I didn't know you, Jay Leno, and a monkey were bathing a clown!

[vovat]

bethje and I watched the Simpsons episode "The Last Temptation of Krust" with commentary last night. Jay Leno was a special guest commentator, which wasn't cool, since I'm no kind of fan of his. From what little of his show I've seen (mostly from when Beth, who really doesn't like him, forces me to watch it), he seems to be the kind of guy who tries really hard to play it safe with his jokes, yet often comes across as more offensive than comedians who actually share a controversial opinion every once in a while. I remember when I saw him on Oprah (truly a match made in Middle America, there), and he mentioned how he wouldn't make jokes about his wife, but he would about women in general. It seems to me that the opposite actually makes more sense. I mean, if you know someone well, you're going to know what will and won't bother them (and if you don't, you can always, y'know, ASK), while stereotyping an entire gender might well offend someone. But the bigger problem with Leno might actually be laziness. I mean, sure, "Headlines" is sometimes funny, but that's because of the humor in the headlines themselves, not any actual effort on the part of Jay or his writers. Oh, and the guy still makes O.J. Simpson jokes, without any discernible hint of irony.

I don't remember liking that particular Simpsons episode that much anyway. It's been a while since I've seen it (without commentary, anyway), but I remember Krusty's "telling it like it is" humor being neither good enough to be funny on its own nor bad enough to be satirically effective. I guess it's kind of difficult to write a sitcom episode actually about comedy, though. After all, the comedy there generally comes out of...well, the situations. {g}

Comments

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what episode you're talking about...is it the one where Krusty does stand-up and Leno is one of the other comics? Yeah, I agree with you, Leno is pretty junky for a comedian and I always liked Letterman better than Leno. But, eh, I don't watch either of them now. If I watch any sort of comedian-talking-to-the-audience-and-guests-and-talking-about-news, it's "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report" only. Otherwise, talk shows (daytime or late-night) are a waste of my time.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I don't even know what episode you're talking about...is it the one where Krusty does stand-up and Leno is one of the other comics?

Yeah, that's the one. I know the episode titles aren't universally known (especially since only a few of them were mentioned in the actual show), but I still find it the easiest way to refer to them. And hey, it's better than referring to "Episode 5F10," right? {g}

While I've never been a big late-night watcher, there's definitely a quality to Letterman that I like. I think part of it is that, when one of his jokes bombs, he's able to make the failure into another joke. I get the feeling that Leno is less likely to do that, and more likely to just keep milking the bad joke. And Kevin Eubanks, who's apparently the most easily amused person in the world, will laugh at pretty much anything Leno says anyway.

I didn't watch The Daily Show back in its early days, but I get the impression that it's sort of morphed into more of a late-night talk show than its original conception was supposed to be.

[vilajunkie.livejournal.com]

True, episode titles are better than episode numbers. Though I do remember in the Halloween episode with Lucy Lawless, the Comic Book Guy and a couple other nerds referred to "Xena" episodes by their episode numbers. "A wizard did it!" "I didn't know Xena could fly!" "I'm not Xena, I'm Lucy Lawless!" :)

And you know, even the producers agree that the episode numbers are out of sequence and make no coherent logical sense compared to each other.

I knew that about both Letterman and Leno, but since you brought it up, it reminded why I liked one and not the other. They do both have their strong points: "The Top Ten" and "Headlines", respectively.

I didn't (and couldn't) watch "The Daily Show" before Jon Stewart came along, but it's definitely now a lot more streamlined and professional, much more like a late-night talk show.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think it was common in early Simpsons Internet fandom for people to refer to the episodes by production numbers, which is likely to be what they were spoofing with both the Xena and Poochie episodes.