HoHum, I'm Going to Bed

In the category of "Who Cares?", NBC is moving Leno back to late night TV. I'm sure this makes a whole lot of people very happy, not to mention NBC affiliates who were unhappy with the primetime Leno show as lead-in to their 11 PM news. Me? I don't care. As for Conan O'Brien (Conan, who?) I don't care even less, or more, or whatever.

What kind of talent does it take to sit behind a desk, ask a pseudo-celebrity a question, not listen to the answer while silently formulating a response/retort/non-sequitur, being not even mildly amusing in the process?

I haven't watched the Tonight Show since Jack Paar left in '62. Well, not completely accurate. I watched one episode of Johnny Carson when my son phoned me from California that he was at the taping and I should watch. I did, but my son was cut before airing. I never forgave Carson for making me miss an hour and a half of good sleep. Before that, I watched Steve Allen, a true Renaissance man, as he hosted the show during my teen years, back in '53ish. He had a wonderful cast of characters and gave them a spot to perform in true variety-show fashion, without interjecting his own personality into their spot(s).

Jack Paar. What can one say about this man that isn't noteworthy? He had a knack for making you come back tomorrow, just to see what he'd got into overnight. He'd make you laugh. He'd make himself cry. He could be serious without being dry. He interviewed Fidel Castro, and engendered controversy. He went to Berlin when The Wall went up, and engendered controversy. He quit the show on-air in a fit of pique over a joke of his being cut. And with the thanks of a grateful insomniac nation, he returned several weeks later without missing a beat.
Opening line on the night of his return? "As I was saying..." Ya gotta laugh.

Jack surrounded himself with a stable of zanies the like of which has not been seen since. Peggy Cass, Dody Goodman, Cliff Arquette in his Charley Weaver persona, raconteur Alexander King, Jonathon Winters, Phyllis Diller, Genevieve, comic/author Jack Douglas, Oscar Levant. People who knew the value of intelligent conversation.
His writers included Dick Cavett, George Carlin and Garry Marshall. People who made it worth sacrificing REM sleep. And every night, he said hello to Mrs. Miller. An elderly fan who arrived every night early enough to be one of the first in line for entry to the auditorium. When it was brought to Jack's attention that she was there every night, he made sure she was never turned away, and by default, she also became one of his "regulars". A lonely soul who had her fifteen minutes, if only because Jack said,"hello".

I suppose the pretenders who followed Paar led up to the generation that thinks texting is civilized discourse. Because after all, why listen to someone else talk when u can b talking urself?