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Comedy.com sent a couple of writers to crash the Jay Leno Show test taping this week and review it. Their verdict? Leno’s new show is a lot like his old show. (Toldja!) The writers called it "muddled and confusing", and "a big ladle serving us more imitation comedy gruel". Ouch!
They saw lots of “car art” onstage, and a separate double-door entry just for comedians (different from the guests'). Then, near their seats in the lobby was a discarded script: a sketch featuring Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm) being attacked by the “JMZ” paparazzi. "It was so bad it was good," the writers wrote.That sketch is going to be a recurring gag.
Leno in his monologue told a joke about President Obama’s recent speech to America’s youth about staying in school and getting good grades. The punchline was, “and then George W. Bush gave his rebuttal.” The writers were amazed that later that night on The Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien told the exact same joke in his monologue! "Maybe a sign of things to come: three guys in one night, all on the same network, all fighting for the same monologue jokes. This could get ugly." (I think it's just more NBC cost-cutting as Jeff Zucker manages for margins: recycled jokes are cheaper than originals.)
There was the inevitable product pitch: a Ford-sponsored concept of a “green” race track that was "essentially a long Ford commercial – sounds hilarious, right?," the writers asked. "Not so much." Guest Selma Blair changed and took the wheel of an Electric Ford Focus "which couldn’t look less like a race car", and, like celebrities do on the BBC show Top Gear, had two minutes to go around the track twice. "She made it in 58 seconds…that felt like an hour."
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Gee, what a surprise, the “too cool for the room” comics didn’t find Leno funny. Thankfully, these sanctimonious types are not the audience Leno is after. We “uncool” people will watch and enjoy Leno and let you find continued “humor” in crap like Family Guy.
As much as I love Dave and hate Jay, there’s something shitty about posting a review of test shows. What’s the point? Can’t wait till next Monday night to dump on the guy?
I know that NASCAR has a huge following, but I can’t for the life of me figure out who is going to want to watch celebrities going around a track as a regular feature. I know Rosie’s variety show was a flop last year, but I think they should have tried to make Jay’s new show more in the vein of The Ed Sullivan Show. Right now it just sounds like it’s half carbon copy of his old show and half pure crap.
The ratings among other things will dictate the success of The Jay Leno show and not merely a few comics that are obviously not into Jay Leno anyways.
The Jay Leno show will do just fine. So what if the show is similar to his Tonight Show theme. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno was the Number 1 rated show for years and years so things will be OK, to be sure of that.
People need to get over their “issues” with Jeff Zucker because he is not going anywhere anytime soon so move on!
I’m not saying these guys are wrong. For all I know, the show WILL bomb and be muddled and confusing. But this reads like a bunch of comedy-as-art/edge comedians who resent Leno’s ability to connect with a mass audience. I’m looking forward to the show and hope it’s good. While I dig edgy comedy, I also like the bread and butter, middle of the road style comedy that Leno seems to do better than anyone else.
I’m no fan of Leno’s, but it’s absurd to judge a show based on a test taping. How would these comics like it if we judged them on the first drafts of their jokes? Comedy is ridiculously hard, even for people who have been doing it their whole lives. Apparently the “masterminds” behind a website called Comedy.com don’t understand this. I’m as pissed off as anybody in this business that Leno has taken away five hours of scripted network time, but for a couple of comics – who could benefit from Leno’s show at some point – to rip it before it’s on the air is as dumb as it gets.
This show has bomb written all over it. Even if it was good, it’d be lost in the NBC primetime schedule. Alas, it is not good.
How about stopping the Leno bashing? That the show is like the old show rates an obnoxious “toldja”? Grow up. Obviously it’s going to be like the old show since Leno was very popular and why would you possibly want to change what Leno has been doing with success for many years.
The segment with Selma Blair on the race track sounds like (or IS) a rip-off of a regular segment on the BBC’s Top Gear. (If you haven’t seen this show, check it out on BBC America – it is some great television even if you don’t like cars.)
Jay Leno will save comedy. He is comedy’s only hope. That should be a daily bit, they steal jokes from Conan’s show. Then I would watch.
Oh my goodness – he’s ripping off Top Gear too!
He’s also ripping off Monty Python. The sex education bit (”a teacher’s chalkboard that folded out to a sexy bed for seducing students”) is an exact steal from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. Three minutes and 40 seconds in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCUEsjXeFj4
Yeah, it’s not like Conan’s show’s similar to his Late Night show………….
Zucker may not be going anywhere soon, but his legacy will be how he took a number one rated show, shook things up by replacing its top-rated host and ultimately ruined it with Conan O’Brien. Zucker won’t be going anyplace because quite simply no one wants him.
It was a TEST show, there were probably a few other test shows that had different segments!
Sorry to tell all you Leno haters out there this, but Leno’s monologue ranges from mediocre to the occasional excellent.
