Fan Fare

Coco in, Charlie out, “Anarchy” ignored at Emmys!?

Revenge, as the saying goes, is a dish best served cold.

And Conan O’Brien must surely be licking his lips with glee at winning an Emmy nomination for his short-lived version of “The Tonight Show,”  six months after NBC  handed the late night talk program back to frenemy Jay Leno.

O’Brien’s nomination in the variety show category even drew an audible gasp from the group of bleary-eyed journalists and publicists gathered at the Television Academy for the dawn announcement on Thursday.

As one mischievous pundit speculated — how will NBC (which is airing the Emmys ceremony in August) handle a possible win by Team Coco and a potentially scathing acceptance speech on live on national TV by O’Brien…(Music please? Fade to commercial break?  — Talk about some real drama!)

Such was the glee over the bumper 19 nominations for “Glee”, that overlooked shows and actors barely got the time of day on Thursday. Except for Charlie Sheen, whose absence from the comedy actor nods was widely seen as a reflection on his ongoing court case on charges of pulling a knife on his wife and threatening to have her killed.  Not so funny.

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.”

from DealZone:

Comcast the Barbarian?

Conan O'Brien could well be headed to Fox after making it clear to NBC that he will not go graciously into the later night. But a channel-changing question that is making the rounds has more to do with what the drama unfolding between O'Brien and former Tonight Show host Jay Leno says about NBC and its agreed joint venture with Comcast. If nothing else, the lack of replacement programming for the slot Leno is vacating, and the purported profitability NBC still enjoyed by having a cheaper, single-star variety show in a traditionally pricey prime-time slot, raise an obvious question -- why the rush?

John Hudson at the AtlanticWire does a nice job of collecting some thoughts on pressure that was probably building from Comcast, from angry affiliates who wanted Leno and his show's crummy ratings out of that vital pre-news slot, to improving PR.

Conan slicks it up for “Tonight Show” debut

Conan O’Brien is famous for his geeky pompadour hair style and weird sketches, but on his Monday night debut as host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” the comedian looked as if he meant to tone down the more risky elements of his former show (“Late Night”) to win over audiences grown accustomed to watching the affable Jay Leno for 17 years.

The Masturbating Bear and  Triumph the Insult Comic Dog were absent from the show, after becoming burned into the memories of anyone who stayed up until 12:30 a.m. to watch O’Brien’s former show “Late Night” on NBC. Those two staples of the old show were true to its style of using cheap costumes and props to play up a double joke, the surface humor of one-liners and the underlying comedy of a major network show relying on cheesy production values. 

Will it be au revoir, or adieu for Jay Leno fans?

                                                                                    It’s the end of an era in “beautiful downtown Burbank” this week as Jay Leno takes leave of “The Tonight Show” after 17 years as host — only to return to the same TV studio lot a few months later with another show that sounds a lot like the old one but at 10 pm instead of 11.35 pm.

So the question is not so much how much Leno will be missed, as how many of his fans will follow him to the earlier time slot, and how many new fans who couldn’t manage to keep their eyes open until midnight will now tune in for “The Jay Leno Show” before going to bed in the fall.

Scarlett Johansson’s snot for sale

(Writing and Reporting Syantani Chatterjee)

Evidently, snot is the new black. Or perhaps that is what Scarlett Johansson thinks. So hurry everyone, get yourself the young actress’ snot on eBay – with free shipping – while the offer lasts until Dec. 22.

And Johansson’s nasal mucus is snot cheap (sorry, we couldn’t resist working in at least one pun). The top bid was up at $2,151 early Thursday.