Conan stalker brings memories of Mrs. Letterman

The New York Times headline "Priest Jailed in Stalking of Conan O'Brien" was surely one of the funniest we've read in awhile, even topping "Paul's New Love Has Heather Hopping Mad" in today's New York Post. And the incident calls to mind the sad and scary saga of Margarate Ray, aka "Mrs. David Letterman," who stalked, bothered, worried, and trespassed in the home of David Letterman when he was hosting the same show in the same studio and timeslot that Conan occupies today.

A tabloid generation ago, Mrs. Letterman was a classic segment on A Current Affair, doing half an interview while standing on her head, and caused much consternation on the Late Night set, angering Dave and leading to a legendary showdown between the grumpy talk show host and mischevous A Current Affair producers at the famed Odeon when it was in the shadow of the World Trade Centers. The episode can and must be found in the book, Tabloid Baby.

Mrs. Letterman was found dead in 1998, after she knelt in the path of an approaching train.

Way to go, Conan! (And we do mean "go")

Conan O'Brien has Just released a statement in which he refuses to accept a move of his Tonight show to 12:05 a.m in order to accommodate Jay Leno. It's a statement for the television archives:

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.

Yours,

Conan

So what about the Masturbating Bear?

So NBC is finally wrapping up the Conan O'Brien debacle and, after a break for the Olympics, will head into another three months of critical headlines about the mediocrity of Jay Leno when he gets the timeslot back. Conan and his people played it well-- a lot better than he played as host of The Tonight Show, which we all stopped watching after the first week (he never should have brought back Andy Richter-- it was a retreat to the infantile comedy he did in the early days of The Late Show, not even Letterman does the hip "irony" thing anymore, and Conan didn't click as a full-fledged talent until after he dumped the playacting sidekick and went solo). The only question that matters is whether NBC gets to keep the "intellectual property rights" to his sketches which would mean it's the last anyone will ever see of The Masturbating Bear.

One thing the saga did demonstrate was how the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com is consistently wrong in its reporting and how dangerous it is for lazy paid mainstream journos to use it as a source. From its ever-shifting details of the contents and timing of the settlement, the site and its shaved bronzed midget frontman made it clear that, as when they rolled the dice in reporting the death of Michael Jackson prematurely, they make shit up, and as long as they have supporters like Brian Stelter at the New York Times to give them attribution and feature stories whenever they happen to be correct, they're golden.

In the late night wars, why does the Mexican guy wind up getting screwed?

First Jay Leno pushed Conan O'Brien out of his dream job as host of the Tonight Show at NBC, after he agreed to a deal that would have forced Conan to move his show back to midnight, and now it's reported that Conan O'Brien is taking a late night gig at TBS, forcing George Lopez out of his 11 pm talk show slot and back to midnight on TBS.

Lopez reportedly agreed to the deal, but did he have a choice?

(Funny related story: Lopez was in a feud with Jay Leno a couple of years ago, when Leno was invited to a comedian's gathering at the Laugh Factory on Sunset Boulevard. Noticing Lopez in the crowd, Leno got loose from his handlers and walked over to clear things up. He offered the olive branch to his colleague, only to be met with the response:

"Jay, I'm not George Lopez. I'm Paul Rodriguez."

Carson Scably

We ran a bunch of stories about poor, weird, weirdly emaciated Carson Daly and his timeslot-filling middle-of-the-night talk show on NBC when we were contributing news items to the TVgasm website. We left off around the time he was making some sad attempts to somehow win the Conan O'Brien's 12:35 am slot after Conan takes over Tonight Show from placeholder Jay Leno. Even after NBC signed the amateurish Jimmy Fallon to a holding deal and indicated he'd be getting the Late Night gig (NBC's math: Irish+boyish+SNL experience+no hosting experience+discomfort at doing interviews= the gig), Daly kept putting out announcements about how he was prepping for the semi bigtime, and wanted NBC suits to tune in to see how he'd pumped up his show with lame scripted comedy bits and an imitation monologue.

Now, Carson Daly is making the ultimate desperation ploy to appease his corporate bosses. While all the other late night shows have been sidelined by the Writers Guild strike, the desperate wannabe has announcemed that he's returning to work today. Daly's not a Writers Guild member, but he’s not only crossign the picket line, he's openly soliciting material from non-Guild "writers"-- meaning scabs-- and that makes him a scumbag wasting-disease scab, as well.

We're sure Jeff Zucker and the other NBC honchos have promised him at least a John Rivers fill-in role after Conan leaves Late Night, it's got more to do with Daly's aspirations to be a bigtime producer like Dick Clark or Ryan Seacrest.

