I thought Mr. Leno's last show was okay…not his best but pleasant enough. His big comedy piece was a montage of past "Jaywalking" bits and I've developed an intolerance for routines based on the premise that human beings can be really, really stupid when you put a TV camera on them. I feel the same way about Letterman's employment of Rupert, the deli owner around the corner from his theater. Dave seems to have dialed back on those bits lately while Jay has embraced the concept.
Still, I've generally favored Jay over Dave the last few years. I TiVo them both but don't watch a lot of Letterman unless something different seems to be going on…something that knocks Dave out of that dour manner he often has. Increasingly, he reminds me of what I came to dislike about Dennis Miller.
This was before Miller's shrewd career change from Topical Comedian to Fox News Correspondent. I saw him at the MGM Grand in Vegas with Rita Rudner as his opening act. She was very funny. Miller wasn't. He did his whole set with an attitude of "I'm too hip to be entertaining you people so somebody gimme my check and let me outta here." It was all, every word of it, old material I recognized. A topical comic oughta have at least one joke you haven't heard before. I remember Miller did his line about how the models on The Price is Right were getting old and oughta be rotated…then followed it with the one likening Dan Quayle to Binzer on the TV show, Vegas. This was long after Vegas was off the air and every single other comedian in America had filed away his Quayle jokes in the same folder as the "Kate Smith is fat" material.
One of the things I like about Leno is that he's not afraid to enjoy the little party he throws as much as he'd like us to. He enjoys his monologue. I know what it takes to write that thing every day and it ain't easy. He likes most of his guests and makes them look good with his enthusiasm. Yeah, some of the stock bits are silly and I could do without most of the Special Correspondent segments where it stops being The Tonight Show for ten minutes. But there's something about watching Leno that I just like…which is really all it takes with one of these shows. (Mr. Carson used to say, "It's all about the guy behind the desk.")
Much is being written about what the ratings dominance of Jay over Dave says about our national character or intellect. I don't think it says anything more than that more people like Jay's current show as opposed to Dave's current show. I think they find Jay's comfortably predictable and Dave's, uncomfortably predictable. My guess is if they were opposite something as fresh as Letterman's old NBC program in its early years, neither host would have many viewers. NBC's primary motive for doing what they did, displacing Leno with Conan O'Brien may have been a fear that O'Brien could do such a show…and do it on Fox with an 11 PM start time.
Before the weekend is out, I'll have some more thoughts here about Jay and Dave and Conan and late night TV. This probably interests me more than it should…but it is my third favorite spectator sport right after Ladies' Nude Volleyball and the Republican Party Demolition Derby. Check back soon.