Jay Leno is going strong in the last six months of his Tonight Show. Jimmy Fallon will take over his spot come February, but for now, Leno???s ratings show him dominating late-night television.
Why is NBC letting Leno go, then, if he???s more popular than ever? I haven???t found anyone who has the answer. Newsweek reports ???the Nielsen ratings for the second week in July have him beating CBS???s David Letterman by a 43 percent margin in the all-important ???viewers 18 to 49??? category (on which advertising rates are set) and swamping ABC???s Jimmy Kimmel by a crushing 75 percent.???
A broadcasting chair at NBC said something vague about ???making these transitions??? when the show is still No. 1 in the time period,??? just as they did with Johnny Carson.
Quit while you???re ahead? Leave them wanting more? Maybe. But the New York Post isn???t buying it. Andrea Peyser declares NBC???s move a ???liberal NBC laugh gaffe.??? ???[Leno],??? she writes, ???[is] the lone conservative to swim in the shark tank of Republican-bashing, President Obama-worshiping TV hosts. The kinds of misogynists who demonize Sarah Palin.???
According to Peyser, Leno has ???been merciless of late when riffing on government scandals, such as the Internal Revenue Service???s targeting of conservative groups.??? Jokes such as these, Peyser attests, along with the late-night host???s fearless mockery of the Obama Administration???s handling of the Benghazi scandal, ???may explain why NBC, a network that screams to the left (remember when it censored the words ???under God??? from the Pledge of Allegiance during the 2011 US Open golf tourney?), can???t wait to see him go.???
Jay Leno a conservative? Probably not exactly, but he has been a favorite of mine for some time, which means he can???t be all liberal.
Jay delivers his lines in a relaxed, jovial style, unlike the conceited and grumpy Letterman. (Does anyone like that guy? He is an unabashed liberal, so the answer is probably no.) Though Leno isn???t blatantly a conservative, he???s pleasant, not nasty, teasing, not hostile, and he???s not politically correct.
Whether or not Leno is being let go because he leans right is unknown, but his strong ratings point to the conclusion that conservatives are more entertaining. (We have P.J. O'Rourke on our side, for goodness' sake!) They face reality and laugh at it instead of closing their eyes and pretending it???s another way.
Wired.com reported on a study done by Duke University psychology and behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely and Mount Holyoke College student Elisabeth Malin in 2008 which told 22 jokes on various topics to 300 people, half liberal and half conservative, and asked them to rate their funniness. The conclusion was that ???right-wingers found all kinds of jokes funnier than their liberal counterparts.???
Liberals aren???t known for their senses of humor. They take themselves and everything else way too seriously. Joking around is insensitive. It???s hard to laugh at situations, events, people, places, and animals when one is afraid of offending all of them. Roger Kimball writes that ???Political Correctness Sabotages Art.??? I agree. And it is especially terrible that it sabotages the most important art of all: humor.
Remember how SNL used to be funny with the likes of Bill Murray and the Belushi brothers? Now Tina Fey and Seth Myers make the Weekend Update look like a talk show on MSNBC. Currently, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, a TV show which ???perpetuates stereotypes about so-called ???rednecks?????? is rated as the number one cable original. Duck Dynasty, A&E???s reality hit about a predominately bearded backwoods family which makes products for duck hunters, is getting ready to begin production of a fourth season after the season finale drew a record 9.6 million viewers during its one-hour episode.
If Democrats Had Any Brains They???d Be Republicans, and if lefties had any sense of humor they???d realize the absurdity of their viewpoints.
FoxNews reported today that:
A study of gags by late-night comics during the first half of the year found an abrupt change from 2012. Now Obama and Democrats are providing the lion's share of punchlines.
So there you have it; liberals are easy to make fun of, and conservatives are funny.
