The People’s Choice Awards, 2011

January 6, 2011February 17, 2011 / Jared / 3 Comments

2011 has begun and another awards season is here, and we all know what that means; Johanna and I must resume our award show winner-picking competition. If you’re sensing a lack of enthusiasm on my part, that’s due to the fact that tonight we’re starting with The People’s Choice Awards.

I don’t know about you, but I was under the apparently false impression that this was a real award show. I mean, I knew from the title that it was voted on by the “people,” so the actual winners are inevitably going to be terrible. That’s no excuse for the list of nominees, though. No real award show in 2010 has any reason to nominate Jackie Chan for anything, right? The categories themselves don’t even make sense. Two of the TV show categories are “Favorite TV Obsession” and “Favorite TV Guilty Pleasure” and the nominees for both seem pretty interchangeable. And Mad Men apparently doesn’t qualify as either an “Obsession” or a “Guilty Pleasure.” At least we finally get to vote for our “Favorite TV Doctor.”

I’m having trouble even figuring out who the target audience for this show is. This is key, because since this is a winner-picking competition, I need to know what type of person was doing the voting. So, judging from the nominees, this is basically the MTV VMAs/Movie Awards except it’s aimed at the dorkier tweens and teens. Also, there is probably a lonely housewife factor that I need to consider. Noted.

If you’ve been keeping score at home you’ll remember that I pretty handily trounced Johanna in the 2010 competition. Of the eight award shows we’ve done this for, I won seven of them. It’s a new year, though, so we’re wiping the slate clean and giving her a chance to redeem herself. Let’s get started. As always, categories and winners in bold.

9:00 – No one told me this was hosted by Queen Latifah. Although, to be fair, no one said anything about this show to me at all, ever.

9:02 – She’s opening with a cover of “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz. This is officially Johanna’s favorite opening to an award show. I’m busy scanning the audience to see how many celebrities are actually in attendance to try to see what I’ve gotten myself into.

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The Emmys, 2010

August 30, 2010November 12, 2010 / Jared / 1 Comment

Here we are again. Another award show, another winner-picking competition between me and my new wife, Johanna. And after slogging through a few shows that, while fun, were ultimately inconsequential (The ESPYs, The Daytime Emmys, and the MTV Movie Awards) we finally have a big one: The Emmys.

This has traditionally been my award show of choice; I’ve always been more of a television guy than a movie guy, I guess. Plus, I don’t usually get around to seeing many of the nominated films before the Oscars, whereas I’m always pretty invested in the Emmys and opinionated about the categories. It feels like the recent golden age of television has faded a bit, and my interest has waned slightly, but this remains my favorite masturbatory Hollywood event.

Tonight is big for Johanna, too. My friend Alex, in anticipation of tonight’s competition, asked me if Johanna had won any of these. I quickly said that yes, she had. While I knew I had taken the last few, I thought we were actually pretty even. Having gone back to check, though, I’m surprised to report that I won The Grammys, The Academy Awards, The MTV Movie Awards, The Daytime Emmys, and The ESPYs, with Johanna only claiming the Golden Globes, the first one of these we did. I’m up five to one! She needs a win. In preparation, she’s been scouring the internet for expert predictions.

As always, we choose for the most part whom we think will win, not whom we want to win. Never is that more true than with the Emmys; trust me, I’m no fan of The Good Wife or, heaven forbid, Glee. Categories and winners are in bold. Johanna has concocted an Emmy cocktail containing peach vodka, Sprite Zero, and a splash of grenadine. She’s named it the “Leading Lady.” It’s better, both in name and taste, than the drink she fixed us for the Daytime Emmys. Let’s do this.

7:41 – Taco night is over, the red carpet has begun, and I’m filling out my ballot. All of these interviews are so unbelievably awkward and cringe-worthy. I instinctively reach for the mute button.

8:00 – Here we go. We’re opening with a shot of the director’s booth. This is such an ego move; it’s like they think we’ll assume the show was put together by elves if they don’t show themselves. Johanna just thinks it’s hacky and compares it to starting a school paper with a Webster’s definition.

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Conan O’Brien on 60 Minutes

May 3, 2010May 3, 2010 / Jared / Leave a comment

So, as you might have heard, Conan O’Brien was on 60 Minutes . The whole thing is available on YouTube, I think.

Let me start by saying that it’s always weird to see Conan O’Brien being a normal human being. He can be hard to take seriously, and during the interview he slips into his “character” occasionally, which leads me to believe that he might have a little bit of trouble taking himself seriously, too.

This wasn’t the most revealing interview. I actively avoided all of the pre-show press about it, because I knew that would make actually watching it sort of redundant, but I still didn’t really feel like I learned anything new. That’s what happens when someone is legally prohibited from badmouthing his former employer/colleagues, I guess. I did learn that Jeff Zucker went to Harvard, too, and he and Conan actually knew each other. That’s sort of weird. Wikipedia even claims that Zucker was president of The Harvard Crimson at the same time that O’Brien was president of the Harvard Lampoon.

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The (Last) Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien

January 23, 2010May 10, 2010 / Jared / 2 Comments

Some might say that The Tonight Show, in its mythical, beloved form, ended years ago, when Jay Leno bashed it down into a formulaic, unfunny pulp. But at the very least, I think we can all agree that going forward The Tonight Show no longer really exists. The brand is sullied. No one cares anymore. And probably because I’m not old, and I never watched Johnny Carson, I don’t really care all that much, either. It never meant anything to me, really. The scene has splintered, and while some bemoan the loss of a cultural institution, all I know is that now I can watch Letterman, Stewart, Colbert, maybe even a bit of Kimmel or Ferguson or Fallon here and there. And in a little more than seven months, I’ll probably be able to watch Conan again. I have a computer. I have a DVR. The more the merrier, guys.

That doesn’t mean that what happened to Conan was fair. Considering that NBC has seemingly done everything possible to undermine his ability to produce a successful show, I think he’s handled himself well throughout this. And so has Leno, in his own way; I mean, I think he’s kind of a scumbag, but I wasn’t going to watch him anyway. He’s portraying himself as a victim, and his is audience is still on his side. I have no doubt he’ll pull ratings that are higher than what Conan was getting prior to all of this mess. But his audience will just keep getting older, and advertisers won’t want to advertise for them, and the death of traditional late night television will be accelerated even more. Oh, NBC.

Anyway, I thought I would do another not-at-all-live live blog with my thoughts during the last night of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Also known as probably the last night of late night television as we once knew it. I’ll put in some Hulu clips if they get posted; since NBC has continued to somewhat bafflingly put this stuff online, I have to assume they will continue to do so. I’ll also disperse a few photos I took throughout.

Update: Not surprisingly, NBC has taken the videos below off of Hulu. I’m leaving the dead remnants up, though, because it seems appropriate.

11:35 – Our last time hearing this theme song, I would imagine; NBC surely owns it. My favorite Conan opening was the Late Night one where he was running around New York and eventually jumped into the river. He comes out to a standing ovation and Johanna and I both feel very sad.

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