Run, Conan, Run

"NBC chief Jeff Gaspin said the network is pulling the plug on The Jay Leno Show beginning February 12, and he is in active negotiations to try and keep Leno and Conan O'Brien on NBC..."

Exploiting Artie Lange's suicide attempt

Aside from Howard Stern's word that his radio sidekick is still in "bad shape," there's been no word on the condition of comedian Artie Lange since his release from the hospital after he plunged a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife nine times into his corpulent abdomen in a suicide attempt on January 2nd, but the exploitation of the bloated, drug-addicted slovenly clown has moved from the insular world of satellite radio to the national stage.

The Comedy Central network will run Lange's Jack & Coke (as in "cocaine") standup special Saturday night at 10 pm, as it had already been schedule in November, but with the disingenuous statement from a Comedy Central spokesman: "The news about Artie is tragic, but we spoke to his camp and are excited to share with his fans the genius of his stand-up act and this never-seen-before special."

Lange's "camp," of course, are the ones who allowed the sad, disheveled comic to descend to such depths of degradation and self-hatred that he attempted to take his own life. The special, however, shows Lange in May 2009, when he was fresh out of rehab and momentarily sober.

Someone in that "camp" is also keeping Lange's name in the news for reasons other than his own shame with the posting of a clip of Lange's appearance on The Late Show with Conan O'Brien in 2008, in which he predicted O'Brien's demise as host of The Tonight Show.

Meanwhile Stern, who has exploited Lange's condition for years and pushed him in the name of comedy toward the brink of hopelessness and death, told his small band of Sirius radio listeners on Tuesday that he'd spoken with Lange, and revealed how much he cares about the tortured performer when he said:

"Artie and I ran out of shit to talk about in three seconds."

Stern rejected an offer to appear as a guest on Conan O'Brien's final week on The Tonight Show, claiming it would interfere with his private Sirius satellite radio schedule, but which was obvious attempt to avoid questions about his culpability in Lange's suicide attempt as well as his effort to keep the incident covered up.

UPDATE: In a development that took more than 24 hours to get past the satellite radio wall to the general public, it's being reported that Stern told a fellow Sirius deejay that he's been approached for, and considering, a return to mainstream, free, "terrestrial" radio. The move would only confirm what this site has been predicting for some time, as Stern has vanished from public consciousness and lost hundreds of thousands of fans, as evidenced by the lack of response from Stern fans to TabloidBaby's Stern postings compared to the past and despite our boom in site traffic.

Insult Comic Dog addresses The Leno Issue

Comedy puppet Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, appearing at the WGA East Awards show in NYC Saturday night, took on an issue that will linger long after the Writers Guild Strike is ended officially: passive-aggressive late night host Jay Leno's casual and callous flaunting of the WGA rules by continuing to write and use written material in his show's monologues and sketches:

"Today we had a great victory... We have an agreement that we can pretend we’re happy with... We had to get an agreement today... There was too much public outcry. At the end of the day, we had to end the strike to get all the ugly writers off of YouTube.

"By the way, if you don’t like any of these jokes, I didn’t write them because of the strike. But fortunately Jay Leno was nice enough to give me some. How does he do it? He runs them by Mavis at 3 in the morning!

"...The strike rules, ha, prohibit all the writing, ho ho, by any guild member that would be performed on-air by that member, ah ha ha ha, including monologues! Oh ho ho! I can’t take it! It’s too funny! Oh ho ho ho! The strike rules!

"By the way, I want to say, you know, Jay Leno wasn’t the only one to make a mockery of these rules. All the talk show hosts did, except my man, Conan O’Brien! Conan O’Brien went out there with no material and sucked harder than ever before!

"Actually, he was pretty good, but if I say that Jeff Zucker will fire half the writing staff.

"Jimmy Kimmel also didn’t write. But Jimmy took it a step further: He didn’t write before the strike. That’s how loyal he is!"

Now Jay Leno must walk away from NBC

Now that Conan O'Brien's thrown down the gauntlet and refused to move with the Tonight show to 12:05 a.m. to make way for a half-hour of Jay Leno jokes at 11:35, it's up to Jay Leno to do the right thing and walk away from NBC as well.


After all, it was his show that failed at 10 p.m. and collapsed the late night ratings. We're hearing that NBC is already calling up agents looking for guest hosts to fill in on that expensive new Tonight set.

