Bruce Almighty said:

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I don't think Fallon is a very good host but he has come up with some pretty funny skits.

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For real, let's not conflate his ability to host with his actual comedic skills..

The Barry Gibb Talk show was amazing.

The number of people who get so caught up in an entertainers political views constantly amazes me. People never used to be this fragile, or if they were it was your random disgruntled old man that always complains about politics.

What if I told you that Conan O Brien used to constantly make George Bush jokes?

Could not agree with you more.

But get ready to be told how you're wrong because things are different now, the country is going down the drain, wokism is running amuck, everything is terrible, blah blah, blah…

Proposition Joe said:

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The number of people who get so caught up in an entertainers political views constantly amazes me. People never used to be this fragile, or if they were it was your random disgruntled old man that always complains about politics.

What if I told you that Conan O Brien used to constantly make George Bush jokes?

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Triumph (to Bush advisor Karl Rove): "You're Bush's brains, Karl... I was expecting a much smaller man."

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Conan >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Fallon

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Conan isn't funny either, so that's a super low bar for Fallon to fail to even meet.

Well they were funny and I supported George Bush at the time. But these jokes the comedians make nowadays about politics especially right wing aren't funny. Just mean spirited and shows their colors. Yes we get it, you hate this and this person. Just shut up about it already and move on. I mean there are thousands and thousands of Biden jokes waiting to be said and not a peep from these "comedians" so are they really being impartial to politics or just acting on their network's agenda?

aggiephoenix02 said:

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maroon barchetta said:

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Sponge said:

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Especially stressful when you are supposed to be a comedian but one of the most unfunny people in the history of comedy.

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This isn't about Dane Cook.

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I liked Dane Cook in Employee of the Month. Outside of SNL (where he mostly got audience laughs by breaking character by giggling), I can't think of anything that I enjoyed with Jimmy. Have you seen fever pitch? Jimmy is a talentless hack…

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I'm glad someone else sees it. I have never thought Fallon was funny. His entire SNL career was based on breaking character.

maxag42 said:

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Well they were funny and I supported George Bush at the time. But these jokes the comedians make nowadays about politics especially right wing aren't funny. Just mean spirited and shows their colors. Yes we get it, you hate this and this person. Just shut up about it already and move on. I mean there are thousands and thousands of Biden jokes waiting to be said and not a peep from these "comedians" so are they really being impartial to politics or just acting on their network's agenda?

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You have a "FJB!" comment in one of your last 30 or so posts.

But the comedians on the TV are just too mean spirited for you?

End of the day I don't care if someone loves Trump, hates Trump, loves Biden, hates Biden... And I don't think Jimmy Fallon is funny in the least. But the reason some people detest some comedians (or any entertainers for that matter) now when many made the same jokes or had the same beliefs 10 years ago without anyone caring is that people have allowed themselves to be divided and put on a "side" and cannot separate that "team" in the form of entertainment.

Conan was making many of the same Republican-bashing jokes 20 years ago -- the difference isn't the comedy, it's that the viewer is so much more fragile about politics these days.

(That and Conan was funny).

maxag42 said:

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Well they were funny and I supported George Bush at the time. But these jokes the comedians make nowadays about politics especially right wing aren't funny. Just mean spirited and shows their colors. Yes we get it, you hate this and this person. Just shut up about it already and move on. I mean there are thousands and thousands of Biden jokes waiting to be said and not a peep from these "comedians" so are they really being impartial to politics or just acting on their network's agenda?

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The Biden jokes aren't touched in part because the comedians are on the same side of the fence, but also because it's wrong to pick on an elderly dementia patient.

Bill Burr sorta talked about this when I saw him in May.

Proposition Joe said:

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But the reason some people detest some comedians (or any entertainers for that matter) now when many made the same jokes or had the same beliefs 10 years ago without anyone caring is that people have allowed themselves to be divided and put on a "side" and cannot separate that "team" in the form of entertainment.

