It was Dan Crenshaw.

I'm a week late, but I believe it was a weird little statue in his yard and he pretended like it scared him. Just a small but of physical comedy.

If you haven't paid any attention to the pandemic response and wanted to get caught up on all the tired jokes and "the world is different during lockdown" anecdotes, the Jay Leno interview is for you.

Maybe. But I still think Leno is funnier than anyone currently doing late night, including Conan.

I'd kill for the Leno/Letterman 90's era of monologues that hit both political parties equally and just wanted to make people laugh (Letterman started to get political in Bush 43 2nd term). Once the Late Night Comedians took a political stand, that is when they lost me. Even if Dennis Miller still had a Late Night show, I wouldn't want to hear him rag on Pelosi, Schumer and AOC every night playing to the Sheep Republican crowd either. I watch Late Night to laugh, not to be told how to vote.

Johnny Carson said exactly how I feel 40 years ago:

I get tried of it too. I'm extremely critical of the Trump administration, but hearing it used for material by late night hosts every single day and placed on the same level as a Kardashian joke creates its own problem, IMO.

That's a good video but it doesn't apply to modern audiences. Starting with Fox News, politics became more mainstream and accessible to the general public because of the entertainment value of the extremely sensationalistic and outrageous behavior of commentators like Bill O'Reilly. Then with Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, politics became even more mainstream and accessible to the younger segments of the general public, this time, because it was made even more entertaining with comedy. So by this there was a strong demand for more politics in entertainment, left and right. And once that was established and that demand was being fulfilled, you still had some entertainers out there who chose to avoid discussing political issues, which traditionally has been viewed by the public as an acceptable stance. But now, if you don't take a side in politics you're in danger of "cancel" attempts and criticized for contributing to the problem with your silence. I remember awhile back Taylor Swift was being criticized because supposedly the alt-right, or right wingers were big fans of hers and she didn't publicly disavow them. So if you don't publicly take a stance on politics (the one the viewer has), as a celebrity you appear cruelly indifferent to what's going on in the world, or worse, you appear to be quietly approving of all the bad shit going on. And either way that's damaging to your brand.

Right now there's a huge demand for political entertainment which explains the direction of these late night network comedians and The Daily Show copycats. Everyone I know, regardless of age or background, talks to me about something political these days and has extremely strong opinions about it. That wasn't the case 20 years ago.

The reason for the rise of these type of shows is simply because you don't have to garner a mass audience anymore like Johnny Carson did. Before the era of Cable/Streaming, every TV show had to appeal to the masses so none of that would have worked only catering to 50% of the country. Colbert can be #1 with 2-3 million people a night on CBS, Samantha Bee can be successful with less than a million viewers on Comedy Central, Bill O'Reilly was #1 on Cable for 20 years and averaged only 3 million viewers a night. The world of TV is all about catering to a specific niche, so the people haven't changed, the landscape has changed. If Johnny Carson would have gotten political, NBC would have told him to knock it off cause 1/2 of those 17-20 million viewers every night disagreed with that political opinion. Now CBS probably encourages Colbert to bash Trump as he probably garners a heavily liberal audience from the East/West coast and could care less about Middle America.

I loved Leno as a stand-up, but once he got the permanent Tonight Show job, he got a lot less funny. That's usually how it goes, though. Their comedy gets diluted the bigger they get. I loved Colbert back in his Strangers With Candy/Daily Show days, but I can't stand his late night show.

That's a great point. I found this at the WSJ which shows the ratings from the end of Carson's run to the start of Colbert getting his own late night show. Ratings from The Tonight Show have decreased by half but that's for 2014, and there's more late night shows now.

I'm still not completely convinced that the audience hasn't changed in some ways. If more younger people are following politics, wouldn't that mean that a new audience has been created? That more young people are watching political entertainment?

I think it's no different than when we grew up as there is always a segment of young people that follow politics (even going back to protesting the Vietnam War), and another section that don't care cause they don't think it affects their lives. I remember MTV was doing 'Rock the Vote' in 1992 when Clinton appeared when he was the Democrat Nominee. The only difference was (when we were kids) is that there weren't as many channels so they just couldn't cater any specific base of people, especially young kids regarding politics. Most people don't give a shit about politics (sadly) as it will always be a niche audience, as you have to remember that 40-50% don't vote in most Presidential Elections, and only about 25% vote in Midterms. That is why the rise of Cable yielded more specific shows like Crossfire, Capital Gang, as they could appeal the political junkies like me and could survive with 1 million viewers. I have friends that don't talk politics with me, don't care about politics and I honestly don't know if they even vote, as the political junkies that Colbert, Daily Show, FoxNews, Rush Limbaugh, NPR, MSNBC and CNN are catering too are a minority.

