Don Quixote’s Thought (okay, several thoughts) for the Day: Leno
Don Quixote on Jan 12 2010 at 5:19 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
Heard the other day that Jay Leno’s prime time show is being mercifully laid to rest. That’s hardly surprising, since it is hard to imagine a worse prime time show. Letterman had better guests, better bits and, with the exception of Letterman himself, a better show in late night than Leno had in prime time. The majority of the show was filler and, with two exceptions, bad filler. Monday night headlines (very funny) and anything with Ross the intern (he was so obviously having a good time it was impossible to watch him without having a good time, too) were watchable. The rest, from the agonizing long applause in the beginning, to celebrities answering dumb trivia questions to “earn you plug” to racing a stupid electric car, to unfunny bits that looked like Saturday Night Live rejects pained the eyes and ears.
The shame is that one could easily put together a terrific prime time show. Cut the applause at least in half. Get in, get on with it. Monologue, good bit like the headlines or Ross, major guest (Tom Cruise, Carlos Santana, Carol Burnett), second guest (just about anyone he actually had on as his first guest), performance spotlight (major acts or new talents, comedians and singers preferred), and out. Some guests are automatic — Miss America, Idol Winner, Dancing with the Stars winner, World Series MVP, Super Bowl MVP, etc., etc. Others could be part of shows or weeks built around events — Academy Awards Week, Grammy Week, etc. Don’t have enough star guests? Look elsewhere — politicians, sports figures (including sportscasters), businesspeople (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Donald Trump), singers, comedians, etc. A good booker could find 250 true celebs a year. You can do 10 at 10 in any of the slots, but only if you eliminate the 2 1/2 second lag (if CNN and ESPN can do it, I’m sure NBC can figure it out). Lose the filler. Bring back the couch and the desk for crying out loud. Don’t try to fix a format that’s not broken. Easy.
Or, at least that’s what I’d do. If you were going to put together a prime time variety/talk show, what would you do?
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4 Responses to “Don Quixote’s Thought (okay, several thoughts) for the Day: Leno”
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No advice on putting together a show, but an observation about Ross the Intern.
DQ, you are spot on—the guy was always having a great time. One of the things I noticed about him from early on was his courage. Ross had to force himself to do certain things, and it was obvious that he was holding his breath and gritting his teeth doing it. But, man, the guy almost always brought home a scalp.
I spent a couple of decades at NBC, back when it was a company worth working for, right before GE took it over, and terminating (happily) shortly thereafter. (Hundreds of us, happy to leave because we knew perfectly well that Jack Welch and his band of bozos knew/know zero about running a television network. It is, after all, something of an art form, and a pile of people went out the door between 1993 and 1996, all of whom knew where this was going, and were happy to split while winners. And – NBC has now been bringing up the bottom since 1995 – and it wasn’t at all tough to see it coming.)
However. Telling you exactly what’s going on, exactly what Zucker did wrong (did he do anything right? He has comprehensively violated every fundamental rule of successful programming), etc., etc., isn’t the thrust of your question. Fun – but not the thrust of your question.
To your question. No one has tried to put together a prime time variety/talk show for a very simple reason: it doesn’t have an audience. A “prime time variety/talk show” is a concept that isn’t really there, anyway. (There is no there there, as Dorothy Parker once remarked.) Variety show, fine – Carol Burnet, Dean Martin, Sonny & Cher, the Smothers Brothers, et al – but that doesn’t involve much talk.
And boy, did we try to bring back variety! We sat around in a bunch of rooms in 30 Rock in the late eighties and tried to sell Brandon and Grant on a re-birth of the variety show. We sat around hotel suites in Breckenridge, Denver, San Fran, Maui, LA, Miami, Seattle, etc, etc, etc. throughout the late eighties – and Brandon and Grant were enthusiasts! (Hey – remember Pink Lady and Jeff?) But the numbers weren’t there. Couldn’t justify it – we kept getting sabotaged by our own research. Huge expense, no audience. Ed Sullivan was gone, The Smothers were gone, Sonny & Cher were gone, Johnny Cash was gone, Jimmy Dean was making sausages (remember his show?), Al Hirt was gone – everybody except Dean Martin was gone from the variety genre in my time at NBC, and Dean was easing out, he had stopped doing the real show, and was down to those dopey (I always thought) celebrity “roasts.” And by 1978 he was done, too. Bob Hope did a Christmas show. Finito. And, according to research, nobody missed them.
And as for “talk” – well, that’s never happened in prime. The day-part doesn’t lend itself to thought, historically. This nonsense right here is the first time that’s ever happened, and given the way they approached it, naturally it failed. (Though I have the book in front of me here, and I do note: the ratings for Leno, at least in the prime time week of 12/14 – 12/18 {M-F, we don’t care about the weekends} are not so bad. In fact Leno is NBC’s best rated offering. The three highest NBC shows that week are Leno – Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. {This is just within NBC and only prime time – not comparing how he did against whatever ABC, CBS, and Fox threw up, and taking no notice of the fact that Letterman (whom Leno used to kill) is currently mangling O’Brien, who is and has always been a zero in my book.) In other words, he may not have won his time-slot those nights, but no other NBC show appears in the ratings above him – he’s NBC’s top three shows for the week.} This leaves me wondering a bit – so what’s the problem? Hey, affiliates – what the hell do you think is in the hopper that’ll be better than him?)
So I have no answers for how to set up a variety/talk show in prime time. It’s never been done, and it’s never been done for the very good reason that I’m probably not the only one who doesn’t know the answers: no one does. (Ergo – it’s never been done.) Spoke to my wife about this, she was an Affiliate Relations VP, and both Brandon’s and Grant’s go-to guy. (Gal.) She had the touch, and they always had her paged wherever she was, and hauled her into programming meetings, because her “feel” and instincts are stellar. She told me back in August exactly what would play out here, and she’s been 100% to this point, with about two predictions left to go. ( DQ, if you want, when the those two final predictions are passed or fulfilled in the next couple of weeks, I’ll let you know.)
But: how would you do a variety/talk show in prime time? You wouldn’t: it’s a hybrid formula that doesn’t work in prime.
My turn. Who is Ross the intern?
I gave up on late night talk when Carson retired. Why settle for hamburger when you’ve been spoiled eating filet mignon.
I liked Leno when he was on the comedy circuit and never cared for Conan.
Maybe, they should both walk to another network and do a comedy hour..When Harry Leno met Sal O’Brien.
Ross the Intern is cute, but I find him creepy. The children and I dislike his girlish voice.
As for JJ’s comment, I get the feeling that this generation of stars simply don’t have the all around raw talent that used to hold the old shows together. In those days, you had stars who could sing, dance, do comedy bits, act — few of them could do it all well, but they could do it.
Nowadays, in a world of lip syncing and other studio tricks, I don’t see anyone having the ability to go out and put on a show like the Carol Burnett show, which was anchored around a core group of talented performers.
Burnett could sing, act and do exquisitely timed comedy, as could Vicky what’s her name. As for Tim Conway and Harvey Korman, well, they don’t get funnier than that.
Ed Sullivan was also an old time showman from the vaudeville era. He grew up on cobbled together shows, and understand the kind of talents that worked together and attracted audiences. We don’t have anyone with that experience either.
It’s no coincidence, I think, that all these performance competition shows are, as much as anything, amateur hour. The professionals have all died out.