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Hmmm ... off topic, but I think a large part of it is that comedians used to make fun of both sides.

I remember SNL taking jabs at Clinton -- "There's gonna be LOTS of things we don't tell Mrs. Clinton" -- and Jimmy Carter. Carson was the same way.

And they turned things on its head lots of times. The SNL skit about Reagan being a genius planner who didn't want the photo op with the Girl Scout cookie champion was hilarious because it portrayed him in a different -- and positive -- light. Today comedians would just go for the easy laughs.

The era of fair game ended when Obama was elected. Remember all the articles with comedians saying the Obamas just weren't funny?

https://nypost.com/2014/08/24/why-comedians-and-snl-are-shielding-president-obama/

Dana Carvey even said comedians went easy on Obama because they were afraid of being called racist.

Proposition Joe said:

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maxag42 said:

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Well they were funny and I supported George Bush at the time. But these jokes the comedians make nowadays about politics especially right wing aren't funny. Just mean spirited and shows their colors. Yes we get it, you hate this and this person. Just shut up about it already and move on. I mean there are thousands and thousands of Biden jokes waiting to be said and not a peep from these "comedians" so are they really being impartial to politics or just acting on their network's agenda?

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You have a "FJB!" comment in one of your last 30 or so posts.

But the comedians on the TV are just too mean spirited for you?

End of the day I don't care if someone loves Trump, hates Trump, loves Biden, hates Biden... And I don't think Jimmy Fallon is funny in the least. But the reason some people detest some comedians (or any entertainers for that matter) now when many made the same jokes or had the same beliefs 10 years ago without anyone caring is that people have allowed themselves to be divided and put on a "side" and cannot separate that "team" in the form of entertainment.

Conan was making many of the same Republican-bashing jokes 20 years ago -- the difference isn't the comedy, it's that the viewer is so much more fragile about politics these days.

(That and Conan was funny).

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This.

There are somehow multiple people here applauding Fallon for not being "mean spirited" toward "non liberals," then you click on their profiles and of course they're frequenters of or contributors toward one of the most mean spirited boards on the internet toward liberals. The hypocrisy and the fragility never ceases to amaze me.

GoAgs92 said:

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All the late night talk shows are awful.

Fallon, Kimmel, Colbert, Seth Meyers, James Cordon.

All crap.

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Fallon was really good in his first few years with The Tonight Show. He was energetic, funny, and light-hearted. Thank You notes, ugly Christmas sweaters, lip-sync battles, classic music video remakes, a few SNL-like skits, less emphasis on political humor...he was carving out his own style. We watched almost every night, certainly on Fridays. Then he touched Donald Trump's hair in a light-hearted attempt to have fun during the 2016 election and sensitive people lost their crap...and the tone of the show began to change. No doubt that NBC was in his ear. It was fine for a while, but once he shut down for COVID and came back, it's just never been the same.

I think there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and Jimmy stopped being more of himself. They tried making him more into Colbert and Kimmel with the forced political humor and it's just not the same. I think he lost a chunk of his audience in the process as well. Whereas before, regardless of his personal views, I think Jimmy was genuinely trying to create a show that appealed to everyone in a fun, silly, way.

Corden started off well, very likable. Carpool Karaoke was hilarious. He didn't take himself too seriously. His skydiving and flying adventures with Tom Cruise were great...especially the one last year for Top Gun. His segment with Paul McCartney playing at the pub where he got started was really cool. Again, I think the network execs pushed on him to pivot away from what made his show unique and great...and be more like Colbert and Kimmel.

Kimmel, Colbert, Meyers just aren't funny to begin with. Very awkward personalities...even when you overlook their forced political preaching. The comedic talent isn't there. They're just empty vessels. Even though Letterman got cranky in his later years...at least he was clever and had comedic talent. These guys are trying to be Letterman but simply aren't funny.

