Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Best Tonight Show I Have Ever Seen
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March 29, 2010
There was an interim period between the time that Jay Leno's Tonight Show was transferred from 10PM where there were untenable issues to his preferred and historical 11:30 slot where Jay has been entertaining America for many years and presently is in the the lead again. On my personal sites as a widely displayed freelance writer on the Internet and owner of Freelance Writing, I made several comments regarding suggestions for the new venture. I may have been repetitive and I apologize to Jay Leno and his staff but the central theme I furthered was that in my view it was imperative for the Tonight Show to enlist better guests. I did not per say perceive beating out Dave Letterman in the ratings as the focal point of my comments because for some time Dave has been his own worst enemy. The incidents he fell into off the field will not help him. When you add his shoot from the hip style without regard for the feelings of others, the fact that he exudes an aura of caustic grumpiness makes him an easy target for Jay to overcome him in the ratings and now my observations are evident. Jay may be a really nice guy who rarely offends anyone by his good nature, in and of itself that is simply not enough. Back to the guests. Tonight's show was exemplary and mirrored those orginal comments I sent in. I have a significant though innocuous tie to Laura Graham, the first guest. she is a highly skilled and vastly popular actress who unlike the usual fare on talk shows is not solely a gadget for the men to check out on the walk from the curtain to the chair. These interviews are usually vapid and certainly not interesting. The interviews are usually replete with silly double entendres and inside talk and then the plug. Laura Graham is a mature and polished actress and she gained my interest immediately with her stories emanating from a recent stint in a Broadway play. She is classy and mannered and a pleasure to listen to. When I used the word innocuous above I will explain. Laura Graham made her fortunes in a show which someone my age would never be attracted to which eventually ended up on cable on the ABC Family Channel. For several years my family would sit in the livingroom mesmerized by Laura and that show, kind of like a tween oriented production while I would just pass by the set maybe catching a minute on my way to the office. To this day, the minutes added up and even though the theme was for younger generations, I could easily see why Laura Graham is a great actress and why she livened up the Tonight show setting up the stage for the clean up hitter, the Architect and author of the best seller Courage and Consequence, Karl Rove. Now I think it was a stretch to bring on a Conservative think tank empressario like Karl Rove to a MSM, liberal venue but NBC will realize when they get the numbers maybe tomorrow that it was the best decision they ever made in formating Jay's guest list so that it will continue to be interesting and not sleep inducing for the viewers. Karl received many rounds of applause and the learning lesson is that the Tonight Show while certainly is not required to invite subversive or radical individuals to frighten the public, should jettison any ideological objections and bring on politicians and commentators and authors representing all legitmate philosophical attitudes because as viewers we do not necessarily gravitate to the Pee Wee Hermans and the slinky actresses who cause the boredom that lowers the Neilsens when home audiences throw in the DVD. Next an adult alternative band came on and they were absolutely outstanding. I am 59 years old so I will use that as an excuse for not remembering their name. I work as a music critic and rarely have I seen a band on the music set of SNL or any of the talk shows that was this precise particularly with respect to their vocals. The band was unique insofar as they were were highlighting what appeared to be a female lead vocalist in tandem with a co-frontman who played guitar. So lets quickly evaluate the Jay Leno program tonight. You had an intelligent and well spoken actress as the first guest, a national figure who has a computer mind for political matters second, and a really tight adult alternative band on their way up. Keep these shows coming out of the shoot, avoid the lame sleeping pill guests, remember that Jay Leno is a classic entertainer and the Tonight Show will be alone at 11:30 and there will not be anything to worry about.
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