Yay! Comedy’s Back! America Can Laugh Again!
Jan 2nd, 2008 by John Stodder
Okay, yes, I’m being sarcastic, but you have to understand. All too often when I was a youngster, my father would come home from work to find my brothers and me lying on the floor, watching “The Three Stooges” or “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” whereupon he would ask in a sneering tone, “What intellectual, scintillating, enlightening, educational, vital program that is vital and important to the future of America are you boys watching?”
After taking a moment to absorb the futile void our lives had turned into, I’d answer, shamefacedly, “Uh…‘My Mother the Car.’” Then he’d make me explain it. And it would go downhill from there.
Thus, I have been conditioned to look at television as, at best, a guilty pleasure that is completely unimportant. It’s somewhat reassuring to know that “The Sopranos” and “Mad Men,” two of my favorites, are routinely blessed by this era’s culture mavens as “worthwhile,” but it still feels like I need to keep my geek fascination with such shows to myself unless I’m sure I’m in the presence of a kindred spirit. And I describe my obsession with all three variations of “Law and Order” as a kind of benign, treatable mental illness, so no one will judge me. Sure, I watch hours of “Law and Order” reruns each week, but look here, I’ve got a note from the doctor!
With that as prelude, can I share with you my bafflement over the huge hype for tonight’s “return” of late-night comedy? What kind of intellectual, scintillating, enlightening, educational, vital programs that are vital and important to the future of America are you boys and girls watching?
In case you’ve forgotten, Letterman and Leno (and their follow-ups Craig Ferguson and Conan O’Brien) are shows that feature mostly bad jokes, tired bits, celebrities on promo tours, ordinary people to show how dumb America has become and then, at the end, a song by a band you’ve probably never heard of. Letterman and Leno are McLuhanesque figures, prized for their comforting familiarity as the hour of the wolf approaches. We’ve made a pact with them. We can be bored as long as we let them tell us how bored they are, too.
Anyway, their shows are on past most people’s bedtimes. If you go to work in the morning, you’re supposed to be asleep by the time late-night comedy shows are on.
It doesn’t seem like the fate of the late-night comedy/interview format should be such a big deal. It’s more of a business story. I’m sure you know the basic details. Letterman’s company made a side-deal favorable to the striking WGA writers, so he and Ferguson will have written material. Leno and O’Brien are employees of NBC-Universal, NBC-Universal is not interested in any side deals, so they can’t use writers or do any writing themselves, and their shows will be picketed.
Who will cross the picket line outside the NBC shows? Which shows will get higher ratings, the ones WGA is writing for, or the ones where the hosts have to ad-lib everything? What will they say about the increasingly tragic WGA strike? What effect will their pro-writer advocacy have on the detached and indifferent network and studio executives who have ceased all negotiations?
Well, you don’t actually have to watch the shows to find these things out. You can read all about it on the Internet, which is where all the eyeballs that formerly used to watch TV are going.
Leno and Letterman aren’t “shows” any more, from the Internet surfer’s point of view. They are stories about the entertainment industry, mixed with a few funny clips from topical interviews or embarrassing moments that you can catch on YouTube. As the strike continues, we will probably see the really funny writers migrate to the web to make their own content. You won’t watch it in bed, you’ll watch it at work, or on your mobile phone at the gym.
The network and studio moguls think that’s the outcome they really want — writers and performers as independent contractors, reliant on the studios for promotion and distribution. Other observers point out that the studios might be rendering themselves obsolete. It doesn’t cost very much to put a funny clip on the Internet. The advertising model for revenue remains problematic, but studios don’t have any special clues for cracking that nut. Their main skill is raising capital. If you don’t need a lot of capital, you might not need the studios.
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