It wasn't a sketch. It was a massive spastic fuck-up.

So I taped the first episodes back on the air of The Tonight Show and Conan O'Brien (though I've yet to watch the latter, which is odd since I prefer him to Leno). I never watch either, but it was hard to resist with its, you know, train-wreck appeal.



It really wasn't that bad. I didn't laugh, but nor did I cringe. (I could REALLY do without the ba-dum-dum of the drums after EVERY GODDAMN JOKE. WE GET IT).

Of course now there's all this dispute over whether the Guild is going to seek action against Leno because he wrote his own jokes. He did the monologue. Seriously, what the fuck is he supposed to do? I get being on their side but come on. He even took questions from the audience for a while, which were surprisingly a little less inane than the questions my crowd asked Jon Stewart (perhaps there was severe editing). I still have no idea why Letterman and Ferguson get a special deal where they get to use their writers, did I miss something?

Editor's Note: Ok, I just watched Conan and I take it back. There was a very different approach there. There was clearly no writing done and it was VERY "winging it." The difference? It was borderline hysterical--I laughed out loud a couple times. "Let's see for how many seconds I can spin my wedding ring on the desk?" He really pulled it off nicely. I would take that any day over ba-dum-dum type humor.




So if you cannot do any writing and must just go out there and wing it (plus you can't do regular bits you normally do), it should be, uh, real interesting to see what they do on The Colbert Report next week, which is 80% Stephen Colbert. The Daily Show should be interesting, too, if the correspondents are striking (as they are also writers). I hear they are desperately seeking to land a deal like Letterman's.

And speaking of TV, D just came to get me because apparently TiVO is doing something new and altogether, well, loathsomely sleazy. They have started popping up ads at you while you are fast-forwarding. He's fast forwarding through the ads and out of nowhere, the screen pops up with AMERICAN EXPRESS, APPLY NOW! (press thumbs up to say yes!) I mean, you can almost hear the Mr. Movie Phone voice, it's very Josie & the Pussycats.

I know someone out there will click on it, I do, but really? Really? I've seen hookers that came off as less desperate.