I really miss Leno. He mocked everyone. He would be having an absolute field day right now with the crazy things happening in our country. He knew how to acknowledge it and mock it...while still being light-hearted.

The Porkchop Express said:

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If you miss COnan, his podcast is fantastic.

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The ones with him and Timothy Olyphant are the best. They need to do a season of Justified in Boston with Conan. Givens and O'Brien has a nice ring to it.

Most late night hosts now don't write political jokes to make people laugh anymore. They write political jokes for applause. This goes both ways.

That's the biggest issue.

People dont like satire or irony anymore. I still think our reaction to September 11th killed it. We stopped being able to make fun of ourselves. Fallon and the other late-night hosts are not the problem but the result of our current comedy (and media) landscape

https://nymag.com/news/9-11/10th-anniversary/irony/

Quote:

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More concerning, even, is how the discourse seems to be corrupted, the language of truth itself undermined by sinister Ailesians manipulating the potent tools of cable TV and the web and social media to propagandize. Irony works best when forces are arrayed in a coherent fashion. When facts are made stupid things and there is no coherent center to mediate truth, most irony starts falling on deaf ears because there is no lingua francathe reference points are fuzzy, or the jokes hit but without breaking skin.

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Definitely Not A Cop said:

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Most late night hosts now don't write political jokes to make people laugh anymore. They write political jokes for applause. This goes both ways.

That's the biggest issue.

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When you hear comedians talk about the current state of comedy, 'clapter' almost always comes up.
Ya it pays the bills, but many comedians really dont seem to like it.

Proposition Joe said:

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The number of people who get so caught up in an entertainers political views constantly amazes me. People never used to be this fragile, or if they were it was your random disgruntled old man that always complains about politics.

What if I told you that Conan O Brien used to constantly make George Bush jokes?

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Comedians used to poke fun at (a) everyone, and (b) whoever was in power. When it was at least nominally an equal opportunity thing, then not many had a problem with it when the sights were set on a belief you identified with or person you supported.

Then not only did PC begin to ruin comedy in general, but comedians started only focusing their fire on one half of the political spectrum. It became so glaring that it became harder to just push it aside as "comedy," because it was as much propaganda as comedy. And it led to a lot of laziness in comedy as well.

The unwillingness of producers, writers, and comedians to dive in headfirst into truly some rich material from the likes of Biden, Kamala, Pelosi, etc, as well as the myriad truth-or-the-onion SJW developments, has eviscerated these type of mainstream comedy shows. It's like a modern football team completely eschewing the forward pass (hits a little close to home after 2022): they're not going to be nationally relevant.

And it's not just limited to late night talk shows. There just aren't nearly as many funny movies anymore, either. We have way too many people involved in "comedy", who aren't focused on making things funny as the first priority.

tysker said:

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People dont like satire or irony anymore. I still think our reaction to September 11th killed it. We stopped being able to make fun of ourselves. Fallon and the other late-night hosts are not the problem but the result of our current comedy (and media) landscape

https://nymag.com/news/9-11/10th-anniversary/irony/

Quote:

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More concerning, even, is how the discourse seems to be corrupted, the language of truth itself undermined by sinister Ailesians manipulating the potent tools of cable TV and the web and social media to propagandize. Irony works best when forces are arrayed in a coherent fashion. When facts are made stupid things and there is no coherent center to mediate truth, most irony starts falling on deaf ears because there is no lingua francathe reference points are fuzzy, or the jokes hit but without breaking skin.

---

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I don't think it was 9/11. I think it was new writers and comedians coming along post-2000 who started believing comedy should be used as a vehicle to sell people on certain political positions...which in turn made comedy more of a mean-spirited 'battle' where the focus wasn't on laughing at our ourselves...it was 'getting' one side and 'protecting' another side. The 2000 election was very polarizing and I think that contributed to some of it as well. Then of course you had social media and the rise of Comedy Central, which encouraged more 'targeted' comedy.

