Handleman's Book Club

I just finished reading Bill Carter's new book "The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy". I don't know why, but reading about late night is way more interesting to me than actually watching late night.

I don't watch these shows, and don't really understand why other people do either. But then again, I'm the idiot who watches 2 episodes of "Friends" every single night that I've already seen a thousand times.

I keep seeing how all of these great comedic minds grew up watching the late night shows and consider Dave Letterman their idol. This is so odd to me, because I grew up at the same time and never, ever watched Letterman, yet was obsessed with SNL.

I was always impressed with myself for being a little kid and yet somehow watching a show that started at 11:30pm. But these motherfuckers somehow were able to watch Letterman at 12:30am on school nights? What terrible parents they must have had.

Bill Carter also wrote "The Late Shift", which was about Johnny Carson retiring and the subsequent struggle to replace him. This is a sequel of sorts, and he actually started writing the book when Leno moved to 10pm, not knowing the craziness that was about to erupt. He got so lucky. I mean, who would've guessed that Jeff Zucker would do something else stupid?

At the end of the book, Jerry Seinfeld weighs in. I'm not sure why, other than the fact that he's Jay's friend and has some sort of TV czar status.

Anyway, I think I've written about this before, but Jerry has gone Eddie Murphy on us. He's crossed over from funny to dad funny (no offense, dad). And also kind of mean and snobby.

I think we all know why he has become this way. He was brought down by what many great men through time have been brought down by: a woman.

Come on, you can't invent "The Marriage Ref" unless you're married to a woman and she tells you to do it. That's the only explanation.

So Jerry, and some other old timers, have this whole thing at the end of the book that Conan should've just done whatever NBC told him. "Just show up" is Jerry's motto. He says that Conan should just be grateful he gets to do this for a living.

Well yeah, I guess, on some level that's true. But also, why get shit on when you don't have to? Why work for people who are dicks and who have dicked you around?

This argument of what everyone "should have done" goes around and around in circles, with some on Team Jay and some Team Coco. But really it all comes back to the same point that to me seems very obvious:

When NBC decided to replace Jay with Conan, Jay should've gone somewhere else and destroyed them. That was the only thing to do. It's what anyone else - Letterman, Conan - would've done.

Instead, he went along with their hair brained scheme to keep him and Conan, and set up everything that happened. It's Jay's fault for thinking anything NBC thought of was a good idea.

I recommend the book, but I still don't recommend late night.