Stolen Pixels #162: Rorschach Interview, Part 4

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Amarsir

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Jul 7, 2009
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krellen said:
Placing all the blame on Conan is colossally unfair. Not only was Conan's lead-in worse than Leno's (being Leno, rather than ER), but he didn't even have a year to build his own following from what viewers were left after Leno's failure.
The Tonight Show lead-in is exactly the same as it always was, local news. ER hadn't been a ratings leader since the 90s and even if that's true it was only on once a week.

Conan took over the Tonight Show in June. Tonight Show ratings were already way down before Jay showed up in September. But please, tell me more about how fewer people watched Conan than Jay because Jay's so unfunny. Cuz it makes so much sense. Maybe Leno can blame his lead-ins too. Maybe a bad Simpsons rerun at 7pm just doomed the whole night.

Jay's not crushing at 10pm. That's a given. But no talk show succeeds at 10pm, so it was an impossible challenge for him. Had Conan maintained or grown the Tonight Show audience then I'd be all for kicking Jay and letting that be the end. But this claim that people won't watch a guy they like because someone they don't like came on an hour and a half earlier ... that's supposed to make sense?
 

oliveira8

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Feb 2, 2009
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Anibalbox said:
I'm not from the US, and honestly I have never seen Conan. But I have seen a few Leno stand ups, and I found him funny, so I will go for Team Big Jaw.
By the way, I remember Conan telling Bart (Simpson) that he was the only one who could do the dance, so screw him....
I'm positively sure that Conan has all the rights to say that considering he was a main writer and producer of the show during it's best years. He wrote Marge vs The Monorail!
 

Amarsir

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Irridium said:
If Leno wanted to leave, then let him leave, but don't take him back just because he changed his mind.

He needs to learn to live with the concequences.
Leno never "wanted to leave." 6 years ago Conan's contract was up, and he basically said "I'm not sticking around for Late Night unless I know I'll get the Tonight Show". So they made a deal with him to take it over in 5 years. Jay loved doing the show, put a lot of effort in, and his ratings consistently beat Letterman. (By contrast, at the end if his hosting time Johnny Carson only did 4 shows a week and had frequent guest hosts fill in for him, including Leno.)

I vividly remember Jay's "retirement" announcement on the Tonight Show, and it was clear that he was sad but wanted to play along. And he was 100% welcoming to Conan every moment of those years. Even now Jay isn't maneuvering to oust Conan, he's just honest in that he still likes the gig.

Some people like Conan's humor better than Jay's. I can accept that. I already noted that I think he's a better interviewer. But they can't accept that their view is in the minority, and have to invent some theory to explain why the guy they like got worse ratings in the same spot. But don't believe that Jay "wanted to leave and changed his mind." It's completely unsupported by the facts.
 

messy

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Dec 3, 2008
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Izzil said:
I'm Team CoCo for the fact that he apparently made the most expensive joke in history just as a big 'fuck you' to NBC.

http://www.worldcarfans.com/110012124130/conan-obriens-crazy-expensive-bugatti-veyron-mouse
OK now I'm all about CoCo, I mean I liked him before but this tipped the scales.
 

krellen

Unrepentant Obsidian Fanboy
Jan 23, 2009
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Amarsir said:
But this claim that people won't watch a guy they like because someone they don't like came on an hour and a half earlier ... that's supposed to make sense?
At late night, the issue is not "Do I watch this or that", like it is in prime-time. It's "Do I stay up or go to bed?"

A few people switched to Letterman instead of Conan's Tonight Show, yes (though Dave's affair scandal was during this period, which was largely responsible for his ratings boost) - but even more people opted for going to bed rather than staying up for the late night news cast, let alone the Tonight Show. Because Jay didn't keep them. That's what started this problem in the first place - local affiliates complaining that Jay's lead in was hurting their news broadcast ratings [http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/19/business/fi-ct-nbc-affils19]. If less people are staying up for the late night news, that translates directly to less people staying up for the Tonight Show.

Jay's poor performance already had cut into the Tonight Show ratings, and that needs to be accounted for before any blame for Conan's performance can be assessed.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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Amarsir said:
Oh, well then my bad.
I haven't really been following it, so I only said what I thought was happening.

In that case I guess I should support Leno, since he seems to have been "given the shaft" so to speak.

Ah well, like I said, I don't really care one way or the other.
 