But if Conan takes a hike, does Leno think he can walk back to where he left off at Tonight with any dignity at all? Even before his 10 o'clock disaster got the axe, there was talk that NBC suits were talking about Jerry Seinfeld taking over Tonight. It still could happen. But would passive-aggressive Leno take a stand?

Sex & Baseball Grand Slam! Our Man Elli's kudos for Conan

Our Man Elli in Israel, the man behind our Pulitzer Prize-nominated coverage of the Israel Baseball League (thanks for nothing, Sig Gissler!), checks in after a long absence (hard at work as a correspondent for the Israel Broadcasting Authority) to offer declare a “Grand Slam for Conan O’Brien” for a late night sex and baseball joke:

“Parents’ groups are complaining that TV broadcasts of baseball games are filled with ads for erectile dysfunction drugs. In other words, things are so turned around these days that now we delay baseball by thinking about sex.”


And who’d forget that Our Man Elli is subject of the Sex & Baseball documentary project…

Borat invades the CBS sanctum

Borat has been on more TV talk shows than Madonna this week, but despite his often-hilarious showcases with the likes of Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Saturday Night Live, his most memorable appearance promises to be tomorrow on The CBS Morning News show.

Unfortunately, it looks as if the Kazakhstani won't be asking Julie Chen to undergo a pubic hair harvesting, as he tried to force Conan last night (if he did, CBS would have put clip that on its news feed, too). Even so, there are few things funnier than watching the nerdiest news program on television try to be hip (they're probably the only show that identifies Borat by the actor's name and occupation), while the milquetoastiest, squarest newsman in the business tries to get in on the joke-- and winds up on his ass, with the camera pointed unblinkingly where it usually never peeks-- right at his chrome dome.

(If there's any doubt that Julie's hubby Les Moonves has jammed the final stake through the heart of the old CBS News, this clip should erase it. You go, Harry.)

For more laughs, visit Tabloid Baby at TVgasm.com and get a load of the reaction from the site's fans. And join the Baby bashing! Go ahead!

NBC News chief on Haiti: "So many stories to be told! Thanks for a great week!"

It was a bad week for NBC-Universal chief Jeff Zucker (what with Leno and Conan and all), but for NBC News president Steve Capus, the disaster in Haiti was a something of a blessing-- a great opportunity for his division to show what they're made of. In his message to his troops today, he says:

"This is just the beginning:
There's so much suffering...
so much rebuilding to be done...
so many stories to be told."

January 15, 2010
A Message From Steve Capus

There is a lot to cover in this first note of 2010, but before I get to that, I just want to thank everyone for their first-rate work on the Haiti Earthquake coverage. While I write this, we still have no way to calculate the enormity of the devastation, nor the numbers of those who've been lost. It's a calamity, and the challenges of giving it the proper perspective are enormous. Just about everyone in this news division has contributed in some manner to the coverage... but I'm especially proud of the resourceful crews, technicians, producers andreporters who dropped everything in order to establish our presence in Port au Prince and Santo Domingo.

Hats off to Brian Williams, Ann Curry, Al Roker, Kerry Sanders, Michelle Kosinski, Ron Allen, Bob Bazell, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, WNBC's Tom Llamas and their teams of producers and crews who all traveled to a region without knowing the countless challenges they'd face. David Verdi's Net desk team and bureaus have done brilliant jobs managing the logistical and news gathering efforts. We could not have pulled this off without them. At times like these, I am amazed by the breadth and depth of this news division: Over the past 72 hours, I've seen our comprehensive coverage on "Today," "Nightly," MSNBC, CNBC, msnbc.com, the Weather Channel, our owned and operated stations and the NBC affiliates ... all distributed through NBC Newschannel and via our international partners. This is just the beginning: There's so much suffering... so much rebuilding to be done... so many stories to be told.

One related note: For the last 32 years, NBC's Martin Fletcher has lent his considerable expertise to coverage such as the Haiti earthquake. We've always been able to turn to Martin for outstanding field reporting, emotional story-telling, and great camaraderie. Sadly for us, Martin has now had a taste of what's it's like to be a best-selling author. He has "the bug" and wants to purse more book projects. So, Martin has decided to retire from his full-time job with NBC News. However, NBC News will always be Martin's home and we are excited about some future projects that we've begun to consider. We're fortunate that Tom Aspell is already based in the region... Richard Engel spends a considerable amount of time there... and our aggressive partners at ITN are co-located in our new Tel Aviv bureau.

