In the meantime, you can listen to a half-hour biography of master humorist S.J. Perelman on this page. It's narrated by some guy named Woody Allen and that link won't be good for very long so don't dawdle. There's also a series about Woody's stand-up years and you can hear the first part from this page.

• Posted at 3:12 PM · LINK

Still More Recommended Reading

This article on the Reuters news service says that newly-released documents from 1964 say that U.S. officials lied to justify escalating the Vietnam War. It's one of those things that you'd like to believe didn't happen but it probably did.

• Posted at 11:43 AM · LINK

Last Night Late Night

Last night, on an episode that remains as-yet-unwatched on my TiVo, David Letterman had Oprah Winfrey on as a guest. Oprah had told interviewers for some time that she'd never set foot on the Letterman stage again...a vow she kept until it seemed like a good way to promote her new musical, which is playing a block from where Dave tapes. I gather from this morn's Internet chatter that the event was rife with polite conversation, whereas some viewers were hoping for The Morton Downey Jr. Show to erupt. I'll watch it later.

What I wanted to mention now is that the early ratings suggest Dave got a monster tune-in — one of his highest-rated shows ever, if not the highest. That was expected...and good for Dave. Putting on shows that people want to watch is what the game is all about. What wasn't expected was Leno's rating. In an article last week, TV critic Tom Shales predicted, "Leno might as well air a rerun. Only the TiVo machines will be watching." This morning's Nielsens say otherwise. Jay got his usual Thursday night rating, which ordinarily would beat Dave by a point or so. Just as many people as ever were watching him. There were just more watching Dave and Oprah kiss and make up.

A friend of mine who analyzes ratings for a living told me some time ago that we are long past the point where anyone is pondering if they prefer Dave over Jay or Jay over Dave. "There are no Undecideds in this election," is how he put it. There are those who opt for Jay, those who prefer Dave, and those who can go either way, depending on the guest list. This last group, he said, is smaller than you'd think.

Jay has been consistently winning in the ratings for two reasons, only one of which is that his partisans are greater in number. The other is that they tune in more often and stick around longer. The Jay fans watch 4-5 times a week and are more likely to stay 'til the end of the show. The Dave fans watch 3-4 times a week and tend to go to bed or check out HBO before that show is over. That's an oversimplification but the principle is correct, at least for average nights. On an "event" night — Dave returns from heart surgery, Dave has on Hillary Clinton, Jay has Jerry Seinfeld after the last Seinfeld airs, etc. — all of that host's regular viewers tune in at once, plus a lot of viewers who rarely watch either late night show. Last night, Dave stole away a few of those who normally watch Jay but not enough that no one was watching Leno. Mostly, all the folks who like Dave but who feel his show has gotten repetitive thought, "Ah, tonight it'll be different." So they watched, and you also had the folks who ordinarily don't care about late night. They just thought something eventful might occur. Add in the Oprah fans who watched just because they love her and you have a huge rating...but not at Leno's expense. Tonight, Dave has on Luke Wilson and a rodeo champ, Jay welcomes Ebert and Roeper plus Tyra Banks, and things return to normal.

Lots of people remember that the first time Leno passed Letterman in the ratings was the night Hugh Grant came on The Tonight Show for his first public appearance after being arrested with a hooker. Some of Dave's fiercest loyalists still try to insist that Jay's 10+ year dominance in the ratings is only due to that; like America was tricked into watching that one night and all their remotes got stuck. In truth, Jay was gaining on Dave in the weeks before and would have passed him soon, even without Grant. His show had a remarkable bounce-back after trailing Letterman for a while and has since demonstrated great, unacknowledged strength. Even the excuse that he was just beating Dave because NBC had a stronger prime-time line-up has since collapsed now that the Peacock Number is flirting with fourth place and Jay still wins.

Personally, as I've said before, I think both shows could and should be a lot better and less prone to recycling. If the right host were on ABC opposite them, I think both Dave and Jay would be in a fair amount of trouble and might have to ditch some of their easy, dependable bits and put in a few more hours a week. But the Letterman fan who writes me every month to try and convince me that Dave is about to be Numero Uno again is wasting as much bandwidth as the people who tell me I've won the International Lotto and just have to send my bank account number in order to collect millions. Dave will win nights when the show is all about a spectacular guest or a monumental event in The Life of Letterman. But Jay wins any night that's just about Dave and Paul playing "Will It Float?"

• Posted at 9:15 AM · LINK

December 3, 2005 • Current • December 1, 2005