Book Review: "The War For Late Night"

The first book, which resulted in a film
based on the events within.

Around this time last year, Late Night television was the best it had been in awhile, and it was over an unfortunate situation that was playing out in the press.

In 2004, Jay Leno announced he was retiring from "The Tonight Show" and handing the reins to "Late Night" host Conan O'Brien, citing that he didn't want the same acrimony that happened when he had taken the job after Carson's retirement.  In 2009, NBC announces that they are going to retain Leno in a 10pm show, where O'Brien once again will be following Leno. "The Jay Leno Show" turns out to be one humongous flop, and leaves NBC executives scrambling for a solution to their problem.  What ends up happening is O'Brien leaving the network for cable, Leno gets his old job back under a cloud, and NBC executives are left wondering how this could have happened again.

Will there be a movie made from
this book also?

Bill Carter, who wrote about the Leno/Letterman fight in 1992 in The Late Shift, does it again in his latest book, The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy.  Reporting all sides fairly, Carter takes us back into the world of late night television. Although quite a few of these details are familiar to anyone who was following the Second Late Night Wars, there are some surprises.

-- The decision to side with Leno over O'Brien by the NBC executives had to do with money -- primarily, they didn't want to lose Leno because of his strong "play and pay" contract that guaranteed him a big payout if his show was on less than a year.  And unlike most late night hosts, O'Brien's contract didn't stipulate a start time -- his people just assumed that having the words "The Tonight Show" in the contract meant that the show started at 11:35pm.

-- Despite Letterman's monologue one night where he criticized Leno for not going somewhere else after he was fired from "Tonight," Leno DID approach ABC soon after, even hinting to people around him that he was strongly considering any offer they would make.

-- When Leno and his producer was told about the cancellation of the show and the move to 11:30pm for a half hour, he asked if O'Brien was okay with the move.  After finding out that he wasn't told about it yet, he and the producer asked if he didn't want to go along with it if they would be let go from their contract.  The executive said "no."

-- NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker doesn't really come off as a bad guy in all of this -- just as a guy who couldn't adjust to the entertainment side of the business because he ran news for so long.

-- One of the problems with Leno's show had nothing to do with Leno or his production staff, but from meeting the demands of the affiliates, who wanted the strongest comedy bits at the end of the show to lead in to the late night news, leaving the weaker bits for the beginning -- a time when most people would be tuning in to the show and deciding whether they wanted to continue watching it.

-- Leno thinks Conan should have stuck it out and doesn't understand why he didn't. Because Leno IS planning on retiring in the next few years, and we may actually start seeing some guest hosts in the lineup to be tested.

Even if you know most of the details, you'll find this book entertaining.  It's a hard one to put down.  And if you can find a copy, read "The Late Shift," also, to find out how this all began.

  

Funny For Today

At the moment I'm taking a class on Shakespeare, so I got a kick out of these. Comedy troupe Second City did a series of three videos online that ask the question: If some of Shakespeare's most tragic heroines had sassy gay friends, could their lives have been saved?

Another Great Moment in Censorship

Doesn't surprise me that this is in Florida.

Longwood parent Tina Harden was so disturbed by references to sex and drugs and foul language in the world of fictional teenager Jenny Humphrey that she is ignoring overdue notices and phone calls from her neighborhood library and its bill collector.

Harden refuses to return several books connected to the Gossip Girl series that detail Humphrey's life, even though she's had them since 2008.

"If I turn them in, they will be put back into circulation and they'll be available for more young girls to read," said the mother of three, who keeps the four books hidden in a closet. "Some material is inappropriate for minors."

Harden said she doesn't want them banned, but she does want the library to put a warning label on the four titles — one in theGossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar, and three in a spin-off series called It Girl — and make them unavailable to minors. The library refused but has agreed to re-shelve them in the adult-reading section.

"If we denied access to this particular title, it would be censoring," said Jane Peterson, the county's library services manager.

