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VP Joe Biden to visit Jay Leno on Friday

Days after it was revealed that “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” posted its lowest-rated second-quarter since rival talk show “The Late Show with David Letterman” launched on CBS in 1993, NBC is looking to the Obama administration for help.

The network said on Tuesday that Vice President Joe Biden would stop by Leno’s show for the third time on Friday. Biden first visited the Burbank set in March 2007, as a U.S. senator. He returned in October 2008, as a vice presidential nominee.

Biden is scheduled to share the spotlight with Adrien Brody and musical guest Chris Isaak. Maybe, Biden and Leno can swap notes over their ratings problems. If politics isn’t your thing, Letterman has booked Kate Hudson, Indy 500 Winner Dario Franchitti and musical guest Sarah McLachlan.

While Leno still leads Letterman, his Q2 ratings fell to their lowest levels among total viewers, adults 18-49, and adults 25-54 since 1993, according to Nielsen data parsed by Deadline.com.

Late night gets political as Leno, O’Brien and Letterman look to the future

Conan O’Brien’s departure from NBC’s was ugly from the start, but now that it’s over, and Jay Leno is about to reclaim “The Tonight Show,” who has come out looking like the bad guy?
This is important because if Leno and O’Brien end up competing against each other in the same time slot (with O’Brien on Fox or another network), how the public views each of them could affect their ratings.
Leno himself has acknowledged he has been getting bad press as a result of the shakeup, with fellow talk show hosts David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Rosie O’Donnell accusing him of pushing out O’Brien.
But judging by a poll of 65,000 respondents at celebrity website PopEater, the controversy doesn’t seem to have hurt Leno that much.
Forty-four percent of respondents said they would watch Leno over O’Brien if the two were to go head-to-head in the 11:35 p.m. time slot, with only 33 percent opting for O’Brien.
Leno enjoys the advantage of having reigned as the top-rated late night talk show host from 1995 until he gave up “The Tonight Show” in May 2009. After he left, David Letterman’s “Late Show” on CBS climbed to the top of the heap.
Can Leno reclaim some of those viewers from Letterman when he returns to “The Tonight Show”? Letterman has launched a nasty campaign against Leno, mocking him every chance he gets on his show.
Meanwhile, Leno has tried to take the high road, calling O’Brien a “great guy” during his show Monday. But of late he has fired back at Letterman during his monologues.
With Letterman “going negative,” and Leno having given what amounted to a speech on Monday with his side of the story, this late night war has turned into something like a political campaign.
For his part, O’Brien has ravaged NBC during his monologues, and he has never returned Leno’s favor by also calling him a “great guy.”
Despite the hipster “I’m with Coco” campaign that has emerged, especially online, in support of O’Brien, his $32.5 million payout may hurt his image.
True, we are in the age of corporate executives getting away with million dollar bonuses after their own failures, and Conan has scored sympathy for securing money for his staff.
But wouldn’t we all like to walk away with say, $30 million, after seven months of poor ratings, weak reviews and (to use one of O’Brien’s jokes) not even a new haircut?
In a PopEater poll, only 28 percent of respondents said they feel sorry for O’Brien now that he has received his huge payout, and 38 percent said they never did.
With none of the talk show hosts seeming to have a monopoly on public sympathy, they may want all want to work harder on their campaign skills, because this new age for the talk show arena looks to be as cut-throat as ever.

(Additional writing by Christine Kearney)