I know I'm bias, but those 90's SNL casts were special. Carvey, Norm, Hartman, Sandler, Farley, Schneider, Spade, Rock, Nealon, Hammond, Meadows. They made fun of everyone. I grew up imitating Carvey's Bush/Perot, Hammond's Clinton/Gore, and Norm's Dole. It was all funny. They weren't trying to sell anyone on a particular world view. They poked fun at everyone's world view.

It's no surprise that a few members of that 90's cast have been critical of modern SNL and comedy in general...that it's mean-spirited and misses the mark, or comedians avoid making fun of certain leaders despite there being a lot of good material.
And I think they're absolutely right.

Max Power said:

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The Porkchop Express said:

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If you miss COnan, his podcast is fantastic.

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The ones with him and Timothy Olyphant are the best. They need to do a season of Justified in Boston with Conan. Givens and O'Brien has a nice ring to it.

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I frequently have really bad insomnia, and one of the things that helps is to listen to a conversation between people I like, not that it's boring, but it helps my mental barrier of how to get to sleep. Conan's first one with Paul Rudd and his recent one with Steve Martin and Martin Short are HOFers.

Quote:

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I don't think it was 9/11. I think it was new writers and comedians coming along post-2000 who started believing comedy should be used as a vehicle to sell people on certain political positions...which in turn made comedy more of a mean-spirited 'battle' where the focus wasn't on laughing at our ourselves...it was 'getting' the one side and 'protecting' another side. The 2000 election was very polarizing and I think that contributed to some of it as well. Then of course you had social media and the rise of Comedy Central, which encouraged more 'targeted' comedy.

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I think they were just giving us what we wanted. I remember all we talked about in teh early 00s was how funny the Daily Show was. And then it became normal for us in our 20s and 30s to watch Jon Stewart instead of the 10 o'clock news.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/young-get-news-from-comedy-central/

Quote:

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A poll released earlier this year by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 21 percent of people aged 18 to 29 cited "The Daily Show" and "Saturday Night Live" as a place where they regularly learned presidential campaign news.

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the then 20-30 somethings are now the 40-50 year olds, watching the late night shows


eta: but I agree the early 00s were the beginning of this (what we now see as) bias in comedy that is now seems to have stalled the industry

maroon barchetta said:

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maxag42 said:

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Well they were funny and I supported George Bush at the time. But these jokes the comedians make nowadays about politics especially right wing aren't funny. Just mean spirited and shows their colors. Yes we get it, you hate this and this person. Just shut up about it already and move on. I mean there are thousands and thousands of Biden jokes waiting to be said and not a peep from these "comedians" so are they really being impartial to politics or just acting on their network's agenda?

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The Biden jokes aren't touched in part because the comedians are on the same side of the fence, but also because it's wrong to pick on an elderly dementia patient.

Bill Burr sorta talked about this when I saw him in May.

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Those are pretty lame attempts to justify the obvious impact of political bias in entertainment.

Biden's been a bumbling incompetent his entire career, and even if you don't want to touch his mental wandering, the Biden crime family is ripe with material.

And Kamala is a gold mine all by herself. There's no excuse for not mining that except for the obvious: she's a Dem, she's a woman, and she's a minority.

When those criteria define what is and is not an acceptable target, you're left only with white, conservative, males as acceptable targets (and acceptable bad guys in shows and movies). And when you start to focus all the jokes, blame, and negative portrayals on a minority of the population, well, they have some words for that.

This thread...

The forum police is here, guys, watch out!

The Daily Show was no doubt a pivot-point for comedy as we crossed into the new millennium. It basically took the format of SNL's Weekend Update into a half-hour show and turned the hyperbole up to 11. Jon Stewart was really the one who put it on the map. He's a very talented comedian, and his physical humor really set it apart.

