It was a busy night on late-night television on Thursday, as yet again we were treated to jokes about Jay Leno and the NBC situation from every direction. On some shows, things took a turn for the nasty; on the other hand, one late-night host put things in perspective.
Let's start with "The Jay Leno Show," which contained arguably the most vicious attack of the night thanks to Jay's own bizarre decision to put Jimmy Kimmel on his "Ten @ Ten." When you are a fairly unsympathetic figure in a controversy involving late-night hosts, the last thing you should do (at least from my viewpoint) is bring someone who will ultimately be your competitor on the program. Suffice it to say, the gloves came off.
For the most part, Kimmel's claims were valid and deserving of a few laughs. The only part I disagreed with was when Jimmy started to make an argument at the end that he and Conan deserved shows more because they "have families" and Jay "has cars." Let's not pretend for one second that any of these guys will be in financial trouble without a job; they make more in one year than some of us make in our lives.
As for Conan, he took a different road and decided to focus on an adult film company's offer to make a movie about his struggles. Jokingly he claimed to be interested, and then rattled off a list of risque potential titled (since this is a family site, you can check out the link here). Some reports claim that Conan will be done with NBC before the Winter Olympics, and that he and the network are currently working on a settlement that could keep him from bolting right away to Fox.
David Letterman, meanwhile, was surprisingly a little off his game on Thursday.
His jokes about Conan and Jay were topical but not exactly funny. As for a video he showed later in the hour comparing Jay's actions to frontiersmen making Indian attacks, it frankly didn't work and could even come across as insensitive. I guess this is proof that everyone has a bad night sometimes.
The real winner for Thursday was Craig Ferguson. He's been funny when talking about the situation in the past, but this time he took a completely different angle.
By focusing the attention on Haiti over the late-night battle, Craig showed yet again that he is one of the boldest hosts on TV. He's not afraid to pass by the "joke of the moment" to make a larger point, and his challenge to Rush Limbaugh exemplifies that.
Who did you think was the best Thursday night? Let me know your thoughts below!
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