It seems that ever since the story broke last week that NBC is fucking Conan O’Brien in the ass taking the 11:35 ET time slot and giving it back to journeyman comedian and likable chin fellow Jay Leno, The Internets has become abuzz with various declarations of allegiance to folks’ various favorite late night personalities.
Lost in all of this has been, largely, the truth. Conan O’Brien is a fairly funny guy – certainly a superior entertainer to Leno, at least in the eyes of most people in the two-digit age spectrum. But O’Brien is hardly among the all-time late night elite. He’s just barely the third-best late night host currently on TV.
As a result of the late night chaos, I, being hilarious myself, as well as an excellent judge of television programming quality, have taken it upon myself to craft what I call the Talk Show Host Power Rankings. This will include any nightly comedy host – network or cable – but will be limited to the currently employed. (Johnny Carson, naturally, is the untouchable Number One. The Yankees of talk show hosts, if you will… but without being a turd.)
Without further adieu, here are the inaugural Talk Show Host Power Rankings:
1. David Letterman – His sharp edge has softened as he’s grown older, but Dave is still the only guy beloved enough to take sharp jabs at people – to their face, in some instances – and not lose his audience. Sex scandal aside (what Stupid Human Tricks were they turning over there?), Dave is still very much the best in the business, 30 years after beginning his great run.
2. Craig Ferguson – I am still not convinced that anybody is watching this show (after Letterman on CBS), but they ought to be, because this guy is a loose cannon. This extremely likable Scotsman can get away with any number of deranged or even creepy jokes, but because of his charm and that hilarious accent which US audiences ate up – so to speak – when Mike Myers unleashed Fat Bastard upon the world, Ferguson can get away with some awesomely funny shit that wouldn’t fly on any other show.
3 (tie) Jimmy Kimmel – Doughy, bloated idiot who is perfectly willing to acknowledge being a doughy, bloated idiot for a laugh. I don’t know if it’s fair to call Kimmel the most fearless among the network hosts, but he’s certainly unafraid of giving the audience and his guests a peek into his warped mind. Where guys like Letterman and O’Brien are somewhat concealed by the awkward schtick they’ve both perfected over the years, you don’t get the impression that Kimmel is any different sitting on his couch than he is sitting behind the desk… other than wearing a suit.
3 (tie) Conan O’Brien – I remember that first time I saw Conan on TV. He was practically pushed out the curtain at Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show”, to be introduced to the world as Letterman’s replacement on “Late Night”. I remember how starry-eyed he looked, how unfunny he was, and how he seemed like a toddler who was just thrown into the deep end of the pool. I was convinced he’d be done in a year. But this is one huge leap of faith NBC made that panned out, because he is now their best late night host. Naturally, they’re letting him walk out the door in favor of somebody much less funny.
5. Jimmy Fallon – He’s not great yet, but he’s likable and funny enough to carry him through until he becomes great, which I believe is possible
6. Jay Leno – It isn’t as though Jay is an unfunny man. He’s a perfectly competent professional stand-up comedian who couldn’t conduct an entertaining interview to save his soul, and has been forced to cater to octogenarians, because his network evidently thinks that the elderly spend money and are desired by advertisers. I don’t blame any of the current mess on Jay; the man just wants to work. NBC, sadly, thinks that his doing so is a good idea for them. The rest of us beg to differ.
7. (four-way tie) George Lopez, Carson Daly, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart – I don’t think Leno is good, but it’s almost a disservice to humanity for these four stiffs to be listed just one notch below him. Not one of these people is watchable by any standard. Lopez seems to have crafted an entire talk show based around his one-trick-pony comedy act, after beating that pony to death via the sitcom for years. Daly was perfectly suited for the eleven-year-old-girl audience of “TRL”, and has been in over his head ever since. Colbert’s act is to portray the politically-minded version of Michael Scott, but Steve Carell is funnier, and we can watch that show without being beaten to death by the left’s inaccurate view of… everything.
Jon Stewart, plainly and simply, is the most embarrassing person on television. His smarmy act goes over huge with the brain-dead twentysomethings who started paying attention to politics because it was fashionable and ended up destroying the country electing Barack Obama in the process. The fact that so many of his fans believe his show to be a news source rather than an entertainment program is only slightly more scary than the thought that the rest of his fans think it’s entertaining! Four-feet-ten-inches of unfunny, it’s unconscionable to me that this man remains employed anywhere other than a used car lot. Somehow, he and Comedy Central have hoodwinked an entire audience of people into believing the untruths that his show is either usefully informative, remotely entertaining, or culturally significant in any way whatsoever. Every time I consider the loathsome screaming nitwits on the cable “news” channels (such as Bill O’Reilly), I shake my head and feel sad that folks are actually watching those shows. When I consider Jon Stewart, it makes me wonder what time O’Reilly comes on.