Jay Leno is losing his mojo. His timing is off, he is muttering, he is blowing his lines. I didn’t watch the White House Correspondent’s dinner. The reports that I had from the left (and why should I listen to any other kind) said that he bombed, although I’m sure he got a very polite reception from the crowd. After all, he’s not Stephen Colbert.
But I watched him the other night when Schwarzenegger was on and it wasn’t pretty.
I don’t hate Jay Leno. For a long time I referred to him, along with Arnold who stopped being funny when he got elected, as exceptions to the rule that right wingers are never funny (see Dennis Miller, Victoria Jackson).
I view David Letterman much the same way. In the beginning, it was ground breaking TV. No talk show host had ever before covered themselves in Alka-Seltzer and been lowered into a tank. Now, he’s getting on a bit and those jokes don’t seem as funny any more.
I’m a Conan fan, definitely. I was totally impressed, during the writers’ strike, how he played guitar and sang to fill in the time. The man has extreme talent. Still, he’s been around for years.
I’ve been living outside of the U.S. long enough that I haven’t seen much of the younger guys like Jimmy Kimmel and Craig Ferguson, so I can’t rate them. No matter.
My point is that a talk show host doesn’t need to stay in their job for 10, 15, 20 years. Take your millions, retire and give the younger guys a shot.
Comedy has to be fresh, baby.
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