Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to Episode 496 of the podcast that just won’t eat Quix!
This week: a sleep paralysis sitcom; really get to know Dave; more boobs; heroic haircut; Y: The Last Emperor; original Late Night; let’s repeat that failure; surrogate Letterman; Leno’s giant mistake; Fallon down; brief aside: Giuliani sucks; textbook bullshit; familial meritocracy; competitive synergy; black horror; dumb horror; we recommend: Bo Burnham’s Inside; also, we recommend Hacks; non-elective gap year; current traumatic stress disorder; leave that dead horse alone; stress speaking; personal Slurpees; unmotivated dieting; get rich quick scheme; Chick Talk™; go lay an egg; ice-cold reviews; live television; soap opera retcons and memory wipes; mummies can’t talk; more Letterman; comedy farms; boat bashing; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; school sneakers; all by ourselves; catfishing; all of our friends were there; Laraine Newman facts; stealth talent; Carmina Burana one more time; and, finally, let’s end with a smattering.
Question of the week: When you were a kid, what was your late night treat show?
Sub-question: Who was an underrated performer on Saturday night Live?
Two of our listeners went to the trouble of filling our their bracket!!!
Thanks to Louise:
and Nina:
For their Photoshop skillz!
And don’t forget to listen to Dave talk more about Dirty Harry on a new episode of the Dirty Harry Minute podcast entitled Harry Callahan Roast!
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Conan O’Brien had good Tonight Show ratings? I think Letterman beat him badly constantly which is why NBC brought Leno back.
Question of the week: Late Night with David Letterman
Sub-Question of the week: Norm MacDonald.
Conan beat Letterman for the first eight months then they went back and forth with Conan usually getting the younger more important (to advertisers) demographic. His ratings were larger than Leno when he started out as the host of The Tonight Show. Then Leno got his new show at 10pm with terrible ratings which lowered the viewership of both Conan and Fallon.
Hmmmm…..
I know Leno’s 10PM show was a sinkhole for NBC. But I was under the impression Conan was struggling overall and that Letterman was actually beating him. Which is why NBC went back to Leno. One would think that if Conan was crushing it ratings-wise, NBC would have just cancelled Leno’s 10PM show and let him walk. But, I could be wrong, it was a decade ago and how things shook out may be influencing my memory of things.
You are 100% correct though, that Leno should have been gracious enough to have stepped away completely in 2009 and done a massive standup tour as the ultimate victory lap.
Also, Standup Leno >>>> Tonight Show Leno.
(This is the most I’ve discussed Late Night TV since 1996….)
Watching Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show was my late night treat. It was 90 minutes then, so I’d have to go to bed before the end of the show on school nights, but I’d catch the monologue and desk bits and maybe a guest or two.
I’d like to nominate Aidy Bryant as an underrated SNL cast member. Although she has been nominated for Emmys for her work on the show, she doesn’t have as high a profile as other recent female SNL’rs like Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, or Kristen Wiig. She throws herself into her characters with a lot of commitment and always looks like she’s having fun. Her Ted Cruz was hilarious. I haven’t yet seen her series Shrill which she co-created, but I will check it out. It’s still difficult for a plus-sized actress to get cast in leading roles but hopefully she can follow in the footsteps of performers like Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCarthy.
Hi guys,
What about YouTube and intelligence?
Because as we all known Youtube is dumb… or is it, as would add Micheal from vsauce.
You are making a lot of references, these days, about SNL, late night talk shows and other CRT area north American comic stars, which is kind of frustrating to me as I just recently discovered that Jay Leno was more than a rich car connoisseur and definitely not the father of Doug DeMuro… Or is it?
So what’s your take on Youtube comics, do you follow funny (in a broad sense) channels ?
Do you know Rian George ? You should, as he’s Canadian, he does comedy sketches about Super Heroes and he’s got blue eyes.
He’s comedy shtick is pretty basic or rather simplistic but quite efficient. He is talking to himself or to be precise to an other himself, which is good sign of intelligence. Isn’t it? On Screen rant channel his making imaginary pitch meetings for all the movies we love or at least know… and some time even hate. The pitcher is dumb, the producer too and maybe the resulting motion picture will follow the same route… Why? Becauauause !
