Monday, January 18, 2010

Jay Leno < Conan O'Brien

Alright, so there have obviously been A LOT of talk lately about what is going on in the world of late night t.v.

For those of you who don't have any idea what I'm talking about, then I dunno where you're getting your news from, but it's all over the internet, including the blog of the very funny and very cool named man, Chet Wild. If you have no idea what is going on in this late night war then head over to Chet's blog right quick, click HERE

Alright so, let's try and break this down a little bit. Jay Leno let Conan take over "The Tonight Show," and decided to do his own thing at 10pm...first of all, that was a dumb and selfish thing for Jay Leno to do. And NOW, because of Jay Leno's piss ant show bombing at 10pm, NBC has decided to pull the plug on the show at 10pm....and move it to 11:35. Wait, what??


When a show gets the plug pulled, doesn't that mean it's over??

Apparently in this situation, no. So where does that leave Conan?? Well NBC decided to move "The Tonight Show" to a later time, which would also push back Jimmy Fallon AND Carson Daly...all because of greedy Jay Leno.

Also, let me take this opportunity to say that I am "with Team Coco." And if you haven't seen some of the things being said between Leno, Conan, Letterman, and even Kimmel, then do yourself a favor and check out some of those clips on YouTube. My personal favorite was Jimmy Kimmel being on "The Jay Leno Show" and, what I consider, destroying Leno on his own show. Letterman has also had some pretty bold things to say about not only Leno, but the entire network of NBC.

And speaking of NBC, I heard today on Sirius Radio that Conan's last show is coming up within the next week or so and Conan will no longer be with NBC, with the agreement that wherever Conan ends up, he can't speak ill of NBC.

Which is weirdly enough, both a childish and smart thing to do by NBC. Conan has taken the gloves off WHILE he was still employed with NBC, in his monologue and skits. So could you imagine what he could say once he was actually gone from the network??

I think that is when Conan is at his best. Think back when the writer strike was going on. I can not remember any of the other late night hosts coming up with more hilarious and random skits and jokes than Conan, who was practically coming up with that stuff on his own.

So Conan on NBC is no more and Leno gets what he wants. Which doesn't make sense to me. NBC is/was in a tight spot. They had 2 amazingly talented comedians/hosts on their network and clearly chose one over the other. Like a parent choosing their favorite kid or something. And I think that the Conan/Leno thing resolved just like a parent/kid situation would. Once the kid has had enough in the house, they can move out on their own and do whatever they want to do and not worry about their shitty parent. So Conan is moving out and HOPEFULLY up, because there are a lot of people rooting for Conan...well, maybe not Leno.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Eye Contact, more Commitment, and a shot of Jager

Well, first of all, let me wish ALL of you a happy and safe 2010! What is my New Year's resolution you may ask?? It should be that I should show a lot more love to my blog, website, and videos...but we'll get to that soon enough.

I wanted to talk a little bit more about commitment. I talked about it in a previous post and I dunno if I got everything out that I wanted to talk about...so it might be a little repetitious, so just try and go with me on this. So what is commitment?? It can mean two things I think. One, the way that you present a joke and how you are behind it. If you're up on stage talking about George W. Bush, pancakes, or Post It notes, none of it really matters if you aren't behind it 100% and actually give the audience a glimpse of your actual feelings on that topic....although, I dunno how passionate one could be about Post It notes, but hey..whatever floats your boat I guess.

The second thing commitment could mean is actually having your mind set on nothing but stand-up comedy, by going balls to the wall, and not letting anything hold you back. So what kind of commitment is that?? Writing for a few hours a day?? Standing in the wintery cold for 3 hours barking to a city that wants nothing to do with you?? Quitting your day job to do everything in your power to "make it??" Whatever the case, there are so many different comedians out here that are on their own path to destiny and they all have their limits of commitment...or lack thereof.

One thing that I've known from the beginning of all this is to maintain eye contact with the audience, at ALL times. Recently, I've realized that there are many of times that I'm not keeping eye contact with the audience and I think it really hurts the joke and connection with the crowd. I recently did a show where I maintained eye contact throughout the whole set, and I learned that on some, if not most, of my jokes, I can get an extra laugh just by looking at the crowd. Whether it be a face of shock, disgust, or sarcasm, it seems like a little bit of eye contact and silence (which comedians fear) can get you a little bit further.

And as far as "and a shot of Jager" in my topic...that was simply just a Happy New Year to you all...or as I like to call you all...Happy New Year to yinz!