Four different stories bear my byline in today's Star-Ledger feature section, and if you look really closely at Funky Winkerbean, you may spot my name scribbled into someone's hair like the Ninas in an Al Hirschfeld drawing. Among the stories:
- An overview of why this TV night is so different from other recent post-strike nights, and a preview of upcoming columns;
- A reminder about the return of Letterman, Leno and the rest, whether with or without writers;
- A refurbished version of last summer's column about older shows on DVD to watch if you're missing your favorites during the hiatus. (Slightly expanded with reasons to visit or revisit the current MIA shows.)
The fourth column is the only one of the four that isn't just repeating or repackaging information from earlier columns and blog posts, so I'll link to it separately in a second.
Four different stories bear my byline in today's Star-Ledger feature section, and if you look really closely at Funky Winkerbean, you may spot my name scribbled into someone's hair like the Ninas in an Al Hirschfeld drawing. Among the stories:
I was reading through the previous post where many on here were bashing Jay leno and calling Dave smarter.
ReplyDeleteThat's your opinions - noted.
I am someone who hates Reality Television, likes smart, well written shows such as "30 Rock" and "Mad Men", but I think Jay Leno is funnier than Dave.
I have never enjoyed Letterman's brand of humor and I know many other folks who like smart shows and have college degrees, who prefer Jay to Dave.
So, please stop calling those of us who prefer watch Jay to be idiots. The real idiots are the ones who watch Reality TV only and find "Lost" to confusing to watch.
All that being said, I am painfully hoping Dave wins the ratings this week so we can get the writers back so I can have my shows to watch.
Otherwise, by March 1st, there will be almost nothing left on the air save for "The Shield", "Battlestar Galactica" and the last couple of "Lost" episodes.
I have to agree with Alex R., although I note that I am not a watcher of late night talk shows beyond Colbert and Stewart.
ReplyDeleteDave has always been the hipper of the two, but there is a smugness and self congratulatory nature to his humor that I have always found obnoxious. Leno, whatever his faults, does not offer that pretense.
Alex R. is correct that the conventional wisdom is and has always been that the cool kids like Letterman and the great unwashed like Leno. Can we get beyond that please?
I don't remember Alan calling Jay Leno fans to be idiots.
ReplyDeleteBut... but... Jay Leno IS NOT FUNNY! He might not be hip or smug, but he is so painfully unfunny. For me watching Leno is like sitting through whatshisface's awful jokes on Americas Funniest Home Videos. Bob Sagat, that's it.
ReplyDeleteAnyhoo... Alan, I was excited to see what DVDs you recommended, only to find that I watch all those shows already, dammit!
I would recommend that folks rent season 1 of Dexter... or how about Weeds... or how about season 1 of Friday Night Lights? Thanks to you, we're getting season 1 of the Wire tomorrow, and I can't wait.
I don't know if Alan is going to do a separate post on the results of the late-night tv debut, so I'll just post this here.
ReplyDeleteAfter bouncing back and forth between Jay and Dave last night, I think that, sad as it is to say, the winner on the monologue portion is Jay. Honestly, I think Jay needed to fire his writers, as he was a heck of a lot funnier without them on the monologue. Reminded me that, yes, once upon a time he was an unknown stand-up comedian who had appearances on Carson. And his questions from the audience portion was pretty good (what I saw).
Dave didn't seem to get going until Robin Williams showed up. The Top Ten was lame (except for #2). And I got rather sick of all of the "we support the WGA" rah-rah bits.
That being said, I still hope that Dave wins the ratings war.
If you're missing...
ReplyDeleteI have an addition for Grey's Anatomy withdrawal, but it will only work if you don't live in the US, or have the video tapes:
Ally McBeal
(in the meantime, only season 1 of St Elsewhere is out on DVD, which is sad, since all the "in" jokes didn't start till later, and also since I've already watched all of season 1, again. (and I only have one more season 1 ep of Fame - but that won't help with the Grey's thing)
Oh, and - Doogie Howser S1 must be out on DVD, since it's out on Hulu (alas, Hulu didn't seem to have Northern Exposure)
re missing 24 - I can't remember if this was the place that told me about it, but www.collegehumor.com (i don't think they have a hyphen in there) has a parody called something like 24 - the unaired 1994 pilot, where Jack Bauer saves the world, using AOL, a pager, and a dot matrix printer.
ReplyDeleteAwesome for those of us who were on AOL at the time - even if we have never watched one ep of 24. (I gather he runs around a lot and says things on his cell phone, urgently)