Moving them to the adult shelves wasn't good enough for Harden, and she wants "more say" as a taxpayer on what books are allowed on the shelves.  Sounds like censorship to me.

When it comes to free speech, I've always taken a libertarian stance on it.  And especially with the fact that I'm going to be an English teacher, this is one battle I'm sure that I might have to face at some point in my career.

I also believe that parents should be the gatekeepers on the type of material for their children.  However, they shouldn't be the gatekeepers for everyone else's children, as well.  What this woman is doing is stupid.  She should just give the books back and not deprive other people from reading them.

Although, to be fair, I shouldn't have made the Florida reference -- recently here in NH we had a case of a teacher getting in trouble for some books that parents considered inappropriate for their students in an elective class.  And several years ago a woman from Alexandria had issues with the Bristol Elementary School doing a read-aloud of "Harry Potter" books in the classroom, citing "witchcraft."

Update: Harden returned the books, but not before people offered to pay to replace them and sent their own copies of the books.

Comic Review: "The Unfunnies"

This is kind of a follow up to the post that I did on Sunday regarding the film “Kick-Ass.” The movie is based on a comic of the same name written by Mark Millar. Millar is definitely not new to the comic world – his comic “Wanted” was made into a film in 2008 (in the movie they were self righteous assassins, the comic a dangerous group of supervillains). Well, someone in the Hot Air thread about the red band trailer had mentioned that Millar had created a comic called “The Unfunnies” that “made fun” of some pretty adult taboo topics. It was released in 2004, and came under fire even at the time of its release. After reading some reviews, I felt that I had to take a look for myself.

To explain my mindset on this – I’m very much a First Amendment supporter. In my mind, you tell me I can’t see or read something, I’m more likely to want to read or see it. “The Unfunnies” was no exception. So I found some copies of the comic online and downloaded them.

I couldn’t find much online on the comic itself beyond a few selected reviews on the first issue. And among those reviews, there was debate on whether the comic had any merit or was just disgusting for disgusting’s sake. The one thing everyone could agree on was that there was some pretty depraved and shocking stuff. Where the debate lies is whether there was any merit to it.

Let me be clear – to me, believe it or not, I’ve seen worse. But my “worse” is probably different from your “worse” – the only horror film I have not been able to sit all the way through at this point is “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.” And it’s not because of a particularly horrific scene as much as it was the aftermath (a scene where the two killers, Henry and Otis, were watching a videotape of their crime where they kill an entire family – the scene is disturbing enough, but it just got to me when Otis, Henry’s buddy, rewinds the film so he could watch it again).

With that being said, what the characters do in the comic is pretty bad behavior. When the first issue starts with the cartoon character Moe the Crow getting arrested for possession of child pornography, you know you’re not in the normal realm of cartoon comics. They swear, they do things you wouldn’t be caught doing, and they suffer some real losses. And as you get further into the story, the actions of the characters get more and more amoral.

So with that being said, you have to look at whether this has artistic merit – amorality doesn’t necessarily make bad storytelling. As an example, people are often comparing “South Park” to “Family Guy.” My preference is “South Park,” because it has merit to it – all the episodes give a lesson on the world around us, whereas “Family Guy” is just random jokes out to shock. What people might see in “The Unfunnies” is a snapshot of amoral stories with no real connection, when in fact there is a common thread that does get revealed.

After having read the entire thing, I think what sways me on the storytelling merits of the comic is that you discover that the characters have no control over what they’re doing, and that there is some depraved force that’s really in control of what’s going on.