Triaed

Not Gone Gonzo
Jan 16, 2009
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And Breen survives to antagonize another talk-show guest.

I don't give a flying crap about either Conan or Leno. Although I do appreciate Conan's humour better (he's a pretty good comedy writer)
 

Swaki

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Apr 15, 2009
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i cant really watch either show since hulu and netflix doesn't work outside the states, but judging from the few clips I've 'stumbled upon' over the years I'll say I'm with coco since he had been overall amusing and leno (or jeno, i already forgot) seemed boring.

i must say I'm disappointed with the conclusion, since I'm fairly often online i have heard plenty of the case but it still seems like the punchline here is reserved for the yankees.
 

Stilt-Man

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Dec 31, 2009
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The last panel is funny on so many levels. The ones with Breen are always great (I always read his lines with Brian Doyle-Murray's voice).

As far as the Leno/Conan thing goes -- I don't care either way, really, but Leno should have just hung it up when he said he was going to.
 

Robyrt

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Aug 1, 2008
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Kollega said:
Wait, Rorschach hates communists? What's up with that? Is that because he's supposed to be a Nazi of sorts, or what?
Rorshach follows that strain of American reactionaries who distrust anyone tolerant or educated on principle. "All those liberals and intellectuals and smooth talkers, and all of a sudden nobody can think of anything to say."
 

PlasticTree

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May 17, 2009
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Meh. These four comics wouldn't be bad if they were just one, considerably longer comic, but now the concentration of jokes is a bit too low for me.
 

Deathkingo

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Aug 10, 2009
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Onyx Oblivion said:
The only late night show I like is Craig Ferguson, so I'm immune to these "wars".
Oh, that little Scottish man is the only one that can actually make me laugh.
 

ritchards

Non-gamer in a gaming world
Nov 20, 2009
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No take backs?

So Connery shouldn't have replaced Lazenby then? No Diamonds are Forever for you then!

(Okay, not exactly what happened, but that was the first line that came to mind.)
 

Grampy_bone

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Mar 12, 2008
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In order to support Leno you have to believe he deserved the show in the first place.

Amazingly, he has now stolen The Tonight Show from two Late Night hosts.

When Leno took over the Tonight Show originally his ratings were so bad NBC wanted to pull the plug and offered the job to Letterman, who refused.

Under Carson the Tonight Show was the place for comedians to get their start, including Leno himself. When Leno took over, no more comedians appeared on the show (he didn't like being upstaged). Conan was bringing back the stand-up acts.

It took years and years for Leno to build an audience. Conan only got 7 months.
 

Canadamus Prime

Robot in Disguise
Jun 17, 2009
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"Will you do your Shiek voice again?" hee hee hee

As for the Late Night "wars" I couldn't care less. It doesn't matter who hosts it or when it's on, I still won't be watching it.
 

matrix3509

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Sep 24, 2008
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I think its pretty obvious what side I'm on. I've been watching Conan for at long as I can remember. I hope he brings back the Walker Texas Ranger Lever.
 

Mysnomer

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Nov 11, 2009
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I'm with Conan, because I'd always found him to be a funnier person. Jay only had a better monologue because he got a better percentage of the jokes churned out by the people writing them. At least, that's what I figured. So, when he finally moved on, I thought Conan would start getting the good jokes and the respect he deserves, then Jay Leno popped back up, eating up prime-time space and all the best jokes once again. I don't watch them anymore, but I'm glad Conan managed to stick it to NBC. If Leno was really so sad about leaving, he should have looked for another network, he has plenty of star power, after all.

matrix3509 said:
I think its pretty obvious what side I'm on. I've been watching Conan for at long as I can remember. I hope he brings back the Walker Texas Ranger Lever.
That was a good running gag. And he knew how to use it just right.

As to the comic, it's doubly funny for me, because ever since playing Valkyrie Profile with my brother, during which time I tried to come up with as many unique voices as I could for the non-voiced characters, my brother has always asked me to "do voices" for things such as: The Wind Waker, Wild Arms 3, a couple of the older Final Fantasies, a few Megaman games, etc. etc. Basically, if it isn't voiced, he wants me to do it, and I'm just not able to keep it up. Oh, lord, this one time, he wanted me to do one of the Megaman X games, and so we decided this one guy should have a gruff voice, and I had just seen Batman: The Dark Knight, so I did a Batman voice...for like six seconds before I had to start chugging water to keep my throat from rubbing itself bloody.