Jay Leno's Phony Case for Balanced Comedy

[SocialDemocrat61]

Jay Leno’s Phony Case for Balanced Comedy
The former Tonight Show host thinks a dose of bothsidesism will punch up the late-night scene.
BEN SCHWARTZ
Why is it that every time a great late night host loses a job, Jay Leno appears? Back in the 1990s, when David Letterman lost out on hosting The Tonight Show, Leno was there to claim victory. When Conan O’Brien briefly replaced Leno and then got fired from The Tonight Show, Leno was there to take his old job back. This month, CBS fired arch–Trump critic Stephen Colbert and canceled The Late Show—perfect timing to signal to the Trump administration that CBS’s new owner, David Ellison’s Skydance, would offer more “viewpoint diversity” (i.e., Trump-friendly material) on its airwaves. And out of a clear blue sky, Leno is back!

Viewers who suffered through those earlier late-night wars can rest easy in this respect: CBS isn’t hiring Leno as Colbert’s replacement. Instead, Leno has resurfaced in an interview with David Trulio of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute to complain about how politically one-sided late night comedy has become. “I love political humor, don’t get me wrong,” Leno told Trulio. “But it’s just what happens when people wind up cozying too much to one side or the other…. Why shoot for just half an audience all the time? You know, why not try to get the whole. I mean, I like to bring people into the big picture.”

Sure, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Colbert go after Trump relentlessly—he is the sitting president, after all, and one whose extremist bigotry, penchant for attacking comedians, and criminal record puts him in a special class of sitting president. It’s hard to see what else they would do.

Without acknowledging any of that, Leno and Trulio discuss the need for a “both sides” approach to late night as if it were an extension of network news—as if comedians need to give an objective accounting of the day’s events. These people host late-night comedy shows, not presidential debates. We currently have a Republican White House, Congress, Senate, and Supreme Court. It’s not as if having two parties means both sides hold equal power. If Leno wants to see more jokes about Democrats, he should help elect more Democrats.

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/jay-lenos-phony-case-for-balanced-comedy/

[Initech]

1. The guy who built his entire career mocking Monica Lewinsky says what?

[Kid Berwyn]

2. 80-percent of his jokes were at the Democrat's expense.

Curiously absent are criticisms of the Bush Family Evil Empire.

[EdmondDantes_]

11. Funny thing memories, they are often inaccurate

https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/which-president-did-jay-leno-mock-the-most-over-the-last-22-years/

"Overall, CMPA found that Democrats received 10,885 jokes, 15 % more than the 9,465 jokes directed at Republicans, which makes sense since a Democrat held the White House 13 of the 22 years that Leno was on the air."

And Bush was the second most targeted politician after Bill Clinton.

[leftstreet]

3. He'll be remembered as the ultimate Court Jester

ugh

a "fool," a member of the elite court, household, entertaining the peasants with propaganda

[Ritabert]

4. I could never stand him

[rurallib]

9. Me either. He had this horrible habit of having to tell why the joke was funny

after he told it because no one would laugh. A couple weeks of that was enough for me.

[Ritabert]

10. You're right. I forgot that.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. Leno? . . . . Leno? . . . . . Isn't he the jerk who who hid in a closet . . . .

. . . . to eavesdrop on NBC corporate meetings to get inside info on how to beat out the much better man, Letterman.

Hey Jay. Bite me.

[dsc]

6. Leno is a gay hating bigot who can stick his sanctimony where the sun doesn't shine

https://alt.tv.tonight-show.narkive.com/rcfSx9y3/avenue-q-creator-has-had-enough-of-leno-s-gay-jokes-thank-you-jeff-whitty

Dear Mr. Leno,

My name is Jeff Whitty. I live in New York City. I'm a playwright and
the author of Avenue Q, which is a musical currently running on
Broadway. I've been watching your show a bit, and I'd like to make an
observation:

When you think of gay people, it's funny. They're funny folks. They
wear leather. They like Judy Garland. They like disco music. They're
sort of like Stepin Fetchit as channeled by Richard Simmons.

Gay people, to you, are great material.

Mr. Leno, let me share with you my view of gay people:

When I think of gay people, I think of the gay news anchor who took a
tire iron to the head several times when he was vacationing in St.
Martin. I think of my friend who was visiting Hamburger Mary's, a gay
restaurant in Las Vegas, when a bigot threw a smoke bomb filled with
toxic chemicals into the restaurant, leaving the staff and gay
clientele coughing, puking, and running in terror. I think of visiting
my gay friends at their house in the country, sitting outside for
dinner, and hearing, within hundreds of feet of where we sat, taunting
voices yelling "Faggots!" I think of hugging my boyfriend goodbye for
the day on 8th Avenue in Manhattan and being mocked and taunted by
passing high school students.

When I think of gay people, I think of suicide. I think of a countless
list of people who took their own lives because the world was so
toxically hostile to them. Because of the deathly climate of the
closet, we will never be able to count them. You think gay people are
great material. I think of a silent holocaust that continues to this
day. I think of a silent holocaust that is perpetuated by people like
you, who seek to minimize us and make fun of us and who I suspect
really, fundamentally wish we would just go away.

[Passages]

7. Because there is a good side to authoritarian rule?

Crushing the US Constitution has an upside, a valid point of view?

[gademocrat7]

8. Dispise Leno

My maidan name was Disco. Leno made a joke out of my Dad’s death my saying “Disco is now dead.” It was schocking . We had our attorney send him a letter but we got no response. Disgusting man.

[Rebl2]

12. I thought

Colbert kind of went after Biden last year from clips I saw on DU-haven’t watched him in a long time.
I think Leno just needs to go away. Never liked him-EVer.

[MagickMuffin]

13. Leno by the numbers: 22 years, 44,000 jokes, 4,607 aimed at Clinton

You read that right 4,607 jokes just about Bill Clinton.

I never thought Jay Leno was funny. I always saw him as a low grade standup comic.

https://www.today.com/popculture/leno-numbers-22-years-44-000-jokes-4-607-aimed-2D12057956

[themaguffin]

14. To paraphrase Biden, Leno's "jokes" were a noun a verb and Monica Lewinsky...