But I think Stewart was one of the early comedians who saw comedy as an opportunity to 'inform' the public and 'shape' people's perspectives based on what he chose to focus on. The focus was less on equally laughing at everyone like previous comedy shows, and more on 'Yeah we're gonna make them look like idiots'. Don't get me wrong, he could definitely make me laugh at times, and the 'fake interview' 'gotcha' thing had its moments of fun...but I think it set a polarizing foundation for the toxic comedy we see today. The tone went from "Let's all take a breath and laugh at each other" to "We're gonna get them!".

Colbert, Oliver, Noah, and Samantha Bee are all examples of comedians who basically took Jon Stewart's format and made it their own. Except I don't think any of them have a fraction of the talent that Stewart did.

I'm literally doing the exact opposite of policing, yet still being accused of policing threads. When it comes to insults, accuracy and originality just aren't some people's strong suits, I guess.

TCTTS said:

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I'm literally doing the exact opposite of policing, yet still being accused of policing threads.

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This is actually kinda true in one way: virtue signaling is the exact opposite of policing when looked at in the "defund the police" context.

TCTTS said:

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When it comes to insults, accuracy and originality just aren't some people's strong suits, I guess.

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But enough about modern late night comedy shows…

I don't watch much but I have randomly tuned in a few times over the past couple years and to me he almost seems to be under the influence sometimes. One time my wife and I both agreed that he seemed to be blazed out of his mind. Another time he almost sounded drunk or like he's been living rough/partyin hard lately.

I'm happy for y'all and I'm gonna let y'all finish. But Jimmy Fallon has one of the best house bands OF ALL TIME.

Yeah, but nothing beats the interactions between conan and max weinberg.

Cromagnum said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Conan >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Fallon

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Conan isn't funny either, so that's a super low bar for Fallon to fail to even meet.

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Well now we know to just discount any opinion you have when it comes to comedy.

TCTTS said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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maxag42 said:

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Well they were funny and I supported George Bush at the time. But these jokes the comedians make nowadays about politics especially right wing aren't funny. Just mean spirited and shows their colors. Yes we get it, you hate this and this person. Just shut up about it already and move on. I mean there are thousands and thousands of Biden jokes waiting to be said and not a peep from these "comedians" so are they really being impartial to politics or just acting on their network's agenda?

---

You have a "FJB!" comment in one of your last 30 or so posts.

But the comedians on the TV are just too mean spirited for you?

End of the day I don't care if someone loves Trump, hates Trump, loves Biden, hates Biden... And I don't think Jimmy Fallon is funny in the least. But the reason some people detest some comedians (or any entertainers for that matter) now when many made the same jokes or had the same beliefs 10 years ago without anyone caring is that people have allowed themselves to be divided and put on a "side" and cannot separate that "team" in the form of entertainment.

Conan was making many of the same Republican-bashing jokes 20 years ago -- the difference isn't the comedy, it's that the viewer is so much more fragile about politics these days.

(That and Conan was funny).

---

This.

There are somehow multiple people here applauding Fallon for not being "mean spirited" toward "non liberals," then you click on their profiles and of course they're frequenters of or contributors toward one of the most mean spirited boards on the internet toward liberals. The hypocrisy and the fragility never ceases to amaze me.

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Not policing the boards but jumps into attacking posters.

Talk about fragile…

Unsubscribe pick your new "not policing the board" j-law ok replacement?

I guess we're all just fragile hypocrites.

Cromagnum said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Conan >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Fallon

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Conan isn't funny either, so that's a super low bar for Fallon to fail to even meet.

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This is a great opinion.

Oh man, you guys remember Carlos Mencia?

DallasTeleAg said:

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Yeah, but nothing beats the interactions between conan and max weinberg.

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This
Walker Texas Ranger lever ("Walker told me I have AIDS.")
Masturbating bear
FedEx Pope
Triumph
Fake Arnold Schwarzenegger
Any Jordan Schlansky bit
Paul Rudd trolling Conan with the Mac and Me clip for 20 years