The Daily Late Nightly Show (Have Fun Storming The Castle)

Mr. Mainstream Gets His

The cold truth is that it’s really hard to screw up the late night TV format Johnny Carson epitomized or the franchise David Letterman created from nothing.

They were not quite the juggernaughts people remember in rose colored nostalgia.

Johnny’s big joke was that his jokes sucked and he could rarely go 5 minutes without breaking character. His guests were 98% inside Showbiz and the only thing he had that the current hosts do not is he did animal acts (I dunno, Kimmel and Fallon are insufferable idiots, maybe they do animal acts, I never watch).

Letterman has genuine talent and is a great interviewer. While he still skewed Entertainment he was at least willing to bring in some more substantial guests and his monologues and set pieces were infused with a wry, ironic sense of humor that was genuinely funny.

That is, if you had half a brain. Leno by contrast never, ever rose above a zippy one liner (most pretty offensive actually), yet throughout their tenures Jay pulled better ratings than Dave (except for the first month or so).

So why are we surprised to find Stephen Colbert is behind Jimmy Fallon?

My answer is simple and not at all original. Some people don’t like to think. It’s the Three Stooges v. the Marx Brothers and there are those who don’t get it.

You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.

Not that I mean to disparage spit takes and prat falls, I appreciate them differently.

So I’m not discouraged by the ratings, they’re exactly what I would have expected.

On the other hand I do think Stephen has lost some of his edge and it’s a shame. The Big Giant Hat bit- ugh. He has to devote at least 2/3rds of his guest list to “celebrities”. He says he’s given up his character but when the show works best he’s totally back in it. He’s done some genuinely funny things.

Walk Like An Egyptian

Vacation Hot Spots

Michael Moore

Conservatives correctly perceive that he doesn’t like them much and return the favor. So called “liberals” and “progressives” are weakly sympathetic but when it comes to crunch time are apathetic, lethargic, and all too willing to turn off their minds and let someone else do their thinking for them.

Yeah, I’m looking right at you.

I hope that the suits at CBS weren’t expecting anything else and that Colbert gets to continue a show that is far superior to anything the other two networks are doing.

And then I remember that CBS canceled The Smothers Brothers at a time when it was wildly popular in an MSNBC/Phil Donahue way.

By the way Samantha Power’s husband is Cass Sunstein and she needs better wardrobe advice than that which put her in that dress last night.

Mr. Mainstream

Mandy Patinkin will be talking about how Ted Cruz really doesn’t get The Princess Bride at all.

Rob Reiner once summed up The Princess Bride: “It’s about a little boy who is sick in Evanston, Illinois, and his grandfather comes over to read him a story to tell him the most important thing in life is true love.”
…
“You know, it’s very strange. I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”

My favorite line? Alas, I am a little more bloody minded than Mandy-

It’s possible, Pig, I might be bluffing. It’s conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I’m only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again… perhaps I have the strength after all.

Stephen’s final guest this year is Leon Bridges.

Next week we begin Holiday programming. I’ll try to have some evening entertainment (I have a whole bunch of Raves stacked up, but I might be able to find some classic movies and specials) for you. As the news spigot slows to a trickle of “Best Ofs” we’ll have some recipes and archival pieces and I hope a few originals of deeper reflection.