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The late night talk shows returned to network television last night and a surprise theme emerged from the night – Beards!  I love beards, have grown one myself, and have nothing but the highest level of respect for a well-groomed beard.  Imagine my delight, then, when David Letterman (who I consider the grandfather I never had) strolled out on stage for the first time in two months sporting a glorious old-man beard, looking like a gold prospector after a makeover.  Jay Leno, unfortunately, was not up to the beard-growing challenge (though, to be fair, I'm not sure it's possible to grow enough hair to cover Leno's mammoth head – that's a lot of surface area).  The topper came at 12:30 when Conan O'Brien unveiled his groundbreaking metrosexual viking look with a perfectly manicured red beard.

But, enough about beards.  How did the hosts do, some with writers, some without?  I tuned into parts of Letterman, Leno, Kimmel and Conan and these are my non-beard-influenced thoughts:

The Surprising Worst:

Conan O'Brien:  Conan has typically been my late night host of choice for the last five years or so.  Conan, though, has a lot of go to shtick that he uses as filler on normal nights, but this shtick was amplified to an annoying degree when he actually had a whole non-written hour to fill.  Conan didn't really have any jokes for the monologue, and besides a funny beard song and a sometimes funny, but overlong behind-the-scenes video there was a lot of awkward filler.  Conan will continue to be the worst of all the hosts as the strike continues because Conan is not a joke writer.  Leno is (though I think his jokes are generally crappy), and Kimmel is a natural time-waster.  Conan is a situational guy, a skit guy, and he's not a big proponent of jokey jokes.  With the WGA rules, though, Conan can't write skits.  He's going to have to attempt some jokes eventually.


Surprisingly Not Terrible:

Jay Leno:  I don't like Jay Leno.  I don't think he's funny and the fact that he hosts the highest rated late night show is unfathomable.  There is something fundamentally wrong with our country.  However, he wasn't the train wreck I thought he'd be without writers.  He wrote some pretty good jokes, some that bombed, but overall not bad.  We'll see if he can continue to write all these jokes on his own on a nightly basis.  I'm guessing not. 


The Natural:

Jimmy Kimmel:  Kimmel is a funny dude.  He got his start as a radio host and his ability to extemporaneously speak and be funny while doing so is impressive.  On a nightly basis, he'll be the best of the non-written shows, just because his ability to wing it is the best (notice his story about the Playboy Mansion last night). 


The Best:

David Letterman: While not a spectacular show, Dave always makes me laugh.  Either you're on the Dave bandwagon or you're not at this point, and I find myself still loving the old man even as he gets more senile.  The writing was pretty good, and I was surprised by the venom with which they went after the studios and the producers regarding the strike.  Also, Dave is going to get the premium guests until the strike is over and, I have to believe, finally take down Leno in the ratings. 



-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of CBS)