The folks who bring us Jeopardy! have announced that for the rest of this year, shows will be hosted by Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings and that an actual permanent host will be named in 2022. Apparently, Ms. Bialik and Mr. Jennings are good enough to hold down the fort but neither is good enough to be actually given the job indefinitely.
If you can explain to me why the folks running this show are making the decisions they do, please explain it to me — making sure, of course, that it's in the form of a question.
As you know, this week they're running what was supposed to the first week or many hosted by Mike Richards. I watched one and thought of another reason, on top of all that stuff about being a miserable human being, that he shouldn't have been named to that job. The guy isn't very good.
Neither is Jay Leno as the host of the new You Bet Your Life. If you've never seen this man do stand-up live, you can't possibly understand how good he is at that. I have seen all the great stand-up comedians of my generation perform full sets in person — Carlin, Klein, Pryor, Kinison, Murphy, Albert Brooks, etc. — and Leno is right up there with the best of them. I liked his Tonight Show most of the time and I even sometimes enjoy Jay Leno's Garage even though I don't swoon for cars…
Okay, here comes the "but" right after this photo…
But he is not breathing life into a hoary classic game show. He's showing that its format is obsolete and that he isn't comfy in the role of game show host. The fun seems forced, the contestants seem unnatural and the show can't seem to decide if it wants the players to give the right answers so they can win money or give dumb ones so we can laugh at their cluelessness. Even the prize money seems cheap. Folks are supposed to be excited at taking home amounts that would be consolation gifts on any other show these days.
My TiVo recorded six episodes so far. I watched two, deleted the rest unwatched and told it not to do that anymore.
I didn't intend to write more about the Recall Thing but I want to throw out this theory: Larry Elder is supposedly saying he'll run again. Maybe he will but it would be like Pat Buchanan running for president, not because he thought he had a chance of winning but because he thought it would be good for his brand. Elder can't possibly believe a guy with his views and past statements has a future in California politics.
The recall was a fluke opportunity. He jumped into a race because no electable Republican wanted to be in it. He got the most votes from people who would vote for anyone who had an "R" after his name on the ballot and he was the most familiar to them. He has shown no interest in governing…but he has increased his fame and probably his listening audience and (I'll bet) his appearance fees when he gives speeches.
If he'd won, he had no plan on how to deal with the state's two biggest problems — COVID and fires — except to rescind mask and vaccination mandates. California is doing pretty good on the COVID front, especially in the areas that the maps show didn't vote to recall Gavin Newsom. If Elder had won and tampered with that and things got worse, we'd see another $300 million recall a.s.a.p. Because his one campaign issue was basically to make the counties where COVID is going down conform to the ones where it's on the rise.