But maybe, humo(u)r on YouTube is a big regressive ? Appealing to your inner child, with repetitiveness and to your adult status, by being slightly different each time and making fun of the things you inner child loves, say block busters and super heroes preferabily pushing on the nostalgia ?
For the channel base of funy-ess things, the algorithm tend to push them on the repetitive side.
And you’ve got other channels where humo[u]r is the icing on the cake like This Old Tony, a lathe night show, Captain Disillusion, the one who bring down all our youtube illusions, or The Project Binky from Bad Obsession Motorsport, the Ian and David of mechanics, whom video generic is a parody of the Police Squad one with at the end the not so frozen frame credits background trick. Not to mention the production is Angry Rabbit. And that they are trying to put a Celica GT4 all wheel drive train into a Mini Cooper…. So funny, isn’t it.
Like always, can’t help digressing, so what about the intelligence. First of all what is intelligence? I will give a simple definition that we all can agreed upon which is: ” not being a dumbdumb”. Which is quite a thing these days, it seems
Eeeeverything is connected, the humour… humor… the LOL thing, SNL, electric cars, men on a mission from god, good music, the other ‘”rumpus”, what ever it means, podcast, you, me, the listeners, them, everybody, everybody…
It began a long time ago, with me trying not being a geek, creating my own business, loosing it and ending making a burn out, after too many years of therapy and with this nagging feeling of being always a little bit off.
And finally, me asking me self “Why?”.
And I, maybe, found an answer, not the, but a, which can lead to some explanations for all this mess.
And It’s like the coronavirus, you can be tested for it and it hurt your brain a little bit in the process too, it’s, in french, the “douance”, or the gifted…ness(???) in english.
And why all this is connected? Because our savior, Elon the first, has made a introductory speech on SNL where he declared that he has an Asperger syndrome and that he was the first to declare it publicly on… SNL.
Firstly, gifted, yes… But a bit too on the liar and manipulative side for an Asperger. I think (Model S Plaid+ magically not happening, Las Vegas absurd boring tunnel, being the founder of PayPal or Tesla…).
Secondly, reddit immediately answered back that the real first asperger on SNL was Dan Akroyd. Which is, for me, a way more sympathetic role model.
I mentioned, on “The other Podcast” forum, my addiction for the Blues Brother (Movie and music), and knowing that a least one, but I think both, of those sociopathic characters has this kind of “condition” (in reality and in the movie)… It connected some dots.
To be clear the gifted and the asperger are not the same thing. The asperger, autistic syndrom is a medical condition. The giftedness, is more kind of a particular brain wiring.
But they have some similarities, like hypersensitivity, sensitive senses and moral, capacities of pushing their own interests very far on the edge of obsession, and of course some difficulties with sociability (a lot more for the aspergers).
The gifted tend to connect things, a shitload of things, and therefore have a developed sense of humo-u-r, quite good on word play and non-sense.
They score both, well to very, very, well at IQ tests, not those on the summer magazines or internet, but international ones (WAIS).
All this “more” intelligent thing is to be taken with a grain of salt. See Elon, is it a good thing that he is more intelligent ? Or Steve Jobs, to take two modern semi-gods. Seems that it’s not always making a good “persons”, on a personal and social level. And not having 130 at a test doesn’t makes you dumb.
Oh, and, yes I pass the test some months ago. Didn’t change my life but help me to explain some difficulties, firstly at school, then with authority in general, a somewhat erratic social life based on a love/hate relationship with Humanity.
It put a reason on why my brain seems to never stops, and why I’m trying doing gazillion things and ending having the feeling to have done nothing.
And listening to you guys and the messages of the other listeners, I think I saw some sort of a pattern.
Listening to Sneaky dragon, life seems to go back to a kind of a more logical and peaceful way. All what you say seems to make sense (nearly), and I even love learning about obscure soap operas that I shouldn’t bother to care about other ways. And now I’m waiting for it each week. Or learning about all the quirks and features of the Canadian stand-up scene is cool too. Or learning on all your weird, weird food products. Not to mention the chickens.
And as I mentioned in an other already too long post, we have nearly the same culture (Marx brothers, Tintin, John Deere things, TV shows and movies, music, takes on reality, humo{u}r) across an ocean!
