The Return of Merv

With the news that Jay Leno is moving his program (will it still be called "Tonight"?) to prime time, I realized that old is new again in the TV business.

I'm old enough to recall when Merv Griffin had an hour long talk show on in primetime for the old Metromedia network when it aired in New York. (They later sold out to Fox.) Merv wasn't exactly must-see TV. In fact, he was the default in the event that there wasn't anything else good on. Then again in those days it was a seven (if you were lucky) channel universe. Moreover, Merv was on before 10 PM (as the local news aired at that time). Jay will be on at 10 PM.

Merv wasn't afraid to dedicate his show to an upcoming movie by having the whole cast come on. I remember when he had the entire cast for Star Trek II on his program. (Product placement anyone?)

Oddly, the change was prompted by the fact that fewer folks are staying up until 10 PM to catch a show -- when they can record it for viewing at a better time. Go figure. When I lived in the Midwest, TV was more accommodating when prime time ran from 7-10. It has to be pretty compelling TV to keep me up late nowadays.

No assessment would be complete without identifying the early winners (Kimmel and Letterman) and losers (O'Brien -- who never struck me as being funny) by this shift.

Jay, of course, should be a big winner. Hey, prime time is still prime time. However, the biggest winner will be the audience -- it seems like "Dateline" is dust.

Letterman's Humor, Maybe

I don't care much for golf -- to either play it or watch it. (What a phenomenal waste of time when you get down to it. Then again, I've only played it four times and didn't have much to show for it.)

However, I'll stop and watch it -- when it's being broadcast in high-definition. (Granted it will be only for 5 to 10 minutes.) Hi-def certainly makes the game that much more, well, watchable.

Sadly, what hi-def gives, it takes away.

So there I am watching the Dave Letterman program last night and time has not been kind to Dave. (I guess stage make up can take you only so far.) (A quick flick of the remote, though, shows that Jay Leno -- appearance-wise -- seems fine. I still don't know why he's "retiring" next year.)

The only thing more tired than Dave's looks was his routine -- running down the GOP. They were modestly funny efforts. But if you were looking for fair play -- you weren't going to find it. He made one joke about Barack's informercial but Elliot Spitzer ended up as the punch line. A video segment later on the program showed the start of Barack's infomercial -- an uninspired takeoff of the old Laverne & Shirley program. (Which was probably lost on the studio audience.)

Before I bailed out he was doing a Joe McCain bit which was somewhat funny. (Joe, the GOP candidate's brother, called 911 to complain about being stuck in traffic and said some impolite things in the process.) However, he went to the well one too many times on that gag. Lastly, he was trying to see how many Sarah Palins could fit in a Lenscrafter store. (As a skit, it probably did better as a concept, because the execution left me puzzled.)

If Dave expects to have me as part of his audience, he'll have to be playing at a pro-am tournament.