There is more to discuss about topics such as: Dateline's expanding role in NBC's primetime line-up... the considerable success our broadcasts are enjoying these days... MSNBC's upcoming town hall on race... NBC News announcement on DPI (see below)... and so much more. But for now, let's keep our focus on the Haiti crisis. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti.

Thanks for a great week.

steve

SNL avoids the Obama blackface issue

Lorne Michaels’ Saturday Night Live has never displayed much worry about white castmembers playing “blackface” (think Darrell Hammond as Jesse Jackson). But in the case of Barack Obama, who made a cameo appearance in the last episode before the WGA strike, there was some hand-wringing in the media about the need for a regular, politically-correct Obama character, and, with young Kenan Thompson too fat for the role, rumours that a tall, lanky African-American Obama player was about to join the cast (instead, a chubby white girl was added to replace Maya Rudolph).

In the end, they used Fred Armisen. Any controversy was immediately deflected because the makeup was laugh-out-loud good. And they sidestepped the “blackface issue" on a couple of counts: Armisen didn't need more than a light bronzing, as both he and Obama are of mixed race heritage (Obama with a white mother and Kenyan father; Armisen is Venezuelan on his mother’s side and part Japanese).

By the way, last night's SNL episode was one for the time capsule: the first consistently- funny show since the fifth episode of the second season (and as a reminder, Steve Martin made an appearance). The sketches were tight and actually laugh-inducing, and with the exception of Carrie Underwood’s subpar performance (why do the musical acts always sound so bad on this show while there’s never a problem on Conan?) and Tina Fey’s desperate Hillary-flogging during the news segment, the show held up to the end! As it was the first fresh SNL since the start of the Writers Guild Strike, the solution to SNL's quality control problem is obvious (Ben Silverman take note): cut back Saturday Night Live to once every 16 weeks.

What's with Neil Young's hair last night?

Neil Young with Dave Matthews on the telethon

Neil Young on The Tonight Show

Neil Young made two appearances on television last night. One was supposedly taped yesterday afternoon, one was allegedly live. So why was his hair silver on the Hope for Haiti Now telethon, while sporting an orange rinse on Conan O'Brien's final Tonight Show?

How to guarantee your ratings will drop 42% on your second night in prime time

...Promote Michael Moore as your main guest, keep him on for two segments and and then let him sing an a capella version of The Times They Are A Changin'. Note to Conan O'Brien: Lose Andy Richter. The ironic announcer thing and little boy gags held you back in the early Nineties and now it just seems strange.

* Update: Make that 62%...

Until we see that Kimmel-Silverman sex tape, David Letterman's got the most embarrassing late night scandal

First Conan O'Brien winds up hospitalized with a concussion after hitting his head during a silly stunt on his show, then comes word that someone's about to release a sex tape that Jimmy Kimmel made with Sarah Silverman, and now David Letterman says his sexual affairs with members of his staff led to an extortion attempt. Not a good week for the white guys of late night television. We'd guess Jay Leno is sitting pretty right about now.

Zucked up: NBC boss finds hope in Haiti

"Look! Over there! No! Not at late night! At Haiti!"

With his once-winning network crumbling around him, the Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien embarrassment making the prospect of keeping his job at the top once the deal to dump NBC onto Comcast comes through a little less certain, and seeing his name suddenly morphed into a new word that means "bungled" ("zucked up"), Jeff Zucker can at least take comfort knowing he didn't screw up NBC News too badly by, let's say, trying to hold onto Katie Couric by giving her the Nightly News chair. This memo went out to the troops and their leaders this morning:

Sent: Sunday, January 17, 2010 1:01 AM
Subject: HAITI Coverage

A quick note of thanks to everyone at NBC News and MSNBC and MSNBC.com who has played a role in covering the earthquake in Haiti, both here at home and on the ground there.

Your coverage has been comprehensive, compassionate, powerful, sensitive and respectful, often under incredibly difficult circumstances.

Of course, nothing can do real justice to the tragedy that has unfolded in Haiti, the devastating loss of life and the unimaginable aftermath that now exists there.

But you have again reminded us why so many of us got into this business .. to help shine a light on events like this and, in doing so, bring some small measure of hope to those affected.

You have done it superbly, and made the entire company proud.

Thank you again.

JEFF

Why is the WGA letting the late-night liberal golden boys get away with using written, scab material?

So why are the liberal golden boys of late night television getting a pass by the Writers Guild of America when they’re clearly doing scabwork and making liberal use of written material despite the strike? Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Maher all flaunt their lefty, man-of-the-people, anti-Bush, anti-boss credentials, sentiments and shtik, and all returned to their shows amid the WGA strike with the expected words of solidarity toward the striking writers. Yet even a cursory viewing of their shows this week reveals that they’re using written material, in videotaped segments, monologues and other bits. And no one’s complaining.