One thing I didn’t mention yet is that this story not only takes place in this cartoon world, but also in the real world, partially. You get your first hint that things aren’t what they seem when Birdseed Betty visits Moe in jail after his arrest. When she asks him how he could be involved in kiddie porn, Moe explains that he had gotten an e-mail from a mysterious man calling himself Trevor Hicks who had given him the materials. In the second issue, Moe goes more into this story with the cops, explaining that Trevor Hicks had made many promises of sex and women in his world if he would trade places with him (making Moe think he’s a ghost). At this point, you get the hint that Hicks is in the cartoon world already, as Frosty Pete the Penguin. By the third issue, the cops figure out Trevor Hicks’ background. In the last issue, Trevor Hicks reveals himself to be the artist of the very comic that he was in, and that he could continue with his own depraved activities in the comic world with no consequences. And because he can’t be stopped, he proceeds to kill off in unusual ways the characters he created in order to make his stay permanent.

In the third issue, you also get a big hint that Hicks is controlling everything from his back story – a lot of what the police find about Hicks’ life ends up echoing storylines going on in that moment. Moe the Crow getting arrested, Birdseed Betty turning to prostitution, the actor panther Pussywhisker losing his testicles and his wife’s urging for a baby, and the child murders in the cartoon world all are related to aspects of Hicks’ life in the real world.

So, honestly, despite the subject matters that this comic tackles, I think it can qualify as artistic merit – Millar’s not simply making dirty cartoons with “The Unfunnies,” he’s telling a horror story where the bad guy is equal to that of Death in the Final Destination films. He’s not making jokes about these topics, he’s facing them head on and showing what happens when the real world invades this other world of sweet and innocent cartoons. Until the very end, he’s more or less unseen by the other characters. And in the end you get that final hint of dread that things in this world will never be the same.

If you can stomach it, pick it up.

So I Am Now Finished With The First Three Books of the Southern Vampire Mysteries

Spoiler Alert -- If you haven't read the books or watched "True Blood," and don't want to know until you watch it for yourself, don't go any further.

I'm going to get back to reading the books after I finish "Going Rogue." But for now, here are my thoughts.

So far, the first two seasons have focused on the first two books (with some interesting changes). After having read the third book, I have come to the conclusion that they can no longer keep Bubba in the shadows any longer and have to bring him out next season.

If you haven't read the books, you may be asking "Who is Bubba?" Well, in the books, "Bubba" is Elvis Presley in vampire form, although they never refer to him specifically as "Elvis Presley." In the books, the story goes that when Elvis was in the morgue, the coroner was a vampire who happened to be a big fan. He sensed some life coming out of him, so he thought he would do him a favor and "turn" him. Unfortunately, the process in his case basically made him "simple minded" (possibly because of the amount of drugs in his system at the time).

Because of his condition and the fact that they can't let him out in public with the other vampires (because everytime they do it gets reported to the tabloids, thus all the reports of "sightings"), the vampires between three states have passed him around as an errand boy. Again, because of his mental condition he takes things VERY literally, so you have to be careful what you tell him. He also has a penchant for house pets (in particular cats), can get really means, and gets upset when you call him by his former name.

He's introduced in the first book, Dead Until Dark, when Bill goes out of town and has Bubba watch Sookie in case the killer came to her house. In the third book, Club Dead, Eric asks Bubba to watch over Sookie for the night until her escort to Mississippi, werewolf Alcide Herveaux, picks her up the next day. But Eric forgets to tell him it was for the one night, so Bubba ends up following them to Mississippi, continuing to "protect" Sookie. In one scene in the book, Alcide and Sookie find a dead werewolf named Jerry Lawson in their closet, thinking that someone was trying to frame Alcide for his murder. Later in the book, after remembering that Bubba followed them from Josephine's to the King of Mississippi's home, we discover that Bubba was the one to kill Jerry because he watched him break in to Alcide's apartment, and he promptly killed him, sticking his body in the closet figuring that Alcide and Sookie would know what to do with the body.

Just based on that, they have to bring Bubba in to the show.

Anyway, a lot of the differences I found with the show vs. the first two books so far has been interesting. By the end of the third book, Sookie and Bill have broken up because Bill cheated on her with his "maker" Lorena. I know that "True Blood" creator Alan Ball said that he wouldn't have them break up, so having Bill kidnapped at the end of last season might be a way to change the plot point so that they do stay together.