Top 5 late-night jokes about Conan and Jay

On Thursday, NBC and Conan O’Brien finally reached a deal that will see him leave “The Tonight Show,” which won’t end all the late-night jokes about the debacle but may well put a damper on them — at least from O’Brien himself since his last show is Friday. It’s been an entertaining couple weeks that gave Jay Leno, O’Brien and other comics plenty of material. Here are what we believe to be the Top 5 comic segments that have come out of the controversy, with video below. For the handful out there not in the know, Leno is poised to reclaim his job hosting “The Tonight Show” in a move that will bump out O’Brien. 1. On Jan. 12, Jimmy Kimmel impersonated Leno during his own late-night show on ABC, showing up with a big prosthetic chin and gray hair to look just like the NBC veteran. “Hello, my name is Jay Leno. And let it hereby be known that I’m taking over all the shows in late-night,” Kimmel said. Later on, comedian Chevy Chase came out dressed like O’Brien for more yuks. 2.  Later in the week, Kimmel appeared via satellite feed on “The Jay Leno Show,”  in an awkward interview led by none other than Leno himself. During the interview, Kimmel was asked what was the best prank he ever pulled. His response told little about himself, but more about the recent history of Leno and O’Brien, at least from Kimmel’s jaded perspective. Kimmel said, “I told a guy that ‘five years from now, I’m going to give you my show.’ And then I took it back almost instantly. I think he works at Fox or something now.” To that, Leno just laughed and moved on to the next question. 3. On the “Late Show” on Jan. 13, David Letterman gave his “Top 10 Messages Left on Jeff Zucker’s Voice Mail.” Of course, Zucker is the head of NBC Universal, and the executive at the center of the controversy over Leno and O’Brien.  Some of the jokes on Letterman’s list of supposed phone messages on Zucker’s answering machine were, “What the hell are you doing?” “Hi, it’s Burt Reynolds. Just so you know I’m available” and “What the Zuck?” 4. Conan O’Brien subjected NBC to plenty of biting sarcasm on his show, but perhaps the funniest joke came on Tuesday, when he said that even though NBC is reportedly muzzling him, “nobody said anything about speaking in Spanish.” O’Brien went on to say in the romance language, “NBC is run by brainless sons of goats who eat money and crap trouble.” 5. Jay Leno weighed in on the controversy from the stage of his show on Jan. 16, saying “I’m getting beat up in the press … you know it’s bad when Tiger Woods calls to offer PR advice.” Then he added, “Even Dave Letterman is taking shots at me, usually he’s just taking shots at interns.” That last one, of course, was a reference to Letterman’s admitted sexual liaisons with members of his staff. With zingers like that, things got ugly fast in this latest full contact flare-up in late night television. What would Johnny Carson think?

Conan debacle inspires comic digs galore

It has become a battle of who can win the most sharp-tongued digs.

Conan O’Brien’s statement released two days ago that he will not be bullied by NBC back into a later timeslot has sparked a competition over which late night host can squeeze in as many quick fire NBC slaps in their opening monologue as possible.

 On Wednesday night O’Brien was more combative in his comedic tone than the previous night, in a message directed to “the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life. Unless Jay Leno wants to do it too.”

No one wins in David Letterman blackmail arrest

David Letterman, victim, victor or philanderer?

The married “Late Show” host’s revelation that he had sex with female staff members from his show, and that he worked with authorities to have an alleged blackmail culprit arrested, places Letterman in the odd position of having apparently vanquished a social parasite, but at the same time having his dirty laundry uncovered in the process.

Certainly, the audience was on his side during Letterman’s 10-minute exposition of what he first described as a “little story” he wanted to tell them. The audience clapped and laughed at even the most awkward moments of his tale, such as when he admitted to, as he put it, the “creepy” detail from his life at the heart of the alleged extortion plot, namely that he had sex with women who work on his show.

Jack Black gets musical pass for profanity on Letterman

In the same broadcast that saw him apologize to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for a joke about her daughter, late-night TV host David Letterman was back on controversial ground again during his show on Monday night, when comedian Jack Black inserted an “F-word” into his impromptu song. 

It was the kind of “fleeting expletive” that recently became the subject of a high profile case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided that the federal government can fine broadcasters for airing a single expletive blurted out on a live show. Fortunately for Letterman, his guest’s brief foray into profanity aired after 10 p.m., which means that it does not risk a fine from the Federal Communications Commission.

UPDATE-Confused David Letterman backs down over Palin daughter jokes

Talk show host David Letterman says he was “guilty of poor taste” after causing a stir with some sexually suggestive jokes about one of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s teenage daughters, admitting he confused 18-year-old intended target Bristol Palin with her 14-year-old sister, Willow. The comedian’s 7-minute-plus discussion of the controversy during his Wednesday show can be seen on the video link below:

 

 

 

Todd Palin, the governor’s husband, has accused Letterman of making a joke about someone “raping” his younger daughter. Neither girl was directly named in the original joke, which also namechecked New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.

What’s the deal with Joaquin Phoenix?

Joaquin Phoenix’s flat-footed appearance on Wednesday night’s “Late Show with David Letterman” had the audience laughing as the actor let Letterman’s pointed, mocking questions go unanswered.

But maybe Phoenix is angling to have the last laugh with his professed retirement from acting to take up a career in hip-hop music?