He kind of had to dilute it. He was the face of late night TV (Letterman aside). Plus there's having to write new material every night versus working on bits that you can use for months at a time.

Oh, I understand why. But the reason why didn't make him any less unfunny.

I call it the '11:30 curse' as everyone has gone there after Carson retired has gotten less funny. I used to love Letterman at 12:30 NBC, and thought he literally changed the day he went to 11:30 CBS. I used to like when Leno came on Carson as a comic and was a guest host, but he played it safe when he finally got the Tonight Show. I could go on and on (Conan is another example who got less funny when he transitioned to 11:30) and the shows get watered down at 11:30 to appeal to a larger/older demo. That's why the 12:30 shows (Letterman on NBC, Conan on NBC, Ferguson on CBS) are usually better because they don't care and have more free reign.

Bill has been slipping for a while now, as we have pretty much all here noted. And the backyard shows haven't played to his strengths. I have mostly been on the fence lately.
Tonight pushed me far off it. What a train wreck of a New Rules we had. Real nonsense here, not at all supported by any facts -- his best support is using a letter to the editor allegedly written by an elderly lady in the UK.
Watch at the risk of your own nausea and sanity

Yeah, IMO without an audience Bill is pretty much unwatchable. Sad to say but I’ll be curious how/if he is able to bounce back after COVID.

Good God, Bill really needs a reset.

His past blabbing about the Flu vaccine were alway cringe worthy but he has really gone off the rails with Covid 19. He is coming off as a real science denier.

He simply doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to understand just how serious this is.

The United States has done a terrible job handling the pandemic as we have failed to flatten the curve and will most likely have 250 to 300k deaths by the end of the year.

Maher's been dangerously close to being an anti-vaxxer dumbfuck for a while now.

And he's got some stupid ideas about food, too.

It sounds like I made the right decision dumping him a few months ago. Too bad, he can be funny sometimes.

I used to watch his show regularly. A few years ago I started getting to where I could only watch about 15 minutes and had enough. Now I skip it entirely unless there’s a guest I like on the show.

At everyone who is bailing on Maher because they disagree with his Covid19 opinions. I have disagreed with Maher on most political issues for 25 years (since he was at Comedy Central), but I still enjoy his show because he's funny. I have to ask everyone here complaining now about his show, are you essentially saying that the only reason you will watch a show like this is if the host lines up with your political beliefs?

No. He's not funny any more. He's just cranky now. Was there a single joke in that New Rules segment? I didn't detect one.
Having said that, there's a big difference between having political views different from my own and espousing dangerous medical advice without any scientific support on your nationally televised show.

Yeah, it's not his opinions I have an issue with (regardless of agreeing with him or not), but that he's not nearly as funny or thoughtful now as he was previously. He's been sliding downhill for a while now, and covid-19 just made his slide more steep.

But isn't the best part of his show where he has people at a table discussing current events? It's refreshing compared to toe angry talking head format. That said, I hate when people act like demagogues, and that's what these New Rules segments sound like.

I've already given my reasons for turning off Maher, but it boils down to irresponsible anti-vax shit, combined with his big anti-Trump talk only to kiss the ass of every Trump supporter that actually appears on the show. I mean, I know it's gotta be hard to get conservatives on the show, but when they spout utter bullshit I'd like to see Maher call them out and he never does. I can't sit through 50 minutes of that complete lack of integrity just 'cuz I might get a chuckle or two out of New Rules. And when even New Rules started getting racist, that was the final straw.

I forgot about the time he had Milo on and was gushing about him.

This is the same guy that also said the 911 hijackers WERE'NT cowardly when they launched a suicide attack that targeted civilians. If he said something dumb in the heat of the moment and admitted what he said was wrong, okay. But even his apology at the time didn't really admit that. He's caught up with being edgy and entertaining. I don't know anyone who would go on TV, sober, and say, "I'm a house n_____!" But people in a position of power don't ever want to admit any wrong doing unless they have to, and even then it's all about preserving their careers. And Maher also wants to maintain relevance with the younger crowd, so he wants to do and say edgy stuff. And he also wants to maintain relevance by having this right vs. left back and forth, and he's not going to do that as well if he makes conservatives uncomfortable.

Oh yeah, he also said he thought the first black President was going to be like Suge Knight. He did it for the laughs, but it's still a white guy reinforcing a negative black stereotype.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Maher

"I thought when we elected a black president, we were going to get a black president. You know, this [BP oil spill] is where I want a real black president. I want him in a meeting with the BP CEOs, you know, where he lifts up his shirt so you can see the gun in his pants. That's -- (in black man voice) 'we've got a motherfu**ing problem here?' Shoot somebody in the foot."

Damn, it was worse than I remember.