In fact, there are a lot of plot points they changed when translating the books to the television show. For example:

-- In the books, Jason never joins The Fellowship of the Sun, and is relatively supportive of her relationship with Bill.

-- In the books, Lafayette died in Living Dead in Dallas. They kept him alive in the show, and are using him for more interesting plot devices.

-- In the books, Bill Compton is the great-great-great grandfather of Andy Bellefleur. It's never mentioned in the series.

-- Also in the series, the reason that Bill has to leave town in the first season while the serial killer is on the loose is because of his killing Longshadow (in the book, Eric kills him), with his punishment being that he has to "turn" another vampire, who would turn out to be the teenage Jessica. In the book, it's because he's running for (and wins) the position of investigator in Area 5 in order to keep Eric away from Sookie.

-- Jessica is not in the books -- she was created just for the show. She's a teenaged vampire who is "turned" and suddenly becomes a wild child. She ends up dating Hoyt Fortenberry.

-- Speaking of Hoyt: in the books, Maxine Fortenberry is his grandmother, not his mother. And their characters are, again, more developed in the show. One of the drawbacks of the books is that a lot of these characters aren't as developed because it's all told from Sookie's point of view.

-- The plotline with the maenad in Living Dead in Dallas is not a big of a characteristic as it became in the second season of the show. In the book, a maenad named Callipso is just coming through Bon Temps and sends a message (via Sookie) to Eric that she's looking for tribute, then later she gets into a brief fling with Sam and kills three of the partygoers at the sex party they go to because they killed Lafayette. In the show, the maenad goes by the name Maryann Forrester, and wants Sam to sacrifice to her Horned God.

There are also a lot of little changes, too, which I'm not going to go in to here. Some minor characters got made into major ones, like Tara, for example.

The one thing I can't see at this point is the plotline of Club Dead happening in season 3 as far as Bill's kidnapping. Since Lorena made an appearance this season, he made it clear that he no longer loves Lorena and wants nothing to do with her. Plus the fact that the season ended with Bill proposing to Sookie. I can't see the TV Bill being disloyal to Sookie in any way.

And Unlike Other Reviewers, I'm Actually Going To Read The Book

Today is my birthday. No, I'm not telling you how old I am.

Hubby just got me a great birthday gift.

It'll probably be a little bit before I read it -- I'm currently on the third book of the Southern Vampire Mystery series at the moment, plus I'm going to have some stuff to start reading after that. But once I'm able to, this one is the next book I'm definitely going to be reading.

Book Recommendation: "Southern Vampire Mystery" series

Most might not know what this book series is, so I will explain it with two words: "True Blood."

If you're a fan of the show, there's a good chance that you were a fan of the books (also known as the Sookie Stackhouse series) first (although the two aren't mutually exclusive). But you don't have to be to enjoy either one or the other since there are enough differences between the two that you can get a different enjoyment out of either one.

I've been watching the show since the first season, and have been a big fan since. This week, since I had a break in between terms I started reading the books. I've finished the first one, "Dead After Dark," and am now on book 2: "Living Dead in Dallas."

If you only know it from the show, be aware that the show is a loose interpretation that keeps the spirit of the books, but not necessarily the whole story. There are characters in the book that aren't in the show and vice versa, and some circumstances were changed between the two. But it's a good read overall, and even with the differences I'm not disappointed at all.

With that being said, the rest of this post is going to contain spoilers so you don't want to read beyond this point if you haven't had a chance to watch the show or read the books.

Someone on one of the boards advised not readin gthe books until after the show ended, but I'm finding that my enjoyment of the books is greater because I feel like I'm getting a different story.

So my opinion: if you're into the current trend of vampire romance/mystery novels, dive right in to the Southern Vampire Mysteries series.