So who's the absolute worst? The ones that make you cringe, the ones that make you fling your remote at the television, the ones that are so bad you're embarrassed for them?

Carson has the personality of a piece of carpet lint, and his vapid stare is so blank it gives me chills.

The only one I have never seen is Tony Danza, who I imagine is horrible but will give the benefit of the doubt.

Voted Carson. He has the boring, obvious brown-nosing style of Leno without even the lame whitebread humor to make it less pathetic.

Danza is of the "embarrassing" variety. It's really sad.

Maury is trying to turn into Springer. I remember when he used to do "real" shows. Now they're all babymamadramas.

I saw Carson interviewing someone a few weeks back. I can't remember who it was right now, but I remember him confusing the actress with another actress once and then later asking a question based on obviously inaccurate rumor. It was pretty funny in a "I can't believe this clown is on TV" kind of way. The actress, however, didn't find it funny one bit.

das

This must be about current talk show hosts, because I couldn't help but notice the omission of choices like Rikki Lake, Donny & Marie, Howie Mandel, Wayne Brady, Magic Johnson...and perhaps who I would consider the worst, Chevy Chase.

Jay Leno.

Who can forget Fox's The "Tragic" Hour?

For my tastes it's Jay Leno

connie Chung

I went with Jay because Carson will admit to being a tool. I'm also grading on a curve. I think Jay is the least deserving of his show's stature.

Oprah can make me cringe, but she absolutely earned her success. Maury on the other hand, I have no idea how he has stayed on the air this long, outlasting so many other daytime clones.

I'm hoping Jimmy Kimmel and Ellen Degeneres are around for the long haul. I don't think Ellen has to worry about getting cancelled. I don't know what kind of ratings Kimmel gets, probably not good, but I think they've managed to come up with a lot of original ideas. When I first saw that everyone working on the show was an old buddy or family member of Jimmy I thought it would be a disaster, but it's actually a useful tool for them to humiliate each other with

Jay Leno. I want to like him. He represents LA, car guys.... but I cringe when watching him. I keep thinking "does he think all of his audience is that stupid?"

OK, I understand that a lot of people don't like Jay Leno, but come on people, Leno IS NOT worse than Carson Daly.

NBC should just bite the bullet and give Conan 90 minutes instead of wasting airtime with Daly.

Carson Daly gets worse and worse every night, the monologue's are far worst than Leno's. And whoever votes Conan, I'll hunt you down!

Conan rules all. And after all these years, he's still getting funnier.

Carson's monologue... his "jokes" fall so flat you can hear crickets chirping. He's got to be the most bland host of any show, ever. His interviews are so awkward. The guests almost seem to act like they feel they have to help him somehow. He needs to go back to Mtv where he doesn't have to say much more than "Here's Eminem's new video..."

I voted for Carson as well. The guy just has no likeable TV persona to me. Hell, even if I don't like Danza, I can still say the guy has his own distinct TV persona.

For those not on the list, those of the past, what about Alan Thicke? Anybody remember his show Thicke of the Night? God, that was so awful, when he left that for Growing Pains, I didn't watch Growing Pains for a few years because I was convinced the suckiness of Alan Thicke on his talk show would transfer over into his sitcom. Of course, once I started to watch Growing Pains, I loved the show and learned to like the guy again.

And for one not on the list who actually surprised me with his talk show talents is Tom Green. While the Tom Green Show wasn't the best of late night TV, I felt the guy really had a good on screen persona and really made his interviews interesting. Most talk shows I will turn off if the guests don't interest me because I don't find the host interesting enough to keep watching (like Leno) but Tom Green made his show interesting, no matter who he was interviewing. I keep hoping he makes a come back. The Late Late Show needs a new host still, no?

edit: Curiously, IMDB lists Alan's show as "The Alan Thicke Show" but it was called Thicke of the Night. Unless he had another show I didn't know about. But even Jump The Shark comments that Thicke of the Night was the worst talk show ever.
http://www.jumptheshark.com/t/thickeofthenight.htm

Oh, I LOVE Tom Green!! I don't know if he could ever tame it down to regular network level, though... but yes, that would be great. He cracks me up so, so bad. Him, and Andy Dick.

Unfortunately I do remember the Alan Thicke thing.

I think the poll thingy said I was limited to ten choices, so it just had to be current hosts. Otherwise there were a few more I would have included, some memorably horrid, like Thicke, or Howie Mandel. (And I love Howie, but his show sucked.) (Oh, and Carnie. I think her show was on for like, what, three weeks before it was canned.)

I don't know...I don't recall too much wild stuff on the Tom Green Show, the talk show, not his man on the street stuff. I thought that was one reason the show didn't last on MTV, because people were turning the show on to see him act like an ass and he was trying to make an attempt at a genuine talk show. I heard he even got to guest host for Letterman, though unfortunately I missed that episode, but he got a ton of great reviews for his show and even the attention of Ed McMahon. I just hope he can resurface in that genre again, because I thought he had something going and if he polished his talk show persona some more, he could be a major player on late night TV if he plays his cards right.

You're right, and I do remember that he was trying to bring it way down, and I was so disappointed when his last effort didn't last. But there were some pretty iffy things on that show too. The only thing that comes to mind is their road trip and finding like, a deer head or something on the side of the road, and Tom holding it up to the camera and being silly. It was pretty gross. He does have the capacity to curtail that, though, if he really wants to. Maybe over the next few years his time in the more mainstream type media will come. Hope so. (But I love his goofy gross-out stuff.)

i think we might have a definitive winner. he's up by 8 votes over leno and leno himself is 5 in front of the next closest. the exit polling suggests that carson will win this one handily.

My vote is for Richard Bay.

David Letterman puts me to sleep.

its a close call between carson daily and craig killborn(daily show was good, the late late show wasnt)

Jay Leno. I can't see how anyone can possibly laugh at anything this man has to say. His show is perfect for dumb 'Middle America' who can't comprehend really comedy talent.

I voted for Carson. I caught some of his show last week and you could just sense the audience turning against him about 2 minutes into his monologe. It's like I could feel the hatred building inside the audience for Carson wasting their time with a crappy show. Amazing.