The War on Comedy
May 13, 2013, 6:58 PM | Updated: 6:58 pm
In the past I have taken any opportunity I can get to bash Jay Leno, and today will be no different. I am not one of those people who sees everything as fake, but I am one of those people who thinks that everything Jay Leno does is awful. He delivers his monologue as if he’s trying to convince people to not just hate his jokes, but hate the entire concept of jokes in general. He conducts interviews with such disinterest it’s as if the person he’s interviewing is recording to their responses at a later date. And his show featured the segment below in which the couple featured are actors.
On today’s episode of WTF with comedian and “Livewire with Luke Burbank” guest Marc Maron, he discusses his experience doing the Tonight Show last week and talking to Jay Leno in his dressing room. He confesses that while he has been on Conan more than 40 times and Leno has never been “his guy,” he has nothing against him. “I’m just a comic,” he quotes Jay as saying. The problem is that Leno isn’t just a comic, and he hasn’t been for a long time. When he got a shot at the Tonight Show he took it and immediately ditched everything that makes a comic great. He was by all comedians’ accounts the best comic working. But when he got that gig he abandoned his unique voice, he prioritized ratings over doing what he knew was truly funny and he started treating comedy as a job, and not a passion.
Passion is what is supposed to drive comics. I don’t know what drives Jay Leno. It can’t possibly money at this point. I think he doesn’t know what to do if he’s not the host of the Tonight Show. He doesn’t want to be just a guy with a bunch of cars and a wife with a name that sounds fake. I’m not saying there is no “Mavis” I’m just saying I’ve never seen her. That being said, I wish him the best of luck. I’m sure one day everything will turn out okay for the Denim Duke. The cards have to fall in his favor eventually.
TBTL Song of the Day: “Young Americans” by David Bowie
My Song of the Day: “Oceanfront Property in Arizona” by George Strait
–Handsome Jake