Jay Leno has been the most egregious and blatant offender with his long scripted monologues and scripted video segments, but in his typical passive-aggressive fashion weaseled his way out of responsibility by claiming to have misinterpreted approval from the WGA. With NBC forcing him off the air next year and embarrassing him by running those repeats from the Nineties, he obviously doesn’t give a shit or feels he’s above it all, but as Leno spews out the written stuff regardless, he offers a fascinating view into a TV comedian’s insecurities, jealousies and neuroses, unseen since the days of Stanley Seigel, Shelley Berman or Jack Paar.

But these other guys? They’re only protecting their artificial images. We members of the Writers Guild of America gave ambitious Carson Scably a well-deserved heckling when he was caught soliciting scab material after he crossed the WGA picket line to resume his little-seen middle-of-the-night talk show. But he was easy pickings. Guys like Stewart, Colbert and Maher obviously believe their own hype, that they have something important to say, and it appears that their perceived political views are giving them tacit approval to rely on scabwork and be scabs themselves.

So far, only Conan O'Brien seems to have taken the strike and his responsibilities as a WGA member seriously and is giving his bosses a reason to get back to the negotiating table. Kimmel? We haven’t watched his show so you’ll have to let us know, but his public grousings are ill-advised for a lug who’s lucky to be on the air to begin with, and who’s in line for a dose of Hollywood reality next year when his new big buddy Leno makes a deal with ABC and takes his timeslot.

Won't a talk show deal finally kill Artie Lange?

There's been talk this past week that Howard Stern's (remember him?) slovenly satellite radio sidekick Artie Lange has signed "a major deal with Fox Television" to star in his own late-night talk show (possibly to replace TalkShow with Spike Feresten. The latest conjecture is whether Lange will leave his spot on the Sirius pay-show or be held to the final four years of his contract.

But the more obvious question is why anyone would sign the self-destructive Artie-- the comedian voted most likely to wind up as the next Chris Farley-- for such a strenuous task in his condition. Don't they read the Artie Lange Death Watch web sites?

If the Fox execs don't watch the web (or CSI: Miami, they could ask for a tape of Artie's recent appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman (or Late Night with Conan O'Brien). Promoting his sorry Beer League DVD, the comic appeared disheveled and morbidly obese, about twice the size as when he appeared last summer to promote the theatrical release. Artie has said he gained the weight after quitting heroin (he's shown in his heroin days at right).

And just this past summer, as we chronicled his slide to demise, he told the LA Times: "I am a guy who has struggled with every kind of addiction. I love gambling, and it has gotten me into trouble before. I love drugs and booze. The drugs finally had to go, but the booze is still very much in play. And you know I love broads. I am definitely not someone who is embarrassed to get a hooker or two."

Poor Artie. Despite the acclaim for his comedy, the sad comic is best known for his excess, his inconsistency and absences on the Stern show from the time it was a free, influential radio program, and his often-inebriated concert performances. His last contract with Fox Television, as an original cast member on MADtv, ended when drug and alcohol abuse led to his firing.

An Artie Lange talk show promises to be Fox's biggest late night train wreck since Chevy Chase--though definitely more entertaining. Maybe they should consider a reality show.

A year without Howard Stern

It was one year ago today that Howard Stern walked away from “free” radio and abandoned his audience to do his show with less censorship and for more money for a paying audience on satellite radio.

Watching Howard this week, making appearances on shows like Conan O’Brien’s, in the same clothes he’d worn a year ago while promoting his venture last year, bragging about his celebrity interviews that no one gets to hear and the sexual antics that couldn't be shown in the past, and giving away free "Howard TV" subscriptions, did not make us want to buy the latest Sirius Satellite device and a subscription. It made us realize that things change, life goes on, and that in January, we former listeners will have lived through an entire year of the crapulous, grating, annoying, moronic, dull, repetitive, boring, unfunny, assaultive, droning, uninformative, doltish, harassing, sluggish, sophomoric Adam Carolla replacement show. And someone in the radio business will have kept that crummy, unlistenable, stultifying, stupid, rasping, irritating, nettling, boneheaded program on the air for twelve entire months.

Howard's pandering appearances this week on the one-year-anniversary of his "death," have also made us realize that, irrelevant as he has become, he will soon be back on free radio in one form or another. Just wait.