The taped bits are at best mediocre, but face it, Jaywalking is sadly & embarrassingly funny. It shows just how rotten our educational system is. I’ve seen teachers that can’t answer the simplest questions on American history or identify famous people from a very recognizable photo.
And to get back to the hatred of Leno, just what the Hell is up with that?
Don’t repeat the bullshit about him being a scab during the strike/lockout!
He was totally cleared of that by the Writer’s Guild!
You don’t like him or his brand of comedy? Fine, that’s your right! So don’t watch, except from the hateful comments on Nikki’s site for the last couple of years, it’s obvious the haters are watching!
Why aggravate yourself if you hate him so much?
I don’t like Conan or Fallon, but I don’t hate on them, I just don’t watch them.
It makes for a much calmer life!
I’m a TV drama writer… and I think Leno is going to be a small hit for NBC. I’ll Tivo any series I want to watch and catch his open and stay if a guest is interesting. I think it’s a good alternative to scripted shows as long as the price is kept down for production. Now, having said that, it’s a disaster for NBC’s brand, but I’m not sure that matters in the brave, new world.
Top Gear does this much better than Leno ever could. To those who say “It was only a test show!”, wrong. This occurred 4 days before the first program premiere. It was a DRY RUN, people. The real deal. The only thing different on the first show will be the guests.
The show’s a bomb. The guys a scab.
Wow u must be a broke writer living in a studio in Sliverlake.
Don’t be mad your job at Trader Joes must keep u busy and happy
Not that I love NBC or Zucker, but I fail to understand what is so wrong about “managing for margins.” Isn’t the point of running a network to make money? If NBC has “worse” shows that have lower ratings, but still turns more profit than last year, why should they be criticized?
If Zucker truly wanted to manage for margins and have comedy (and ratings) at 10:00 p.m., he would have lured Jon Stewart away from Comedy Central.
There are many problems with managing for the margins.
Shows rarely grow audiences after a certain point. So you need to watch and deal with attrition. If you are managing for the margins you aren’t really attempting to attract new eyeballs, so you are going to be constantly shifting your top level down. It also hurts your margins across the board – if you have a ratings leader, say a Grey’s Anatomy, your promotion of the rest of your line up on that program can attract sampling of those shows in the cheapest and effective manner. When your high rater is lucky to make the top thirty, not so much.
It limits your risk taking creatively. Sure Leno is a risk, but this was really damage control for unintended consequences (don’t give your possibly retiring ratings leader’s job to the seriously ready to walk talent with less ratings unless you are sure the leader really wants to retire.)
It isn’t really doing the job needed for your contractual partners. IOW it really screws the affiliates, since your margins aren’t their margins.
It’s call Show Business for a reason. I hate the little turd, but he has a point.
The affiliates’ business is tied up almost completely in their local late news. From my days at the Peacock, I recall that the affiliates earned something like 80%-85% of their total revenue from their local late news. Earnings from prime time sales are miniscule. Probably the next biggest earner for them is early fringe, depending on the deals they’re able to make with the syndicator they buy the programming from.
By putting Leno on in primetime, NBC is hurting their ancillary business–no foreign, no DVD sales. But they’re also getting 46 weeks of original programming at a bargain basement price.
I think he’ll probably do better than most people are expecting he’ll do. I saw Gaspin thinking 1.5 in the A18-49 demo. Diminished expectations? Maybe. I think, on average, Jay will beat that. He’ll be a competitive second most nights and third on Thursdays possibly come in #1 on Friday. Time will tell.
Sorry James @ 6:16PM, but the Guild ruled that Leno wasn’t a scab!
And it was Nikki that dug that out first a few days ago as the Guild wanted it kept a secret.
And there should have been an apostrophe in “guys” [like this: guy's].
If you’re a writer, you’re a lousy one!
I agree, it’s not fair to judge a test run. But what’s the deal when someone is accused of pilfering material in comedy circles? Is this actionable? As litigious as Hollywood is, you’d think you would’ve heard of these types of cases being filed.
Howard Stern went on a rant about Jay supposedly taking stuff from him. I guess if this stuff was actionable Stern woulda filed. He’s not the type to let it slide. As a part-time actor (mostly summer stock, I’m not in Hollywood), I once had a young actor do a monologue I’d performed the year before nearly verbatim. He never shook the bad egg label and nobody ever hired him.
Leno’s show will be up and down, then gently fade away as NBC does the same. The network is run by an idiot and from the looks of things, the morons at GE don’t have a clue either. Leno, Conan, and Fallon are pathetic. Letterman appears to have the upper hand, but Dave’s ego will probably sink his ship soon enough. Jimmy Kimmel isn’t even funny.
Frankly, they all suck.
jay leno has never once even approached being the slightest bit funny, and he never has. he’s an unfunny hack. if you laugh at him, you probably also like “according to jim”, and therefore have no sense of humor at all.