Friday, January 8, 2010

Jay Leno sobs, bitches. and whines his way back into our hearts



Well here's some more bullshit.

As you recall, in an older blog post, I said this:

"NBC is putting a LOT of faith into Leno as he is taking over the weekday 10 PM slots, and I'm more than certain things won't happen the way they expect them to."

And guess what, things didn't happen the way they expected them to.

I KNOOOWWWW!

So just to refresh your memory, or to fill you in on what has happened so far, before this television season, NBC looked at their 10PM time slot at night and said, "You know what, the dramas we have now aren't cutting it." So instead of working hard both creatively and financially to come up with great shows that capture the viewers' imagination and interest, they went the cheap route.

Years ago, Conan O'Brien was told he would become host of the Tonight Show at a very specific time. Leno agreed to this and confirmed it with both the network and O'Brien. Ok, everything appeared to be moving smoothly at that point. But as the deadline moved closer and closer, Jay Leno panicked and realized that, "Oh shit, if I stop doing the Tonight Show, I'll have to spend more time with my WIFE!"

So in a hissy fit of massive proportions, Leno proceeded to make it known to NBC that if they didn't appease his ego and give him something, he would take his show to another network and basically fuck over Conan O'Brien's tenure as host of the Tonight Show by having it take place at the exact same time.

Now some of you might be saying, "Well thats his right to do that because it was his show originally!" Well first off, that would be the case, had he not originally agreed to giving O'Brien the Tonight Show and then reneging his original agreement. Also, in case you haven't watched Jay Leno before, his show is fucking terrible. Its the comedy equivalent of staring through the window of an old folk's home. Its like having someone tell you theres a standup comedy show at a local club, and when you arrive, the bouncer kicks you in the balls and steals your wallet, then he learns your address and burns your house down.

In order to keep Leno from jumping ship, NBC decided to create a massive clusterfuck that has now blown up in their faces.

As soon as it was announced that O'Brien would be getting the Tonight Show, it was also announced that Jay Leno was going to do a "brand new JAY LENO SHOW!" an hour and a half earlier. This was done so that NBC could have 5 nights a week of boring shit that cost a nickel. NBC's line of thinking was basically, "Fuck it, if we're gonna fail anyway, we might as well fail cheap."

The first episode consisted of what was pretty much just business as usual. Kanye West's staged temper tantrum.....whoops I mean just temper tantrum aftermath helped prop up Jay's ratings. The only things that changed for the show really was the time placement of interviews and skits, and the set. WOW! MASS APPEAL!

While the first episode ran out the gate with good ratings, it plummeted like a stone after a week or two. Rather than say, "Oh shit, we really fucked this up!" NBC decided to look at how much money they were making by putting Jay Leno's variety hour on every night regardless of the show losing to Cable Networks and repeats at the same time.

"This is a year long plan, we'll wait and see how he's doing after a year! No matter what happens, we have not fucked up!"

......They fucked up.

So NBC did their best to ignore the horrible ratings and pretty much everyone on the planet saying, "This blows donkey dick", but NBC's affiliates were a different story all together. They had to beat them to death with their own shoes.

Now an affiliate, for those who don't know, is the station for each region that chooses to play NBC or Fox or ABC, etc. That's why its NBC 4 here in DC and something completely different in another part of the country. Its why the news at 11 differs from state to state and even from city to city. When NBC factored in their "cheap is better" plan, they didn't factor in the fact that if people hated to watch Leno, why would they both to tune in to watch the news station that directly follows Leno?

This makes me a little sad that this basically means that people are so lazy that they don't even bother to hit a button on their remote to change the channel to something different , but I digress.

So NBC, who was totally fine with Leno bombing and coming in 7th place every night due to lack of cost and the fact that there was so much product placement that the show probably cost nothing to make (Rated the top product placement show for the year.....even though it only ran for about 4 months.) finally folded due to the affiliates yelling in unison, "Cut the shit."

Affiliates were pissed. They were threatening not to show the Leno show and rather just show episodes of Seinfeld in its place, no joke.

