The Definitive Guide to Comedy
After Conan O'Brien published a press release yesterday afternoon saying he would not harm the Tonight Show franchise by moving it a half-hour past the late local news, but did not explicitly say he was quitting, everyone wondered what his show would be like last night. Well, Conan had plenty …
Last night, Jimmy Kimmel would not be denied the spotlight, even though he knew, you knew, I knew, we all knew that everyone would be tuning into Conan O'Brien to see what he'd do on The Tonight Show. So. What to do? How about putting on a fake wig and …
In case you were wondering how Jay Leno would respond to Conan O'Brien's announcement that he would not be joining The Tonight Show after midnight, well, keep wondering. At least for a half-hour or so. In this sneak preview clip NBC produced, however, you'll notice that while Team Conan is …
The people at CBS and Late Show at David Letterman know that after Monday's blistering take on NBC, they could have some more fun tonight. Except now that Conan O'Brien announced today that he would not move The Tonight Show to 12:05 a.m., the balls are in NBC's court, and …
Last summer, while running around from show to show at the inaugural Just For Laughs Chicago comedy festival, I managed to catch up with Robert Smigel and Dino Stamatopoulos backstage after one of their rare screenings of "The Unaired Bozo Circus Parody" along with the pilot for TV Funhouse. At …
Because David Letterman tapes his Friday shows early, he didn't have a chance to weigh in on NBC's late-night TV reshuffling — or as Bill Carter of The New York Times thinks of it, his new book that'll someday make a miniseries sequel of The Late Shift — until Monday. …
Conan O'Brien addressed and assessed his various options in Monday's monologue, his first back on "The Tonight Show" since NBC told TV critics on Sunday that they were moving Jay Leno back to 11:35 p.m. in March, following the Winter Olympics. What about Conan? He said he could "star in …
Nobody tell Jay Leno that he actually won the NBC late-night wars — again — because in Monday night's monologue, his first since NBC told TV critics over the weekend that they were giving him his old time-slot in March after the Winter Olympics, he came out joking about being …
As more people become more Internet savvy, I've often wondered how TV shows that rely on topical humor deal with the fact that so many would-be jokesters are making the same jokes about big topics so fast. Case in point: When Kanye West stormed the stage at the MTV awards …
I know, I know. NBC's earlier press session today is what everyone is talking about, with their official acknowledgement that they're moving Jay Leno out of primetime and back to 11:35 p.m., but that nothing is a done deal concerning Conan O'Brien. Yikes. Which is precisely why I wanted to …