Ok, being Canadian, makes you kind of European, regarding to your neighbors. But nonetheless.
Man, we love to hate Americans but hate loving, love loving and hate hating them at the same time.
You are both kind and thoughtful, not in the same way, I like the slightly worried calmness of David and the ironic (man) but careful ways of Ian… but still both ready to bite if needed. Like a sneaky dragon.
And you don’t like the dumbdumbs, which if even I’m completely wrong, still makes you properly intelligent.
So am I delusional? Or all this ranting does make at least a little sense to you?
Btw, did you hear that the “other” podcast, the “listening party” (normally I don’t do politics) may end soon!! So young, that’s a pity! I still can’t believe it. Do you?
I’m comforting myself with Mannequin On The Moon cartoons, which are very, very good!
Love you. Yeah it was a kind of showy and cumbersome way to say something so simple, I wish I knew what simple means.
Stay frosty!
I’ve been a night owl for life, so it’s no surprise that I was pushing the late hours a little at a time growing up. Each night had it’s share of late night fare but I had to work steadily over the years. Weeknights or school nights saw me in bed by 10:30 right after a nightly re-run of “All in the Family”. Sunday nights had an exception, if ABC was showing a 007 movie and it ran late, I was allowed to watch it to the end but not Monty Python which was also on late Sunday nights. Eventually, I was allowed to stay up until midnight so I took in Johnny Carson if anyone interesting was on and I usually watched it with my folks. It was about the time Letterman started on NBC that I was allowed to stay up as late as I wanted and be accountable for my amount of sleep, so Dave became a nightly ritual…I was enthralled by his show and the offbeat comedy. I did follow his show over to CBS, but you’re right, it wasn’t the same. Kind of like they castrated his creativity or something. Fridays used to show a sketch comedy show after Letterman called “Fridays”, so I watched that when it was on and on Saturdays I watched “Saturday Night Live” when it was popular with with everyone. I grew up with so many seasons of SNL, it’s difficult to say which one had the most impact on me. Lastly, the greatest late night show of all time…the crown jewel of late night came on after SNL and I rarely missed it, it was the only show I recorded in it’s entirety. SCTV was on the air! SCTV was a show that was very popular among all my friends, we were all hopelessly hooked on Melonville and it’s zany cast. I hated that I had to wait an entire week to see it again…
Joe mentioned Norm MacDonald above, so I’ll have to decide on someone else for my underrated SNL pick. I pitched this question to my fellow art directors today and we all agreed Norm was unique and funny in his own way, then we watched him on YouTube during lunch. I still lose it when he does his Burt Reynolds (Turd Ferguson) appearance on Celebrity Jeopardy. (My Favorite sketch)
I really enjoyed Phil Hartman on SNL but I’m not sure he was underrated. He was terrific at impressions and one of my favorite characters he portrayed was The Anal-Retentive Chef. Hartman’s death truly devastated me, I believe he was great at just about everything on that show and he didn’t seem to let the fame overwhelm him like it did many other SNL actors. The more I watched him, the more I loved him on SNL, he was terrific.
Norm’s Jeopardy skits were brilliant.
His Westside Story Skit is fantastic and criminally overlooked.
Phil Hartman may be the greatest cast member ever.
Hey Ian, Dave, and all the Sneaksters in podcast land!
Question of the week:
I had a few different late night treat shows growing up. The two earliest shows I can remember staying up late to watch were syndicated episodes of Doctor Who which came on at 9 p.m. and a few years later SCTV which came on at 10 p.m. I don’t remember asking to stay up and watch them, but I remember looking forward to watching them. I thought Count Floyd was the funniest. As a teenager, I specifically remember asking to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Are You Being Served? on our local PBS station, but mostly on Friday nights when there wasn’t school the next day.
Sub-question: I thought Darrell Hammond was pretty funny, and made a great Al Gore. I won’t say he dropped off the face of the planet after SNL, it is just that I haven’t seen most of the television appearances and filmography listed on his Wikipedia page.
Looking forward to the next episode!
I know that Darrell Hammond is the announcer on SNL. There was a documentary about him on Netflix recently… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK_WmHUqvvk
I did not know that! Thanks, Ian.