I had a policy of not commenting on the monologue feature. My thinking was that the jokes on their own said everything that needed to be said. And my opinion wasn't the point. My opinion wasn't likely to add anything meaningful to your experience reading the jokes and reacting to them honestly.I got a few comments here and on Facebook saying things like 'Hey, that one wasn't so bad!' and my response was typically to ask why they thought I was only trying picking bad jokes. But let's face it: the jokes are palpable failures much of the time. And seeing that the audience laughed or even applauded (the ultimate response, right?) didn't make us question our taste in jokes. It made us wonder if democracy was really a good idea.
A few times along the way, I was asked a fair question: Couldn't someone pick and choose from any late night monologue and find jokes like this? And yes, you probably could. So was I being unfair? Maybe. Most likely. But that bias was fun to work with. So I kept it up.
Let's keep this in mind: These jokes are not the last dregs of humor that one busy man, working alone, is forced to squeeze out night after night. These are a sample of the jokes churned out by a team of professional writers who are being paid a lot of money to write jokes and do nothing else. There are two possibilities then: either Leno's picking the best jokes and the writers suck, or these are not their best jokes, and Leno chooses them anyway, either because of poor taste, or because of a strange philosophy.
Usually when we say 'It's either A or B,' it ends up being C: a combination of the two.
The writers are good at writing jokes quickly, and writing them so that almost everyone can understand them. All the references are to broadly known people and events. The structure of each joke is supposed to be quick and simple. There's no winding path to getting them. There's not suppose to be any pause or wait time. Bam. Bam. Bam. Welcome our first guest.And Leno knows good jokes. Years ago, his stand-up act was excellent. His writing and delivery were sharp. And he was occasionally provocative and even subversive. What changed was not his skill, but his role. His context. Hosting a network show is in some ways antithetical to the stand-up's creed. You have to be a company man. And Leno's not the only one that has made that choice. It's a balancing act, and it becomes more and more apparent that his weight has shifted away from humor, and comfortably into diversion and simple entertainment. Make them clap happily.
Take a look at the last several jokes posted for the feature. They were all pretty bad. Among some of the worst posted so far. And they were all taken from a single monologue, the night of September 7. That material was the bulk of one night's all-star line up of jokes written by professional writers. They were performed by a veteran comedian who has been called the King of Late Night and has been chosen, twice, as the best man to serve as host of the grandest comedy legacy in network television: The Tonight Show. This is supposed to be the pinnacle of late night comedy. And it's a hack job.I'm sorry, but when you're placed at the top, you don't automatically get respect. You have to earn it and keep it. And if I simply present your material without comment, and it looks like I'm making fun of you, then let's go ahead and do same actual ridiculing.
From now on the feature will be at it's own space. This blog will still post a regularly refreshed link towards the top of the page.
I think you hit at the real problem here in the end as not being either A or B but the fact that Leno appears to telling jokes that audiences laugh at. Part of the studio audience laughing is just being at the Leno show (I have seen the Leno show filmed twice, and I laughed more in the studio than at home, I will admit). Still, millions of people love this guy. He beats Letterman, he rated higher than Conan (though statistically, this is a tough comparison to make. Though Conan's ratings were drastically below Leno when he left the show, they were on par with Leno in his first year at the gig.) Point being, millions out there think Leno is funny, and I wonder if the writers and network and Leno just know their audience and aim straight for it. If that's the case, who's to blame for these comedic monstrosities? In some part, the audience must be.
ReplyDeletewhen i have my little temper tantrums transcribing these jokes, a lot of my anger is directed at the audience.
ReplyDeletei will always feel guilty for laughing at a reveal at bill maher's politically incorrect, after being told to watch the monitor and pretend i hadn't seen the donkey the whole time.
You guys aren't totally discounting his delivery, are you? I mean, obviously it's not for initiates like us, but some people would probably laugh listening to Leno do the weather, right?
ReplyDeleteof course we're not. delivery is a huge part of it.
ReplyDeletebut there has to be a balance between delivery and material. if this whole campaign is trying to prove something, it's that leno is basically getting away with reading the phone book, having trained his audience to laugh when he hits those last 2 digits.
and when he doesn't hit them well enough, the band plays a sliding chord and he adds a 'yeah! yeah! that's right!' and the audience realizes 'o, we missed our laugh. let's clap now.'