Dave to do rare Friday taping, wants to comment on VP debate

CBS has confirmed to TV Barn that David Letterman, newly energized by his insertion into the presidential race, has decided to break with his usual routine of taping his Friday show on Monday. (No, it's not you -- the jokes are awfully generic on Fridays.)

Instead, he will tape next Friday's show day and date, so that his writers can feed him jokes about the Thursday vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

As I've argued recently, the things that late-night talk show hosts say have a way of working their way into the national political conversation in strange ways. Jay Leno was turning on Sarah Palin long before Katie Couric got at her, and Letterman's jilted-lover routine after John McCain blew him off last week was international news.

And now he wants to tell fresh jokes on Friday. Good for him. Dave might as well get into the routine now. Next June, when Conan O'Brien takes over for Jay Leno as host of the "Tonight Show," will be an opportunity for Letterman to take back some of those viewers who used to tune in just for Jay. They're likely to be older, demographically unappealing viewers, and not enough to help Dave overcome a huge deficit (4.7 million for NBC to 3.3 million for CBS, last we checked), but I suspect he'll take a gain any way he can get it. And telling fresh jokes on Fridays, I would think, should be part of that plan.

Previously on TV Barn: I declared Barack Obama the winner of Friday's debate, though I was also unhappy about his decision to run away from McCain's 10-town-halls proposals this summer. Speaking of Couric, a TV Barn reader recently reviewed her performance as a camera operator.

Also, I do write about entertainment shows from time to time! Here's my fall preview guide and there's lots of individual show reviews posted right now on the main TV Barn page.

Comments

[John Carney]

This Friday's show had a number of jokes predicated on the fact that the debate had taken place earlier in the evening. I wonder what their "Plan B" would have been if McCain had stayed in Washington and it was called off?

[dave]

what a difference a dave makes

["Herbert Spencer"]

My heavens, it apparently takes quite a while, if ever, to post comments that are in disagreement with Mr. Barnhart's own ideological preferences.

[Had you been regularly reading my blog you'd have seen the post where I announced I was on vacation and the blog would not be updating. Besides, aren't you "Mainstream Coalition" guys posting enough comments on all the other KansasCity.com blogs?--AB]

[P.S. I found "Herbert's" other comment and I think we can all agree it was well worth the wait: "Yes, yes, show us once again what a spoiled bunch of effete snobs these overpaid loudmouths are. These people don't represent us and have no idea of who we are other than what they see out of the windows of their limosines in New York and Los Angeles. Do they comfort the shallow and the easily led, I suspect, but at the same time they reinforce for the rest of us what a threat they are to our culture and way of life."--AB]

[mike]

Dave tapes the Friday show on Monday? When did it switch from taping two on Thursdays?

[k]

Dave Letterman gives me the creeps, like the uncle I was afraid to let hug me. And his band director - ugh, ugh, ugh. Who lets him out in public? Whoever it is needs to do a better job of keeping him sedated and locked away.

Conan O'Brien gets his biggest laughs, it seems, from the mugging his face does during his monologue and the rest of the show. He is NOT a real talk show host - or, you could say he's as much a talk show host as Arsenio was. 'Nuff said.

Bring back Johnny! - or at least Merv Griffin.

Craig Ferguson is grand, really - very funny - but I have to watch the captions when he's on (and the captioning is not very good) because he speaks too fast for me to understand him through that thick, thick accent. And why the heck is he on so late at night? Stupid Channel 5.