NBC, for some reason being terrified of the power that Leno has (Regardless of his apparent lack of any power), has now caved into Leno's demands and is trying to negotiate a deal where Leno gets his old spot back at 11:35 for 30 minutes, pushing Conan back an hour, fucking him for the second time for Jay Leno who was supposed to be retired in the first place.

Now, here is a list of things that this will mean should this go through:

1.) The future of Conan O'Brien is now up in the air. How many times can a guy just get fucked over by his boss before telling them to piss off? It is rumored that Conan is pretty pissed off because of this deal and may be milling around for other networks, and rightfully so. Its really not right what NBC has done to him again and again after a proven track record. Best case scenario, Conan gets fucked and moves to a later time slot to appease Leno. Worst case scenario, Conan is never seen on television again.

2.) Old White People will be happy. Old white people ruin everything for everyone. They vote in record numbers for the wrong people. They sap medicare from young peoples' pockets. They smell bad. They watch shitty television and give shitty tv hosts power to be shitty tv hosts! To old white people, anything that offends them is seen as evil. Bland porridge comedy is their meal of the day and they slurp it down contently. Of course Jay Leno continues to be on the air when there's a hoard of 80 year old retirees hanging on his every word. Why won't they just die? Oh hi mom and dad.

3.) Jay Leno will NEVER GO AWAY! We're never getting rid of Jay Leno. Ever. His crippling OCD will never allow him to leave his horrid show and NBC is too terrified to stop him. I once watched the Jay Leno show by accident, went to a gun store, bought a gun, questioned why God would create such a horrible television program, and then stared at my gun for six hours. I pussied out from the direct route of killing Jay Leno or killing myself and the Leno gun still sits in my cabinet......waiting.

4.) We get to see just how completely far and away Television Executives are from reality. The plan from the start was fucking awful. It wasn't going to work. Everyone I talked to agreed it wasn't going to work. Everyone knew that a talk show, let alone a fucking Jay Leno talk show, just wouldn't hold up against hour long dramas. Television executives though thought this was a revolutionary idea which even garnered a Time Magazine cover, dubbing Jay Leno "The Future of Television!" Time Magazine can suck my dick.

5.) The Roots get fucked. Also....that Jimmy Fallon.......guy......fuck it. Nobody cares about him.

6.) Jay Leno. Will. Never. Go. Away. There is nothing I hate more than bland comedy. At least if a comedian is edgy but sucks, he's still trying to break the rules and turn some heads. Bland comedy is surrender. Its the bare fucking minimum and Jay Leno is their spokesman.

7.) Denim businesses everywhere will go out of business. I want you to do a little experiment right now for me. You're already reading this on the internet, so I want you to open a new window and go to google. Do an image search on Jay Leno. Look at every image where he is not wearing a suit. Do you see a pattern? The patten is denim. That is what Jay Leno wears all the time. Thats who Jay Leno. He is denim and denim is him. Also I bet his chin is holding his twin brother who died in the womb.

Thats a pretty good list I'd say.

By the way, when Leno heard rumblings of his possible cancellation, he proceeded to say, "Hmmm well I guess NBC stands for newly broken contract. Maybe I'll go on vacation. I hear Fox is good this time of year." Classy.

So NBC takes this huge chance on putting you at 10PM right? Like a monumentally HUGE fucking change. Basically telling everything else in their line up to go fuck themselves, for you, Jay Leno. There was even an interview with an NBC exec that stated, and I quote, "There's nothing wrong with Jay Leno, its everything else on the network, And when you can't deliver the ratings in, they do the best choice in their minds which is continue fucking over everyone who isn't you regardless of your failure, and yet you still take shots at them? God. Damn it. I'm not a big fan of NBC, but Christ, show some class Leno.

Now I don't know much about the original Leno/Letterman debacle that apparently had Leno fucking Letterman out of the Tonight Show hosting gig, but it just goes to show you that Leno doesn't really give a shit who he runs over as long as he gets what he wants. Sad really.